Coudreau and the Indigenous People of French Guiana: Expeditions of The Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article discusses the chapter “The indigenous of the Amazon” (Les Indiens de l’Amazonie) contained in the work The French in the Amazon (Les français en Amazonie) by Henri A. Coudreau, published in 1887. The version used was consulted from the digital collection of the Université de Guyane (UG) and consists of images and records made for didactic and school purposes of the late nineteenth century. We deal with the process of translating old french into brazilian portuguese, considering the perspective presented by the geographer on indigenous peoples in the Amazon, especially in French Guiana, as well as evidence the deterministic thinking of the time when the Eurocentric position is recorded, during the expeditions through the region, since Coudreau’s notes have become texts adapted to the textbooks of French Guiana, conception of national education. To understand the translated chapter and the information about the mentioned ethnicities, we take as reference the studies of Jean Moomou (2011) and Isabelle Léglise (2017).