This is a timeline of Amazon history, which dates back at least 11,000 years ago, when humans left indications of their presence in
Caverna da Pedra Pintada.[1][2]
Here is a brief timeline of historical events in the
Amazon River valley.
Pre-Columbian Era
c.500-1400: The Casarabe culture flourishes in Bolivia [3]
11th century to 19th century
1000: Island of
Marajó flourishes as an Amazonian ceramic center
1494: Europeans create the
Treaty of Tordesillas, which divides
Spanish and
Portuguese claims to new territories. South America falls almost entirely to Spain. The line runs N-S some 100 km E of
Belém, Brazil.
1500: Portuguese navigator
Pedro Álvares Cabral, en route to the Orient, discovers Brazil, landing in
Bahia.
1541–1542 – First descent of the Amazon by
Francisco de Orellana (ca. 1511–1546) from
Quito, Ecuador, via the
Rio Napo to the Atlantic Ocean. He fights Indigenous women he calls "Amazons." The name sticks to the river. Expedition chronicled by friar
Gaspar de Carvajal.
1560–1561 – Second descent of the Amazon, this time by the conquistador
Lope de Aguirre.
1595 – Sir
Walter Raleigh leads expedition to colonize the Orinoco River for the English. In 1616, he settles for
Trinidad.
1616 – Founding of
Santa Maria do Grão Pará de Belém, Brazil, to mark Portuguese presence. The French, English, and even Irish try to colonize the region.
1619 - Founding of the settlement of
Borja on the banks of the
Marañón River in Peru.
1637–1639 –
Pedro Teixeira leads the first European expedition up the Amazon from
Belém to
Quito, arriving unexpected.
1638 - First
Jesuit mission founded at Borja, Peru in
Mainas region on the banks of the Marañón River.
1750 –
Treaty of Madrid fixes boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese empires in South America. Portuguese possession of areas west of the Tordesillas line is recognized, based on occupation.
1759 – Jesuits are expelled from Brazil by the
Marquis of Pombal. Indians left without protection.
1808–1825 – Spanish rule in South America ends with revolutions led by
Simón Bolívar of Venezuela,
San Martín of Argentina, and
O'Higgins of Chile. In 1808 the Portuguese royal family arrives in Brazil escaping the Napoleon's invasion of Portugal.
1818–1820 –
Spix and
Martius on expedition in the Amazon.
1822 – Brazil proclaims its independence under Dom
Pedro I of Brazil.
1827-1832 -
Eduard Friedrich Poeppig conducts a scientific exploration through Chile, Peru, and the upper Amazon.
1834-1835 - British naval officers William Smyth and Frederick Lowe travel from Lima, Peru across the Andes and down the entire length of the Amazon, seeking a navigable route for trade from the west coast of South America to the east. They publish their account in 1836.
1846 -
William Henry Edwards, an American businessman and amateur entomologist, voyages up the Amazon and publishes his account in 1847, which was read by and inspired Bates and Wallace to go to Brazil the following year.
1866 – Founding of the
Goeldi Museum of Natural History in Belém by
Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna and others. Agassiz had given stimulus to this when he was in the Amazon.
1867 – Amazon River opened to international shipping.
1867 – Confederate expatriates settle in
Santarém, after U.S. Civil War.
1867 -
Franz Keller-Leuzinger surveys the possibility of routing a railroad along the Madeira River to link Peru to Amazon commerce.
1867 - American
James Orton travels from Quito Ecuador to the Amazon via the Napo River and later writes an account of his trip.
1870-1871 - Morgan Expedition led by
Charles F. Hartt and assisted by student
Herbert Huntington Smith conducts a geological and zoological survey of the northern Amazon valley.
1873 -
James Orton returns to Brazil and travels along the Amazon east from Belem to Lima, Peru.
1874-1878 --
Herbert Huntington Smith collected specimens based in Santarem, and later joins Charles F. Hartt to make surveys for the Brazilian Geological Survey.
