An annotated translation of Manuel Ijurra’s nineteenth century travel report “Provincia del Gran Pará en el Imperio del Brasil”

Abstract

Don Manuel Fuentes Ijurra was an indigenous-descent Peruvian traveler and writer of great importance for understanding the history of the border regions between Peru and Brazil. Wealthy, literate and visionary, he published in 1849 the travel report Viaje a las montañas de Maynas, Chachapoyas y Pará: Vía de Amazonas [Travel to the Mountains of Maynas, Chachapoyas and Pará, through the Amazon River]. The present research, based on the chapter “Provincia del gran Pará en el Imperio del Brasil” [The Grão-Pará Province in the Brazilian Empire], seeks to contextualize both the writer and his work in the intellectual and historical environment of his time, mainly drawing on Ricardo Palma (2022), who included a short story about Ijurra in his Tradiciones Peruanas [Peruvian Traditions], and Euclides da Cunha (2019), who mentioned Ijurra ?s travel report in À margem da história [At the Margins of History]. As for our translation of the aforementioned chapter into Portuguese, as well as for our notes and comments, we draw on Chirif (2016), Santos, Medeiros & Costa (2022), and others, to discuss the translation choices of toponyms and fauna, as well as indigenous and peninsular words and cultural expressions concerning the 19th century.