The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

  “continuous ovation” John Zahm to Albert Zahm, Dec. 12, 1913, CAZA 4/09; “Roosevelt’s Visit to South America,” American Review of Reviews, July 1914.

  Roosevelt had offered Colombia Thomas Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 10th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1980).

  He wrote to his Quoted in Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York, 2002).

  “Don’t you know” Jose Custodio Alves de Lima, “Reminiscences of Roosevelt in Brazil,” Brazilian American, Jan. 29, 1927.

  “The human multitude” Quoted in North American Review, March 1914, TRC.

  “As soon as” John Zahm, Through South America’s Southland (New York, 1916).

  “I love peace” Ibid.

  While in Buenos Aires Sylvia Jukes Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady (New York, 1980).

  While working on KR to Belle Willard, Sept. 15, 1912, KBRP.

  “in quite as good health” TR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, Nov. 11, 1913, TRC.

  “Dear Kermit” Belle Willard to KR, Nov. 3, 1913, KBRP.

  “I don’t remember” KR to Belle Willard, n.d., KBRP.

  “Kermit is as much” TR to Eleanor Roosevelt, Dec. 10, 1913, TRC. 68. Edith, however Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt.

  While they were still in Bahia KR to Belle Willard, n.d., KBRP.

  Roosevelt had always seemed Ethel, Roosevelt’s younger daughter, had been in New York with Belle when she had heard the news, cried out by a paperboy hawking the “extras,” or special editions, that indicated urgent dispatches. “We had been to the theater,” Belle wrote Kermit soon afterward, “and after we got back heard an ‘Extra’ called. Ethel went to the window but couldn’t make out what it was. She said, ‘Extras frighten me so but I will not be foolish about it this time. Let’s go to bed.’ The next morning I woke only to find her dressed. She had just gotten a note … telling her not to worry as they did not think her father was seriously hurt. I shall never forget Ethel’s face as she dashed out.” (Belle Willard to KR, Oct. 1912, KBRP.)

  “It was a bad” KR to Belle Willard, Nov. 26, 1912, KBRP. 69.

  “I did not like” TR to Eleanor Roosevelt, Dec. 10, 1913, TRC.

  “It just doesn’t seem” KR to Belle Willard, n.d., KBRP.

  “We would have” KR to Belle Willard, Nov. 26, 1913, KBRP.

  CHAPTER 6: Beyond the Frontier

  On the morning Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915 (Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

  Born in the remote Donald F. O’Reilly, “Rondon: Biography of a Brazilian Republican Army Commander,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1969.

  The War of the Triple Alliance Ibid.

  Orphaned at the age Lucien Bodard, Green Hell (New York, 1971).

  He woke up O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

  Rondon lost an entire year Bodard, Green Hell.

  “I want to bring” Quoted in ibid.

  Rondon was a member João Cruz Costa, A History of Ideas in Brazil (Berkeley, Calif., 1964).

  “the respectful heirs” O’Reilly, “Rondon”.

  His math teacher Ibid.; Costa, History of Ideas.

  Although he was E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil (New York, 1993).

  Less than six months O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

  Rondon was supposed to have Ibid.

  In 1903 Ibid.

  Assignment to Rondon’s unit Todd A. Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation (Durham, N.C., 2004).

  He had started out O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

  “monstrously fecund” Ibid.

  In some places Rondon, Commissão de Linhas Telegraphicas Estrategicas de Matto Grosso ao Amazonas, vol. 1.

  By late August O’Reilly, “Rondon”; Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York, 1914).

  By the time Rondon, Relatório, vol. 1; TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  237 days O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

  Rondon was not Rondon, Lectures.

  Roosevelt had learned Bodard, Green Hell.

  “as if it were” Kermit Roosevelt, The Long Trail (New York, 1921).

  It would be a measure Joseph R. Ornig, My Last Chance to Be a Boy (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1994).

  “bathed in the” Cherrie, Dark Trails.

  Although Corumbá J. C. Oakenfull, Brazil in 1913 (Frome, England, 1914).

