Cruise Through History: Ports of South America: Itinerary 9

By Sherry Hutt

This itinerary begins in Brazil and runs clockwise around the continent to Colombia.  A recurrent theme running through the ports is their shared common beginning as lands of discovery and the conquest, or attempted conquest, of native peoples, once Christopher Columbus made his initial landings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digby Creations
• Release date: Dec 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942153061

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Sherry Hutt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

ISBN print 978-1-942153-07-8 | ePub 978-1-942153-06-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ITINERARY IX: PORTS OF SOUTH AMERICA

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION – DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF A COMMON BEGINNING

MAP

TIMELINE

BRAZIL

Rio de Janeiro – Brazil’s Father of Flight

Salvador Bahia – The Colorful History of Brazil

Manaus – A City Built by White Gold

Amazon – Theodore Roosevelt’s Amazing Adventure on the Río Téodoro

FRENCH GUIANA

The Infamous Residents of Devil’s Island

Remembering the Affair: A Cautionary Tale

URUGUAY

A Little History of the Little Country Wanted by All

ARGENTINA

Buenos Aires – Neighborhoods

Buenos Aires – Women of the Bridge

Buenos Aires – Defining Culture in Gaucho, Tango, and Literature

Puerto Madryn – History, Politics, and Economics in Argentina

Ushuaia – FitzRoy and His Beagle Forecast Tierra del Fuego

FALKLAND ISLANDS

A Little Bit of Britain in South America

CHILE

Patagonia: Land of Gauchos, Kings, and a City of Gold at the End of the World

Punta Arenas – First Families of the Golden Age

Punta Arenas – From Penal Colony to Penguins and National Park

Juan Fernandez Islands – The Real Robinson Crusoe

Valparaiso – Learning to Fly without Wings, Politics and Economics in Chile

Valparaiso/Santiago – Fugue of Cultures in History

Valparaiso – Paradise of Wine and Food in Chile

PERU

Lima – World of the Inca

Lima – A Modern City of Art and Colonial Elegance

Arica – Mystery of Ancient Marvels

ECUADOR

Galápagos – Beyond the Beagle

Manta/Guayaquil – The Cultures of Ecuador

Manta – Hats Off to Ecuador

COLOMBIA

Cartagena – The City of Gold and Flowers

Santa Marta – Following in the Footsteps of Bolivar

AT SEA

Magellan in the Age of Discovery

The Voyages of Columbus

INDEX

PREFACE

Cruise through History is a collection of short stories grouped by the sequence of many popular cruise itineraries, rather than by country or period of history. As the stories move from port to port, they randomly move through time. The stories are all true. They introduce the traveler to the history and culture of a port through the story of a long-ago, or not so long-ago, resident, whose exploits left a castle, a palace, or a lovely site that can be explored on a cruise ship shore excursion.

The host character for each port stop is chosen for their inspiring actions and the visible culture left behind. Some names will be familiar, presented in these volumes with depth to their personality. Other characters may become like new friends, too long unrecognized. Either way, the stories offer a new twist to the school-age history of place, drawn together to put travels in a fascinating context for the short-term visitor.

No apology is made for the choice of subjects. They have been chosen for your enjoyment in an arbitrary manner on the whim of the author, accumulated from past travels. The desire is that the reader will share the fun. No attempt is made to be politically correct or to give a chamber of commerce gloss to the stories evident in the remnants of the past. Knowledge of history can teach us a great deal about ourselves and the human condition, but only if it is honest and fairly told. No doubt it is the quest for real that draws adults to travel as often and for as long as they are able.

The desire to seek knowledge about distant places and times fuels international tourism. Many travelers, who found history in school to be dull, seek to fill in the gaps in their knowledge with personal experience later in life. This is the opportunity for the events of one’s life to give rich meaning to the human condition and to enjoy stories of fact for which fiction is no rival.

Praise is due to the many historians and other scholars who have delved deeply into source data to ponder the minute details of history for pedagogical pursuits. Such information has been mined here, with attribution, for lively details to heighten the traveler’s enjoyment of the past. History is a public good. The more it is found to be enjoyable, the more it will be valued.

Apology is due to those who hoped to foster disciplined scholarship in the author. This is reading for an out-of-the classroom experience. Footnotes are inserted to give due credit to the scholars who have provided valuable information and to remind the reader that these stories are true. The presence of source notes is not to feign an academic appearance. Editorial sidebars and fun bits are in the footnotes.

