Manatees and turtles in Colonial Brazil (16th-18th centuries): appropriation, extractions, consumption and oceanic teleconnections

Abstract

Whales, manatees and (freshwater and marine) turtles are among the aquatic species most valued by european settlers and explorers of the Atlantic throughout the early modern period. While contacting with a tropical ecology, based on a perception of abundance and inexhaustible resources, these animals were selected as subsistence resources, but also commercialized by Europeans. These practices were acquired, often, based on the observation of their use and capture by local societies for food, to make utensils, or as an integral part of their religious and cultural practices. In this paper, we will address some of the issues of the local exploitation of aquatic resources, built on local and indigenous perceptions and transformed by the colonial structures of the early modern era. We will discuss the case of manatees and turtles for Central and South America from historical sources, mainly for the Iberian empires. In this way, we show how aquatic animals have been systematically appropriated, exploited, transformed and commodified, hinting at some of the social, political, economic and environmental implications for the early modern Atlantic. These long-distance pre-industrial interactions and relationships, the so-called oceanic teleconnections, are underpinned by the utilization and extraction of animals with impacts on open sea, coastal and estuarine ecosystems