Samuel Fritz
Samuel Fritz ( born April 9, 1654 Trautenau, Bohemia, † March 20, 1728 in Jéveros in Maynas State, Diocese of Chachapoyas, Peru today ) was a Bohemian Jesuit missionary who first charted the Amazon.
Life
Samuel Fritz was in 1673 entered the Jesuit order, completed theological studies and earned about 1680 at Charles University in Prague Master's degree. In 1684, just 30 years old, he appeared in the Mayba mission at the upper Amazon. Together with Father Samuel Fritz worked the Father Heinrich Richter Wenceslaus (1653-1696) from Prossnitz and Wenzel Breyer ( or Brauer ) from calibration. In the Jesuit chronicle of Father Carlos summer bird ( Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jesus, Bruxelles - Paris, 1896) Father Breyer appears with a letter to his monk P. Beyer, written to Laguna on June 18, 1699 of the oldest document about the work of Father Fritz in South America represents. As the future Superior General Father Samuel Fritz, he was the most outstanding figure among the Austrian missionaries of the Amazon region.
In his mission area were 38 ( 40 according to other sources ) Indian settlements, including 6 cities, created, in which settled the Indians taught to work and have been educated to a Christian life. The Maynas State included in its heyday 161 villages with 100,000 inhabitants. Of which continued up to the present day town of Yurimaguas on the lower reaches of the Huallagua River in Peru. Furthermore, the city was tough at the mouth of Jurua. Father Fritz was converted into the "green hell " of the Amazon not less than 29 Indian tribes to Christianity, including the Omagua that live on today Brazilian territory.
In addition to the religious conversion work, the missionaries but also the Indians taught agriculture, showed them how to plant rice, cassava, sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco and sweet potatoes. In addition, the mission pupils were trained in various artisan trades, kept singing and music.
The extended mission trips on the Amazon and its tributaries Father Fritz used to to draw a map of the upper and middle reaches of the stream area. In a 1688 forced by severe malaria disease stay in the Jesuit College in Belém do Pará, he could Father Aloys Conrad Arrow complement the cartographic work on the 5300 km long power thanks to the preparatory work of his coming from Konstanz friar. On this card is listed as the main stream for the first time the Marañón.
The map was first in 1707 with compared to the original hand-drawn significant variations in Quito as Geografico Mappa del Rio Marañon hecha por el Padre Samuel Fritz de la Compañia de Jesus, Missionary em este mismo Rio Amazonas - El año printed in 1691.