When there are gaps in the facts, or mysteries remain, they are not supplemented by fiction. Rather, an effort is made to look at the known as a guide to the unknown. The reader can draw their own conclusions, daydream through the gaps, and enjoy the reason that so much popular fiction and movies are drawn from historical facts.

These stories are offered to give historical context to the sites often visited as cruise destinations. In these stories, meet the characters who walked the same streets centuries in the past. Go beyond the castle ruins to envision the people who built them and lived there.

The itineraries in this series have stories at each port that seek to inspire cruise travelers to rise out of their deck chairs and investigate a destination with honesty and irreverence, or the potential traveler to rise from the sofa and embark on a Cruise through History©. There is no stigma of a school assignment. Earn an E for enjoyment.

Itineraries in the Cruise through History© series available and forthcoming-

I. London to Rome – Along the Coasts of France, Iberia, and Northern Italy – September 2014.

II. Rome to Venice – Around the Boot, Up the Adriatic, with Islands of the Mediterranean (Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica) – November 2014

III. Athens to Cairo – Greek Islands, Turkey, and the Eastern Mediterranean

IV. Ports of the Black Sea

V. Agadir to Alexandria – Southern Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Atlantic Islands

VI. Miami to Montreal – East Coast of North America

VII. San Diego to Sitka – West Coast of North America

VIII. Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands – February 2015

IX. Ports of South America – October 2017

X. Around the British Iles – England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland

XI. Ports of the Baltic Sea

XII. Ports of the North Sea – Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, and Greenland

XIII. Cape Town to Beijing – Africa, India, and the Far East

XIV. Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands

Find all the story books through cruisethroughhistory.com.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing travel stories began as therapy to escape from the world of Washington, D.C. Thanks are due to those at Utah State University, Logan, and to the several cruise lines that have given me the opportunity to share stories with their guests and students. Much appreciated are those who helped to produce the series, including:

Digby and Rose, publisher, art director, and publicist; Lesa Koscielski, editor; and Lisa Lynn Aispuro, research assistant.

These stories would not be possible without the treasure trove of material in libraries and used bookshops. I am indebted to the Battery Park Book Exchange, Asheville, NC; the Lanier Library, Tryon, NC; and the Library of Congress. In this increasingly paperless world, bookstores and libraries provide solace and an opportunity to revive our humanity.

Much appreciation is also due to those who apply their skill to preservation and protection of heritage resources in the United States and around the world.

The greatest thanks go to my husband, Guy Rouse, who has lugged my camera equipment all over the world for almost 30 years.

This volume is dedicated to the fabulous cruise directors, those multi-talented ships’ officers who never sleep, who have made presenting my stories to their guests such fun.

INTRODUCTION

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF A COMMON BEGINNING

Sharing the stories which appear in this volume with cruise travelers has been a delight. For many cruise guests new to travel in South America, the surprise is the European sophistication of the major cities and the varied arts and cultural depth throughout the port stops. All too often, the view North Americans form of South America is that portrayed by the news media, largely limited to issues of immigration coming from south of the U.S. border. That view is shattered by the experience of travel.

In talking with cruise guests who live in South America and travel the continent with families, particularly during the holidays, they enjoy travel in the U.S. for recreation, education, and business, and they welcome visitors to their countries. In traveling off-ship, including deep in the Magdalena River basin of Colombia and the back roads into Ecuador, I encountered locals who shared their stories. Their view of North America is also shaped by the media. They view it as a violent place, with little cultural depth.

In choosing among the many stories to tell, this volume takes two tracks. In part, it seeks to augment travelers’ knowledge of the history of the countries they will visit. Too often, this is the realm of presidents and generals. Much of the volume is dedicated to introducing inspiring characters, who in most instances were not political leaders, although they may have had a crucial role in nation-building. So often in South America, the arts and advances in science are vectors for a political statement.

This itinerary begins in Brazil and runs clockwise around the continent to Colombia. A recurrent theme running through the ports is their shared common beginning as lands of discovery and the conquest, or attempted conquest, of native peoples, once Christopher Columbus made his initial landings. Pope Alexander VI quickly stepped in to divide the New World between Spain and Portugal. As the territories of Spain and Portugal formed into modern nations, each had their own interpretation of identity. Although the nations moved through similar phases of democratic and authoritarian regimes, economic growth and recession, industrial development, social programs, and debt management, they have emerged as unique entities. Any thoughts of generalizing South American nations will dissolve through travel. These stories may help set the stage for understanding.

