Between science and adventure

considerations around the Roosevelt - Rondon Expedition

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze the outcomes of the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition to the Amazon basin in 1913-1914. The research on Theodore Roosevelt’s notes and other sources about the Expedition showed that Roosevelt’s views about the region oscillated between ideas of preservation and comments about the hunting pleasures. Moreover, this paper points out how Roosevelt was at ease with the idea of introducing animal and plant originated in the wetlands of Mato Grosso and the Amazon to the US, for future economic exploitation. The paper also underlines Roosevelt’s beliefs in a so-called natural superiority of the “Northern races”, and their potential to economically advance the subdeveloped areas of the Brazilian hinterland through the colonization of “superior races”. Finally, the article concludes by showing that, in the Roosevelt-Rondon Expedition, adventure overcame Science