1875-1876—American teenager
Ernest Morris makes the first of his six trips to the Amazon valley to collect butterflies, beetles, and orchids for American collectors. His later trips were detailed in a series of columns for the "New York World".
1889 - Julio César Arana and his brother in laws move to Iquitos, establishing business there.
1889-1913 - Arana and his company establish themselves as the main perpetrator of the Putumayo genocide, while collecting rubber from enslaved natives.
1893 - Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald discovers and crosses the Fitzcarrald isthmus: establishing a connection between the Urubamba River and Madre de Dios River in Peru.
1895 – International arbitration forces
Venezuela to cede large area still disputed with
Guyana.
1897 – Manaus' Teatro Amazonas (opera house) opens. Rubber booming.
1897 - Rubber barons Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald and Antonio de Vaca Díez drown in an accident on the Urubamba river.
1898–1899 – The British Red Cross Line began transportation service between Iquitos and
Liverpool in 1898. Booth Steamship Company also began operating in Iquitos, and provided a monthly route to Liverpool and
New York.[4]
1899–1903 – Acre proclaims itself independent of
Bolivia. In 1901, Bolivia cedes rights to Acre to New York rubber syndicate. In 1903, Acre becomes Brazilian by the
Treaty of Petrópolis, in which Bolivia is promised a railroad link to the Madeira River at Porto Velho.
20th century
1907:
Madeira-Mamoré Railroad is built by Americans under
Percival Farquar. Colonel Church's attempts in 1870–1881 are best called disasters made heroic by tragedy.
1908–1911:
Henry Ford, then the richest person in the world, invests in Amazon rubber plantations on the
Tapajós River.
1908–1911: Arana's rubber company on the
Putamayo River is denounced for atrocities against Indians. English parliamentary inquiry in 1910. (Arana dies in 1952 in Lima after serving as Peruvian senator.)
1912: After other countries steal seedlings from Brazil, rubber from Malaysia exceeds that coming out of the Amazon.
1914:
Rubber boom bursts with the emergence of cheaper sources of rubber.
1922: Salomón-Lozano Treaty awards Leticia to
Colombia, as an outlet to the Amazon River. In 1933, Peru seizes Leticia but backs down under international pressure, and in 1935 Leticia is reoccupied by Colombia.
1925: Colonel
Percy Fawcett vanishes near the headwaters of the Xingu River. His eyeglasses are later found among the
Kayapó Indians of the Xingu River valley.
1942: Brazil enters World War II. Demand is high for Amazon rubber. Brazil launches the ill-fated "
Rubber Soldiers" program.
[1]
1947: Cerro Bolívar, iron ore deposit south of
Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, is found and estimated at half a billion tons of high-grade ore. Puerto Ordaz is selected in 1953 as site for steel mill and huge hydroelectric plant.
1960:
Brasilia, as new capital of Brazil, is founded.
1962:
Belém-Brasília Highway opens as first major all-year Amazon highway, linking Amazon River port city of Belém with the rest of Brazil.
1967: Iron ore deposit at
Serra dos Carajás is discovered in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. High quality ore (66% iron) is estimated at 18 billion tons.
1967–1983: American businessman
Daniel K. Ludwig invests heavily in Jari wood pulp and lumber plantation. His losses would amount to over 500 million dollars.
1974: Manaus-Porto Velho highway opens.
1980: Gold deposit at
Serra Pelada is discovered. By 1986, an estimated 42 tons of gold are extracted from giant pit mine. Amazon gold rush is in full swing. In 1987 striking gold miners would be machine-gunned when they seize the railroad bridge at
Marabá.
1996: Renewed military presence seen in the Amazon region of Brazil, as a result of radar project and militarization of the borders against drug traffic. Secret project
SIVAM is revealed.
21st century
2005: Worst drought in 50 years hits the western Amazon Basin.
2013: Using data accumulated over 10 years, researchers estimate there are 390 billion trees in the Amazon rainforest, divided into 16,000 different species.[5]