Brazil is unique in South America as the only former Portuguese colony. It is also the largest nation, with much of its territory still wilderness. This is the home of the Amazon River that enticed a former American president to traverse an unmapped tributary, named for him, the Río Téodoro. The port of Manaus sits on the Amazon. It was built by the merchants of white gold; the rubber captured from trees in the untamed jungle.

Salvador Bahia was the first primary city of the Portuguese colony. The history of Brazil, the only country to experience a bloodless independence, is dedicated to this city. Ask any Brazilian and they will tell you that the heart of Brazil is in a small house, in a small town, outside Rio de Janeiro. Alberto Santos-Dumont is a hero to Brazilians, not only for his inventions that enabled the first public exhibition of a man in flight, but also for his inspiring selfless pursuit of new technologies that opened the world to the aviation age.

There are two ports in this volume which are exceptions to the pope’s division of the New World between Spain and Portugal. The French made incursions into Brazil in the fifteenth century. Today French Guiana remains French territory. It is home to the French installation for space launches and the historic prison known as Devil’s Island. Actually, the former prison is a cluster of three islands, notorious for housing wrongfully convicted inmates, the most famous of whom spent five years there, from 1896 to 1900. The story of Alfred Dreyfus is a cautionary tale for the travails of any nation, which becomes harshly divided by ideology.

The other exception to the pope’s desires is the Falkland Islands, known by Argentines as the Malvinas. The Falkland Island cluster is a little bit of Britain in the south Atlantic. It was never a colony. The British government and enterprising British companies appear repeatedly in this volume as advisors to formative nations and as taking part in their economic development. In 1982, Argentina drew a line across the Falklands, on which Britain stood firm. In a few months of war, lives were lost. The issues that festered into the war remain unresolved.

There are two cruise ship ports in Uruguay enjoyed by cruise travelers. The upscale beach resort town of Punta del Este attracts residents worldwide. The capital of Montevideo is home to the stories of Uruguay’s founder and legendary hero, José Gervasio Artigas, who saw himself as a player in the politics of Argentina, until he realized that his side of the Rio de la Plata would be better as an independent country. This is also the home of Teatro Solis, with its legendary beacon of life. The history of Uruguay played out in front of the steps to the theater. It is also the home of José Enrique Rodó, whose character Ariel shaped the philosophy of generations of independent, enterprising South Americans.

The story of Argentine José de San Martín, who led armies against the Spanish in 1812 to liberate Argentina and Chile, is told at the port of Puerto Madryn. It is also the story of Juan Perón and the tumultuous tides of democracy and military regimes in this country of wealth and beauty, which has experienced precipitous financial contractions. The story of being Argentine is told through icons of gaucho, tango, and literature.

The story of Buenos Aires is told in a walk through eight of its dozens of distinctive neighborhoods. One of the neighborhoods, the newest, is Puerto Madero, a nineteenth century port, given new life as the twenty-first century home of architectural and artistic landmarks, where each street is named for a woman in the history of Argentina. In this story, meet the Women of the Bridge, shapers of Argentina.

The stories of Chile run through this country of diverse landscapes. They start in the south, in the open terrain of Patagonia, where gauchos herd sheep and cattle, a European imagined himself king of the Indians, and seafarers have for centuries sought a city of gold. Punta Arenas was a prosperous port prior to the opening of the Panama Canal. The kings of the south owned tracts of land the size of small countries on which they grazed sheep and exported wool and meat. The first families of Punta Arenas built a town incongruous with the remote rustic land at the very south of Chile. They provide an opportunity to look at how Europeans populated Chile in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Juan Fernandez Islands include the island named for the fictional Robinson Crusoe. The story of factual marooned sailors and how they lived to tell their tales is a look at life on remote islands. The islands were not much changed from the time Magellan sailed the straits at the bottom of the world, until they became a tourist enclave in the twentieth century.

Cruise vacations often start or end in Valparaiso, the port city to the capital Santiago. When visitors have extra time to spend in the port they may relax and enjoy the Paradise of Food and Wine in Chile. It is also an opportune place to visit the presidential palace and contemplate how far the country has come just since the 1970s and the bombing of the palace. Today, Chile is a fugue of cultures, with the most successful economy in South America.

Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Panama, and Venezuela once formed Gran Colombia, the union of countries liberated from Spain by Simón Bolivar. Bolivar tried to move too fast to bring his U.S. styled federation into the nineteenth century. He was exiled in 1828, and died in 1830. Thereafter, Gran Colombia fractured into its parts, each facing tempestuous years of nation-building.

Lima is a modern city, which has retained its core of colonial elegance. It is also a port from which to consider the story of the Inca, the culture that dominated tribes from Ecuador through Peru, until decimated by the Spanish in the first decades of the sixteenth century. When the Spanish lost their hold on the South American colonies, they left a legacy of imprecise borders, which resulted in several border wars. The apex of the most bloody of the wars was Arica, a place of ancient marvels of earth and stone. Included is the story of the mysterious Nazca Lines, with its stories preserved from the ancient world.

Panama hats are made in Ecuador. Some of the finest are made in a little town outside the port of Manta, where tuna is king. In telling the story of hats, it is also an honor to tell the story of a man who chose to leave the family business to be a forward-thinking president of Ecuador. He is remembered by a monument on the square where Panama hats are sold today. In Guayaquil, the financial center of Ecuador, the story explores the cultures of Ecuador. In the Galapagos Islands the story is the human population prior to and after Charles Darwin came through on the Beagle. The Galapagos tortoises must appreciate the small human footprint which remains on the islands.

Simón Bolivar died on a ranch outside the Colombian city of Santa Marta. The city is filled with monuments to Bolivar, making it a wonderful venue to explore his life. Cartagena is preserved from the golden age of Spanish dominance of the seas, including the exploitation of gold and emeralds from the mines and mountains of Colombia and Peru. Walk the walled World Heritage City and look into life in a former era.

This volume of stories ends with two stories of navigators whose efforts made possible all of the foregoing stories. Magellan came through the straits, which bear his name, at great personal sacrifice, fueled by a desire to succeed. He charted a route to the east by going west, completing the task begun by Columbus, measured the Pacific Ocean, and sent his mariners on a circumnavigation of the earth, that he did not complete. He died proving the adage: never become involved in tribal politics. The story of Columbus includes his four voyages to the New World and the impetus for his desire to explore: his mother-in-law and the wealth of knowledge given to him in a library of wonderful books.

CTH

Santos Dumont

It is unusual to find a hero of any nation revered over time, who was neither a politician nor known for leadership in the military. Alberto Santos-Dumont is a hero to Brazilians, not only for his inventions that enabled the first public exhibition of a man in flight, but also for his inspiring selfless pursuit of new technologies that opened the world to the aviation age. He has been described as embodying the heart of Brazil. Whenever Santos-Dumont was told a feat could not be accomplished, he worked through the problem to find a solution. His self-determination led to success. Brazilians love him for his spirit.

Santos-Dumont was born in 1873, in Minas Gerais, a mining province in the southeast of Brazil. His creativity was fostered in the coffee fields of Brazil and in the skies of Paris and Monaco. He enjoyed dining with fellow inventor Thomas Edison, United States President Theodore Roosevelt, and jeweler Louis Cartier, who all admired his seemingly effortless tenacity in conquering the sky. When Santos-Dumont sought quiet solitude, he came home to Brazil, where his final home was in Petrópolis, on the outskirts of Rio. The suburb was a home of Brazilian royalty, an appropriate place for the aviator’s final retreat.

The son of a Brazilian engineer turned coffee magnate, Santos-Dumont was heir to a small fortune as a young adult. Educated at home, without the need to choose a profession, he sought to understand the mechanics of engines, then aeronautics, and finally heavier-than-air flight. In a decade, he accomplished what men had attempted for centuries. He did so at his own expense and at great personal risk. Then he freely shared his knowledge.

The debate as to whether Santos-Dumont or the American Wright brothers were the first to fly continues to the present day. To Brazilians, the correct answer depends on how the rules are written. Such was the case each time Santos-Dumont sought to win prizes to acknowledge his feats, only to have the rules changed mid-contest and thus raising the bar, which he eventually surpassed. Never humble, but always appreciative of recognition, the true accomplishment for him was building the public’s confidence in the safety of air travel.

