Austrian Brazil Expedition
The Austrian expedition to Brazil was a 1817 to 1835 conducted research trip, which was initially funded by Prince Metternich. The roots of the expedition are in an " Overseas Euphoria " in Europe and resulting frequency of travel and research activities in the colonies. Direct trigger for the trip was the wedding of the Portuguese Thronerbens Dom Pedro with the daughter of the Austrian Emperor Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria. The majority of the researchers involved left Brazil in 1821, Johann Natterer continued his research continued until 1835. The collection Natterers presented at the opening of the Museum of Ethnology in 1928 an important foundation dar.
Historic environment
After the defeat of Napoleon's supremacy in Europe, Brazil was in 1815 raised to the kingdom and to Portugal in personal union. Portugal had been incorporated by the ratification of the Final Act of the Vienna Congress in the alliance system of Prince Metternich and sought for a relationship with the House of Habsburg, to gain support against the constitutional movement in their own country and the English dominance of foreign policy. Metternich, in turn, sought to gain more influence in Latin America and in the British sphere of influence.
On 13 May 1817, the marriage of the Portuguese heir to the throne Dom Pedro was celebrated with the daughter of the Austrian Emperor Francis I, Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria in the Augustinian Church in Vienna. Dom Pedro himself was not present, but was represented by proxy, namely Archduke Charles. This marriage was finally also the direct reason for the equipment of the expedition to Brazil.
However, the roots of the Austrian expedition to Brazil must also be seen in the light of that time. At the beginning of the 19th century had the then Overseas euphoria also referred to the scientists and brought about an increasing travel and research activities in the colonies. Figures such as the scholar Alexander von Humboldt, who traveled South and North America, or the geologist Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, who explored the mineral mineral resources in Brazil, became important models for other researchers. The princes who financed these companies, hoping to turn a prestige that should bring them the exotic and spectacular journeys. In addition, the financiers often pursued in addition to the procurement of interesting exhibits of course also an economic gain or the realization of colonial goals.
The expedition itself took place in a very turbulent period in Brazil's history. Through the blazing republican movement in Portugal, which had in 1820 initiated a revolt in Lisbon to the Portuguese King João VI saw. forced to return to Portugal, he had left because of the Napoleonic domination. He left his son Pedro as regent back, the emancipated itself in the wake of Portugal, as the Portuguese Cortes Brazil wanted to downgrade back to a colony. On September 7, 1822 Pedro declared the independence of Brazil, on December 1, he was as Pedro I. crowned Emperor. His reign, however, was not successful. An arbitrarily adopted constitution, a separatist uprising in 1824 and lost to Uruguay dispute that he had to recognize 1828 as an independently made him unpopular. Finally Given a revolt, he abdicated in favor of his infant son Pedro II on April 7, 1831. But the 1830s were a time of unrest, because the used for the minor Pedro regency of numerous smaller uprisings Lord was not.
The organization of the trip
The top leadership of the expedition to Brazil reserved its in the scientific issues very interested Fürst von Metternich himself. With the leadership of the expedition in scientific terms, he entrusted turn, the Director of the Imperial Court Naturalienkabinett Karl Franz Anton von writer. He chose from the zoologist Johann Natterer, the botanist Heinrich Wilhelm Schott and the taxidermist and hunting assistants Ferdinand Dominik Sochor out of his house for the expedition. Added to this were the Prague mineralogist and botanist Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl and the painter Thomas Ender and Johann Buchberger. With the leadership of the expedition originally Natterer should be mandated, but the emperor he pulled the botanist and professor of natural history in Prague, Johann Christian Mikan before. Natterer perceived this as an affront, and the authoritarian attitude Mikan made in the wake of strong tensions within the expedition crew. However, the orientation of the expedition to Brazil radiated beyond the borders of Austria. The Bavarian King Maximilian I, had in 1815 a planned expedition to South America, whose start was postponed. After he had learned at the Congress of Vienna in 1816 by the marriage and expedition plans of Austria, he took the opportunity, and instructed the curator Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius botanist participate in the expedition. In addition, the Grand Duke of Tuscany sent the botanist Giuseppe Raddi with the expedition team to Brazil. Together with the teacher Leopoldine Rochus Schüch and two painters and an assistant, who accompanied the expedition in part, the staff of the expedition reached a strength of 14 people.
