Humboldt Visited
Venezuela and Changed the History of Science Forever
By
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July 16, 2019
Filled with a thirst
for exploration and knowledge that would never be quenched during his long and
extraordinary career, Berlin-born scientist Alexander von Humboldt always
wanted to travel to the Tropic. He fulfilled his dream as an adult, in a
Spanish colony that was about to set out on a violent process of change: the
General Captaincy of Venezuela.
The trip Humboldt
made in 1799 would change his life and the history of science, leaving a
lasting mark in the country.
Humboldt and his
expedition partner, the French botanist Aimé Bonpland, arrived in Cumaná,
Eastern Venezuela, on July 16th, 1799, and they remained here until November
24th, 1800, when they sailed to Cuba. They stayed in the island for about three
months and traveled to Cartagena, where they arrived in March 1801; then they
went to Bogota and explored the Andes down to Quito, following to Cajamarca
(Peru), eventually reaching Acapulco. In August, 1804, they returned to Europe
and, in Paris, they started writing.
Five years of
traveling through America were enough to collect abundant scientific material
to write an essential book: “Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions of America”
Five years of
traveling through America were enough to collect abundant scientific material
to write an essential book: “Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions of America,” published between 1816 and 1831, in thirteen volumes.
Humboldt made the
first known annotation about the effects of human action on the climate, by
documenting the consequences of colonial agricultural practices in Lake
Valencia. He started a theory of natural equivalents that would become the
first global environmental philosophy, seeing the planet as a whole.
But his book is also
a treasure for researchers on America, and Venezuela in particular. Humboldt’s
main contributions reside in his records of flora, fauna, minerals, geography,
soils, atmospheric phenomena and social observations.
In Venezuela, he went from Cumana, to Araya, Caripe,
Cueva del Guácharo, Higuerote, La Guaira, Caracas (where he was received with
honors by Captain General Manuel de Guevara y Vasconcelos), the Avila, the Tuy
River valleys and the Aragua valleys, Antimano, La Victoria, Maracay, Guacara,
Valencia, Las Trincheras, Puerto Cabello, Calabozo and San Fernando de Atabapo
towards the Orinoco, up to San Carlos de Río Negro. Then, El Pao, Barcelona and back to Cumana, where he
and Bonpland left for Cuba. They stayed in Venezuela for one year, four months
and eight days.
Humboldt didn’t
return to America, but his figure will always be great in Venezuela, among
other things because of what he said about Caracas: “I think there’s a marked
tendency to the profound study of sciences in Mexico and Santa Fe de Bogota;
greater study of literature and as much as an ardent and active imagination can
indulge in Quito and Lima; more understanding about the political relations of
nations, broader views on the status of the colonies and cities, in Havana and
Caracas.”
It’s not strange,
then, that the spark of liberty was first lit in Venezuela. “Despite the
increased black population,” Humboldt wrote, “Havana and Caracas are seemingly
closer to Cadiz and the United States than any other part of the New World.”
We’ve read this before: the European air of Caracas, its strange metropolitan
sense. He also observed that the city’s inhabitants were inclined to music: “I
noticed in several families in Caracas a taste for instruction, knowledge of
the French and Italian literary masterworks, a considerable predilection for
music, which is successfully cultivated and serves, as cultivating arts always
does, to bring the various social classes together.”
Humboldt wrote, “Havana
and Caracas are seemingly closer to Cadiz and the United States than any other
part of the New World.”
Although Humboldt and Bonpland were in Caracas in 1800,
his book mentions the earthquake of 1812, so he was writing from memory several
years later and does this with such accuracy that it’s obvious that he had
access to direct sources. According to his estimates, the city had between
40,000 and 50,000 inhabitants by then. It’s also worth noting that Humboldt and his partner
were naturalists, and most of their observations belong to that specialty, not
urbanism, although they did have sociological understanding.
The two months they
spent in Caracas weren’t in vain. Humboldt made friends with Simón Bolívar and
he’d have great influence on him with his unprecedented perspective on America.