Adored by Parisians, revered by Brazilians, irritating to his rivals at the Paris Aéro Club, Santos-Dumont inspired innovation in aviation that brought controlled air flight from lighter-than-air balloons to heavier-than-air airplanes. Visitors to Rio fly into the Santos-Dumont Airport. Brazil was quick to recognize the accomplishments of a native son, even though his first achievement was controlled air-flight around the Eiffel Tower. Visitors to Rio may enjoy a shore excursion beyond the beaches to the tree studded, elegant, relaxed pace of the neighborhoods of Petrópolis, the home of Santos-Dumont.

Royal Palace Petroppolis

Engines of Invention

Albert Santos-Dumont was known as Little Santos throughout his life. The youngest of seven children, who never grew much above five feet tall and never weighed much more than 100 pounds, seemed not to mind the endearing name. Size was never a deterrent to his goals. As an aeronaut, at the inception of the age of flight, his size was an asset.

Albert’s mother was of the Santos family, who arrived in Brazil with the royalty of Portugal in exile during the Napoleonic wars in Europe. His father was of French descent, employed as an engineer by Brazil’s Emperor Dom Pedro II. The time of his birth was a time of railroad construction to connect remote Brazilian agricultural producing centers with sea ports. It was also a time of the coffee boom in Brazil. Albert’s father parlayed his mother’s inheritance into one of the largest coffee estates of the late nineteenth century in Brazil.

The elder Dumont’s instincts and timing were brilliant. He used his skills as a railroad engineer to build 60 miles of track through his lands, bringing the green coffee beans to drying sheds, where they could be efficiently cleaned and bagged for export. By 1889, when the Brazilian monarchy of Dom Pedro II collapsed and the Portuguese former royal left South America to live the remainder of his life in poverty in France, Dumont’s enterprise had a value of about $6 million.¹

Two years later, when the elder Dumont fell from his horse, injuring his spine and rendering him partially paralyzed, the entire coffee estate was sold. He sought medical treatment in Paris, taking 18-year-old Albert with him. Shortly thereafter, the elder Dumont died, leaving sizable inheritances for Albert and his siblings. Albert’s father not only endowed him with security for his lifetime, he also imbued the young man with a talent for mechanical engineering and a love of the City of Light, Paris, in the midst of its golden age.

On the coffee estate, Albert was never idle. Schooled at home and fearful of public settings where there was a possibility of social interaction, Albert was comfortable investigating the innermost working of machines. He developed enough of a working knowledge of the various machines used in cleaning and roasting coffee beans that he was able to repair them. He preferred rotary mechanisms to lateral action, which was more susceptible to breakage. At age 7, he drove heavy equipment on the estate, and at age 12, he persuaded an engineer to allow him to drive the train as it delivered beans to the processing area. Lessons learned in the factory stayed with him when Albert discovered flying.

Let Go All!

Albert’s birth in Brazil coincided with the beginning of the Belle Époque in Paris. Paris was a vibrant center of artistic expression and scientific experimentation, which would continue until Europe was consumed in the Great War of 1914. The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, in time for the Paris Exposition of Art and Science. Over the next few years the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe would include motorized bicycles and cars.

Albert first arrived in Paris in 1891 with his father, at the height of the golden age, when shedding convention and open individualism were celebrated traits. He was intrigued by Thomas Edison’s phonograph and the automobile built by Karl Benz. He returned to Brazil with a Peugeot, one of two built in 1891, becoming the first person in South America to drive a car. Fortunately, his aptitude for mechanics enabled him to do repairs.

Albert came back to Paris in 1892, as an independent young man in search of all that the city could offer. From his apartment on the Champs-Élysées, Santos-Dumont took in a great deal. The sight of the young man with smartly tailored suits, high collar shirts, and impeccable grooming attracted little attention among so many cultured, young, aristocratic nomads who frequented the clubs and fashionable restaurants of Paris. Albert always enjoyed a fine meal, with champagne, followed, of course, by fine coffee.

As a child, Albert read Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon and Around the World in 80 Days. He thought the stories were of skies thick with real airships. He also read of Parisian balloon makers, who created a balloon for exploration of the North Pole. Finding the skies of Paris empty, Santos-Dumont sought out the balloon-makers of Paris, who had created the balloon for the ill-fated expedition to the North Pole, to build him a balloon.

