Mapping South American Promises: Potos�, Brazil, and European Visions

by Andrïa Dorï

Overview

“Nomen est omen”. A name is a prophecy, a destiny, or even a promise. Why was South America once referred to as Peru, “Peruana”, or “América Peruana”? What role did the Potosí Mountain play in shaping these designations? And how did these perceptions affect the lands of Brazil? This book offers new insights into these questions, exploring both the continuities and the shifts in European representations of South America. It reveals how, in the first two centuries of its history, Brazil compensated for the scarcity of gold and silver with brazilwood, sugar, the labor and souls of its indigenous peoples, the toil of enslaved Africans, and its geography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004695108
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/25/2025
Series:	Mapping the Past , #7
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Andréa Doré, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. Her main interests are the Iberian territories in the early modern period, with an emphasis on their geographical descriptions through maps and reports. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics, as well as the book Sitiados. Os cercos às fortalezas portuguesas na Índia (Alameda 2010).

Table of Contents

Contents
Preface to the English Language Edition
Acknowledgments
List of Figures

Introduction

Part 1: Describing a Continent Called Peruana

1 Naming a Continent

2 Potosí, the Mountain of Silver

3 Image Matrices
 1 Peruana
 2 Blaeu’s Mural Map
 3 Cosmography-Maps
 4 Images by Arnoldus Montanus

Part 2: From Mirage to Mines

4 “Pedestrian Realism” in Portuguese Cartography

5 Between Vapors and Earthquakes: the Origin of Metals and the Lands of Brazil

6 The Portuguese in Peru: Ambitious and Suspect

Conclusions: the Anti-shaman
Works Cited
Index