The scientific director of the expedition of the writer worked out extensive instructions for the researchers. As a partner in all matters to them should the Austrian ambassador in Rio de Janeiro serve from where all travel should take its starting point. In addition, all travel plans had to be communicated to the ambassador, the length and return date should be as accurate as possible be defined. The travel itself and the collected artifacts had to be documented in diaries. The main task of the researchers in their travels was in search of consumer products for Europe, and in the study of animals and plants that may be native to Europe. Depending on a directory for travel routes and desired objects laid the researchers form the primary study areas
The journey
On April 9, 1817 put the main group of researchers from the frigates Austria and Augusta from Trieste. As the two ships came two days later in a severe storm, they had to be repaired in different ports. The Austria with Mikan, Ender and the Bavarian researchers already met on 14 June in Rio de Janeiro. The Augusta, on which Natterer, Schott and Sochor were, waiting for the Portuguese ships João VI. and São Sebastião, who had filed only on August 5th and running next to Pohl, Buchberger and also the Crown Princess Leopoldine was Raddi. These ships arrived only on November 4, resulting in the beginning of the actual expedition significantly delayed.
The expedition to 1821
After the reunification of the researchers, it was decided to split up into three groups and to examine the environment in Rio de Janeiro in shorter trips to take advantage of the departure of the Austrian frigates for the first removal of the collections. The Bavarian researchers went into the episode at all their own research after, and waived as a result of a cooperation with the Austrian colleagues, because they could not agree on a single itinerary. The other two teams were led by Natterer and Mikan. The researchers returned from their first trips from March to May 1818 back to Rio de Janeiro back. On June 1, 1818 already placed the frigates with the first collections to Europe from which, however, also been joined by the first researcher. The landscape painter Ender got the climate is not, and the plants painter Buchberger had so seriously injured in an accident, the consequences of which he died in 1821 that he also had to go home. But the leader of the expedition, Professor Mikan, Brazil left on the first ship. He had been, zurückbeordnet to Vienna because of the bad work environment that had arisen due to his authoritarian attitude and was accompanied by Professor Raddi. The researchers Natterer, Schott and Pohl were subsequently separate ways. Schott cared especially the collection of living plants, Pohl to the needs of mineralogy, with its travel business travel in the interior of Brazil has become an important source of economic and social history of Brazil. Pohl and Schott has already been called back soon because of the political unrest. They left Brazil in 1821.
The Natterers Travel
1821 had decided the dissolution of the expedition because of the political unrest of the Messenger of strikers. However, Natterer and Sochor refused to return to Europe and continued the expedition with its own resources and continue at your own risk. However, they were also more accountable to no one. In his ten trips Natterer traveled especially the areas around São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as well as the province of Minas Gerais. His expeditions led him also to the Amazon and to the Bolivian border. The trips were frequently marked by serious diseases and Natterers Sochors. Sochor even died as a result of a serious illness on December 13 in 1826. During his travels until 1825, Natterer devoted primarily to its original task, ie the collection of natural history material, especially of animals. Alone, more than a thousand mammals, more than 12,000 birds and insects collected almost 33,000 Natterer in Brazil. In addition, fish, amphibians, crustaceans, mollusks, helminths, eggs, seeds, minerals, etc. were still much more important, however, were the over 2000 collected ethnographic objects such as equipment, weapons or jewelry of the indigenous population, whose procurement he is mainly in the second half of his stay devoted Brazil. Many of the objects he was also procure from friends that toured the various areas. After 18 years of research Natterer left on September 15, 1835 by Belém Brazil.
The scientific exploitation of Brazil Expedition
The accommodation of shipments from Brazil presented by writer before serious problems. In January 1821, the accommodation were exhausted in the natural history cabinet, so the writer has already had to make parts of his private apartment for the storage service. The desire for the private imperial building in the alley as a place of accommodation for the Hungarian collections was rejected by the emperor. Finally they decided on the Harrachsche city building at John Street, whose director Emanuel Pohl was. In the building were seven rooms for Zoology, Botany for three, two for the mineralogy and a large space for ethnographic objects. Has enriched the collection by the drawings and watercolors by Thomas Enders. The so- furnished brasilianum became a main attraction in Vienna, which certainly also ensured that brought by Pohl pair from the trunk of Botocudos stir. The woman died but soon, the man was brought back in 1824 to Brazil. After the expiry of the lease the Brazil collection in 1836 was closed and transferred to the stocks in the natural history collection and housed together with other expedition of 1838-40 collections in the Hungarian alley. The existence more permanent objects for years in transport crates, with 1848 parts of stocks, especially zootomische objects of natural history collection were destroyed in the revolutionary year. However, the ethnographic collection Natterers suffered no damage. They formed an important basis of which opened in 1928, the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna's Hofburg.