Balloon-makers Lachambre and Machuran took Santos-Dumont on a brief flight that excited his passion for airships. He wrote in his diary of the sensation of flight, the view of the concave horizon, and traveling at the speed of the wind. It was exhilarating. He immediately began to examine every aspect of flight, imaging how it could be controlled. By the time a sudden change in temperature impacted the balloon, causing it to abruptly land in the garden of Alphonse Rothschild, Albert was committed to building airships.

In the last years of the nineteenth century, fairgoers could pay an exorbitant sum to ride in a hot air balloon for a few minutes. Santos-Dumont wanted to enable his airships with the means of directional control. Like the little rubber-band propeller airplanes he made as a child, his airships would have propellers. He wanted the craft to be so nimble that it would be popular as transportation, or at least a sporting option for an afternoon outing.

From the beginning, Santos-Dumont had the goal of opening the sky to air travel. He would build practical transportation that was so safe it would be widely accepted by the public. The image of the slight man, so calm in his suit and tie, with his picnic lunch, including ice cream and champagne, appearing to effortlessly fly and safely land outside his front door at home on the Champs-Élysées, became an exciting sight for crowds, even in Paris. To make the sky accessible to all, Santos-Dumont never patented his designs. Rather, he freely published his plans for airships and eventually his airplanes.²

Building maneuverable airships, contrary to popular wisdom of the day, was a challenge enjoyed by Santos-Dumont. He put propellers on his airships, experimenting with them in the front and back and in multiples. He powered the propellers with two-cylinder motors he crafted by combining two one-cylinder bicycle motors. The ships were steered by ropes, then from the handle-bars of an incorporated bicycle, his seat in the sky.

Santos-Dumont designed balloons elliptical in shape, of the thinnest silk. He replaced sandbags with water for ballast. He replaced the ropes with piano wire to reduce weight. The air-cooled engines became larger and more powerful. Safety, reliability, and maneuverability were his standards. One morning he flew a balloon from his home for a jaunt around the Arc de Triomphe, to demonstrate that air travel could replace autos.

Each generation of balloon was numbered. In Number 6, Santos-Dumont captured the heart of the public, although not the judges, when he vied to win the coveted Deutsch prize for a timed flight around the Eiffel Tower in 1901.³ The sponsor of the prize was also competing and hoped to win. So as he observed Santos-Dumont’s progress, the rules for the prize were amended to become more difficult. Number 6 performed beautifully for Santos-Dumont on the clear Paris morning. However, an obstacle in the landing path was the cause of a few seconds of additional time. The press and public declared Santos-Dumont the winner. The judges were recalcitrant. They eventually relented to public pressure.

Honor in recognition was coveted by Santos-Dumont. The prize money he won was always given to his crew and to charity. He financed his own inventions and test trials.

October 19, 1901, Santos-Dumont became a public hero in France and Brazil. His flight around the Eiffel Tower garnered a medal from Gustav Eiffel depicting Santos-Dumont in flight at the Tower. Brazil sent prize money in a check that he needed no identification at the bank to cash. The princess of Portugal, in exile from Brazil, gave him a medal he wore on a wrist chain to the day he died. Men copied his attire, ladies wore Santos-Dumont balloon hats, and children ate gingerbread in the shape of his balloon. Charles Stewart Rolls, the Englishman who would soon meet Henry Royce, inducted Santos-Dumont as an honorary member of the Aero Club of the United Kingdom.

Monaco where Santos Launched

Prince Albert I of Monaco, an enthusiastic supporter of science and explorer of the oceans, invited Santos-Dumont to Monaco, where he offered to fund further experiments in flight.⁴ Santos-Dumont came to Monaco in 1902. A special landing platform, above the ocean retaining wall, and the largest balloon shed of the time were built.⁵ He flew from Monaco to Corsica, before landing in the ocean upon his return. It was then Santos-Dumont decided that ocean flight was not his style. Before leaving, Empress Eugenie, the reclusive wife of Napoleon Bonaparte III, came out of seclusion to meet the great flier.

As Santos-Dumont perfected his airships, the gas bag of the balloon became smaller. The engines became more powerful. The airships became more aero-dynamic. Number 9, the 1903 Baladeuse, was his favorite for short, frequent jaunts across the air. He demonstrated that, upon landing, the whole apparatus could be packed up in a little suitcase and carried home on a train. In one of his meetings with the inventor Thomas Edison, the sage older man told him to eliminate the balloon completely. It was prescient advice. He would turn to it in 1905, creating his first heavier-than-air craft in 1906.