  “For ambulance service” Cherrie, Dark Trails.

  “It was a brilliantly” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  Rondon had gone Cherrie, Dark Trails.

  “What a Xmas Eve!” George Cherrie, Diary, Dec. 24, 1913, AMNH.

  Kermit confessed KR to Belle Willard, Dec. 24, 1913, KBRP.

  “The priest is” Ibid.

  “On several occasions” Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913).

  “We did not hear” “Personal Glimpses,” Literary Digest, May 16, 1914, TRC.

  CHAPTER 7: Disarray and Tragedy

  Tapirapoan consisted Leo E. Miller, In the Wilds of South America (New York, 1918).

  “almost at will” Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York, 1914).

  Rondon had arranged Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915 (Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

  The problem was Todd A. Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation (Durham, N.C., 2004).

  Amilcar, despite his Amilcar Botelho de Magalhães, Impressão da Commissão Rondon.

  “apparently fresh from” Miller, In the Wilds.

  “constantly engaged” John Zahm, Through South America’s Southland (New York, 1916).

  “The oxen aren’t” KR to Belle Willard, Jan. 20, 1914, KBRP.

  “Intervention must” Quoted in Frederick S. Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian Foreign Policy (Kent, Ohio, 1986).

  “constant preoccupation” Rondon, Lectures.

  Not only were the Ibid. In a letter to John Scott Keltie, the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, Roosevelt admitted that he thought the lavish saddle and bridle among these gifts were “exquisitely unfit for such a trip,” but he had no choice but to accept them graciously. “I would have given deep offense to very good and kind people if I had not used them,” he wrote. (TR to Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in Letters, vol. 8.)

  On January 19 TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  But Rondon also wanted Rondon, Lectures.

  “Away from the broad” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  By the next morning Zahm, Through South America’s Southland; TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “The whole region” Theodore Roosevelt, Address to National Geographic Society, May 26, 1914, NGS.

  “Until Tapirapoan” Cajazeira, Relatório, Museu do Índio, Rio de Janeiro.

  Meals usually consisted TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness; KR to Edith Roosevelt, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

  “all nearly famished” George Cherrie, Diary, Jan. 21, 1914, AMNH.

  “It was rarely” Zahm, Through South America’s Southland.

  There was no way Miller, In the Wilds.

  For the men in Zahm, Through South America’s Southland.

  Strewn across Ibid.

  “What became of” Ibid.

  Three Brazilians Rondon, Lectures.

  Julio de Lima In his official military report on the expedition, Amilcar would sum Julio up in four simple words: “Beautiful muscles, dreadful feelings!” (Magalhães, Impressão da Commissão Rondon.)

  “squatted in the Yedo” Rondon, Lectures.

  “English, Portuguese” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “told of the stone gods” Ibid.

  “It was while” Ibid.

  The supply ship Anthony Fiala, “Two Years in the Arctic,” McClure’s Magazine, Feb. 1906.

  The trucks, which belonged Miller, In the Wilds.

  According to Rondon Esther de Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vid
a (Rio de Janeiro, 1958).

  “Truth to tell” Zahm, Through South America’s Southland.

  “Whites, Indians” Ibid.

  “ignorant and careless negro” John Zahm to TR, March 14, 1914, TPR.

  “measure of how much” Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vida.

  “The colonel possesses” Todd A. Diacon, “Are the Good Guys Always Bad?” Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Alabama, 1998.

  “Our great” John Zahm, Evolution and Dogma (Chicago, 1896).

  “Although the Indian Service” Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vida.

  Three had drowned TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “A good doctor” Ibid.

  More than a decade earlier Quoted in Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York, 2002).

  “never gotten over” Kermit Roosevelt, The Long Trail (New York, 1921).

  “must be on hand” Quoted in Dalton, TR: A Strenuous Life.

  “You see he” KR to Belle Willard, n.d., KBRP.

  “utterly miserable” TR to Quentin Roosevelt, Jan. 16, 1914, in Letters, vol. 7.