14 bis

Heavier than Air

The 1904 St. Louis Exposition featured an air show, for which Santos-Dumont assisted in planning. He was unable to participate as the United States Customs agents impounded his craft, uncertain how it should be taxed. While in the United States, Santos-Dumont discussed air flight with President Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Dewey, and Edison.

Back home in Paris, in 1904, Santos-Dumont turned his diary into a published book. He was at the time the father of flight. Unknown to all, the Wright brothers of Ohio, would come forward two years later, claiming to be first in flight, with secret trials in 1903.⁶

Santos-Dumont wrote that October 19, 1901 and November 12, 1906 were the two happiest days of his life. In October 1906, he flew No. 14-bis across a Paris field, where once boys flew kites. The No. 14-bis was a bi-plane, heavier-than-air craft, his evolved Number 14 airship, with no balloon to keep it airborne. On November 12, he flew the airplane 220 meters to win the prize at an airshow. He was carried off the field on the shoulders of the crowd. The French jeweler, Louis Cartier, designed Santos-Dumont cufflinks to commemorate the event, to join the Santos-Dumont wristwatch he had earlier designed for his flying friend, who could not read a pocket watch while flying.

Santos-Dumont kept improving the design of the No. 14-bis. His favorite was the 1907 Number 19 – Damoiselle, a small plane for personal travel, which he frequently flew. Its design was quickly made public, encouraging copies and refinements by the growing cadre of flight enthusiasts in Europe, England, and the Americas. Generations of fliers and flight engineers would later credit Santos-Dumont as their inspiration.

Home Santos Dumont Petropolis

Grounded

In 1909, Santos-Dumont was not feeling well. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 36. Despondent, resolved not to fly again, he rented a house near Deauville, the pretty little town near the sea in northern France. His nephew came to be his caretaker.

Honor continued to flow to Santos-Dumont. The French made the Brazilian a Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. His lead mechanic on the balloons and airplane was given admission to the honored academy usually reserved for great artists and scientists.

Santos-Dumont bought a telescope and sat for hours at his Deauville home watching the sky. When World War I broke out, French military officers invaded his home, snatched his telescope, and accused him of sending signals to German boats in the channel.

Already distraught with the use of aircraft for bombing during the war, the accusation that he might be a spy overwhelmed Santos-Dumont. He burned all his papers, including designs for the planes and airships. Then he packed up and returned to Brazil.

In Petrópolis, outside Rio, Santos-Dumont built a small home that he called La Encantada, the Enchanted Place. The home is filled with gadgets of the still active mind of the inventor. It is also reflective of his idiosyncrasies. Santos-Dumont always stepped first with his right foot. The bottom stair has the left side cut away, to require the climber to step first with the right foot. Visitors to the home today beware. The step is also cut away at the top.

At home in Brazil, he wrote his second book, Where We Have Been: Where We Are Going. One place Santos-Dumont did not want people to go was to war. He agonized over the use of airplanes as weapons. He petitioned the United Nations to ban the use of airplanes in war. He had invented airplanes for personal and commercial use, not war.

In Washington, D.C. in 1922, Santos-Dumont was made president of the Pan American Aeronautical Foundation. In Brazil, he was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letters, and his picture was engraved on national currency. He returned home to the welcome of a national hero.

December 3, 1928, became the worst day in the life of Santos-Dumont. A reception was planned for him by government officials in the Bay of Guanabara, where the Portuguese explorers who first discovered Brazil came ashore. As a tribute to his design of the first seaplane, a hydroplane carrying notable Brazilian inventors and scientists flew down to meet him. Upon landing, the plane blew up and crashed into the sea, in front of all the spectators. Everyone on board was killed. Santos-Dumont attended each funeral.

Sitting in his home in Petrópolis, Santos-Dumont could hear the planes fly past to drop bombs. Brazil was in the midst of a civil war. People he knew were missing or dead.

On July 23, 1932, Santos-Dumont could no longer be complacent about his inventions being used as weapons of war. He dressed in a fine suit, complete with his neck ties. Then he went into his bathroom and hung himself on a hook on the back of the door.

All of Brazil went into mourning. There was a declared three-day reprieve, and for two days the fighting stopped. The Conqueror of the Air, the Father of Aviation was dead.

Rio Harbor

Visiting Petrópolis Today

Petrópolis is a pretty suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The prize possession of the town is no longer the palace of the