  The young woman Unnamed newspaper, Jan. 3, 1914, TRC.

  “Margaret drank only” Quoted in Sylvia Jukes Morris, Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady (New York, 1980).

  “Poor Henry Hunt” Edith Roosevelt, Diary, Jan. 5, 1914, TRP.

  CHAPTER 8: Hard Choices

  Heavy sheets of rain Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York, 1914).

  Little more than a clearing John Zahm, Through South America’s Southland (New York, 1916).

  Whenever the downpour TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “Why they do not” Ibid.

  Even before reaching Leo E. Miller, In the Wilds of South America (New York, 1918).

  In Tapirapoan alone Joseph R. Ornig, My Last Chance to Be a Boy (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1994).

  Only one of the men TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness. Today, the river’s name is spelled “Jiparaná.”

  “It seemed to me” Miller, In the Wilds.

  “When I get back” TR to Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jan. 5, 1914, AMNH. 103. “Father Zahm has now” KR to Edith Roosevelt, Jan. 3, 1914, KBRP.

  “All for each” Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913).

  “no real harm” KR to Edith Roosevelt, n.d., KBRP.

  “Of our whole expedition” TR to Edith Roosevelt, Dec. 1913, TRP.

  Borrowing from Psalm 44 John Zahm to TR, June 3, 1912, TRP.

  “Win or lose” TR to John Zahm, June 6, 1912, TRP.

  Manáos Modern-day Manaus.

  “through the heart” John Zahm to Albert Zahm, Jan. 5, 1914, CAZA 4/09.

  Given the discomforts Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915 (Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

  Father Zahm reassured him Ibid.

  “Indians are meant to carry” Esther de Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vida (Rio de Janeiro, 1958).

  “The colonel’s Positivism” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  One night during Rondon, Lectures.

  Finally, after what Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vida.

  “Father Zahm is being” KR to Belle Willard, Jan. 31, 1914, KBRP.

  The next day Roosevelt memo, Feb. 1, 1914, TRP. Euzebio Paul was a Brazilian member of the expedition. L. Oliveira was a geologist.

  First a team of Todd A. Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation (Durham, N.C., 2004).

  “as big-hearted” Miller, In the Wilds.

  In the tender light TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  Before they left camp Miller, In the Wilds.

  Kermit had developed Kermit Roosevelt, Diary, Feb. 10, 1914, KBRP.

  Early in the overland journey George Cherrie, Diary, Jan. 18, 1914, AMNH.

  “death to being dislodged” H. M. Tomlinson, The Sea and the Jungle (Evanston, Ill., 1999).

  “mournfully, dismally” KR to Edith Roosevelt, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

  Their mules slipped Cherrie, Diary, Feb. 6, 1914, AMNH.

  “Everything became mouldy” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “It is hard” TR to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., May 17, 1909, in Letters, vol. 7.

  After they made camp Cherrie, Diary, Feb. 4, 1914, AMNH.

  Miller dismissed Fiala Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

  “I have not written” Cherrie, Diary, Nov. 25, 1914, AMNH.

  Roosevelt made an effort Anthony Fiala, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Meeting, March 1, 1919, TRC.

  “Fiala left us” Cherrie, Diary, Feb. 4, 1914, AMNH.

  CHAPTER 9: Warnings from the Dead

  “The oxen have” Kermit Roosevelt, Diary, Feb. 6, 1914, KBRP.

  Since Tapirapoan KR, Diary, Feb. 6, 1914, KBRP; Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York, 1914).

  “enormously heavy” TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in Letters, vol. 8.

  Two oxcarts George Cherrie, Diary, Feb. 6, 1914, AMNH.

  The naturalists were even Leo E. Miller, In the Wilds of South America (New York, 1918).

  “the sheer necessities” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  He counted as necessities KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 10, 1914, KBRP.

  “Through all the” KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

  The poems were TR to Thomas Herbert Warren, June 7, 1916, in Letters, vol. 8.

  Before they began TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, in Letters, vol. 8.

  Pausing on a hilltop TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, p.

  114. Farther north Ibid.

  When they reached Ibid.

  From a telegram Anthony Fiala, Appendix B, in ibid.

  Not long after Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915 (Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

  “I just saved myself” Quoted in “Personal Glimpses,” Literary Digest, May 16, 1914, TRC.

  It was true that Rondon, Lectures.

  Fiala blamed Webb Waldron, “Making Exploring Safe for Explorers,” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 30, 1932.

  “how buoyantly” Ibid.

  “in a still wilder region” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  Rondon had made Donald F. O’Reilly, “Rondon: Biography of a Brazilian Army Commander,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1969.

  Ordering his men Ibid.; Kalvero Oberg, “Indian Tribes of Northern Mato Grosso, Brazil,” Institute of Social Anthropology, Pub. 15, 1953.

  For weeks, the Nhambiquara Miller, In the Wilds.

  “Someone may recall” Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (New York, 1992).

  “A Protestant mission” Ibid. “Nambikwara”: Over the decades since Rondon first made contact with the Nhambiquara, the tribe’s name has been spelled several different ways. This book will use Rondon’s spelling throughout, except when quoting a source that uses an alternate.

  In Utiarity TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  He even hired Ibid.

  They were still largely Julian H. Steward, ed., Handbook of South American Indians, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C, 1948).

  Some of the Pareci TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  Shortly before Ibid.

  “I feel for them” O’Reilly, “Rondon.”

  Outraged by Todd A. Diacon, “Are the Good Guys Always Bad?” Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association, Alabama, 1998.

  In 1910 The SPI still exists today, but under a different name. In the late 1960s, after several of its directors were charged with exploiting the very Indians whom they had been hired to protect, the agency was reorganized and renamed. It is now known as the Fundaçao Nacional do Índio, or FUNAI.

  In fact, so infamous TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “Sir! I have” Esther de Viveiros, Rondon: Conta Sua Vida (Rio de Janeiro, 1958).

  “Let us weep” Quoted in Lucien
Bodard, Green Hell (New York, 1971).

  “I don’t go so far” Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent (New York, 2003).

  “There were still” Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1913).

  “friends proclaim their presence” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “When preparing for” Oberg, “Indian Tribes”.

  Conversely, to show TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  Once in the camp Ibid.

  “a very pleasant set” KR to Belle Willard, Feb. 8, 1914, KBRP.

  “They had the unpleasant habit” Miller, In the Wilds.

  “They laughed at” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “light-hearted robbers” Ibid.

  Not far from the Miller, In the Wilds.

  At the very outset TR to John Scott Keltie, Feb. 25, 1915, Letters, vol. 8.

  CHAPTER 10: The Unknown

  Rondon had instructed Pyrineus Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Lectures Delivered on the 5th, 7th, and 9th of October, 1915 (Rio de Janeiro, 1916).

  “river whose importance” Ibid.

  The Madeira, which starts Michael Goulding, Ronaldo Barthem, and Efrem Ferreira, The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon (Washington, D.C., 2003).

  On the spot Rondon, Lectures.

  Unknown to Roosevelt Todd A. Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation (Durham, N.C., 2004).

  “recently built” Rondon, Lectures.

  “One was small” Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness (New York, 1914).

  At up to twenty-five hundred Anthony Fiala, Appendix B, ibid.

  He had been fighting Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation.

  137 ”Most of his equipment” Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

  “We discovered here” Ibid.

  “For meat” Fiala, Appendix B, in TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  They finally decided George Cherrie, Diary, Feb. 26, 1914, AMNH.

  “If our canoe voyage” TR, Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

  “We had looked forward” Leo E. Miller, In the Wilds of South America (New York, 1918).

  In a gesture Leo Miller to Frank Chapman, Feb. 25, 1914, AMNH.

  “Roosevelt asked me” George Cherrie to Stella Cherrie, Feb. 26, 1914, AMNH.