1839 Carlos Augusto Nascentes de Azambuja Manuscript Chart of the Colonia Roads

How might Brazil retake Colonia?

This is a beautifully executed manuscript chart / map of the approaches to Colonia, Uruguay, on the north shore of the Rio de la Plata. It was executed on January 21, 1839, by Brazilian Midshipman (Guarda Maronja do Armada) Carlos Augusto Nascentes de Azambuja. The chart is a meticulous copy of the 1833 Plan Des Mouillages De La Colonia Et Des Iles De Hornos, Dans Le Rio De La Plata published by the French Depot General de la Marine, which would certainly have been the finest available printed chart of these waters.

A Closer Look

The chart covers the north part of the Rio de la Plata from the Isles de Hornos in the north to the port of Colonia in the south, including both the Isles de Lopez and the Isle de San Gabriel. The whole of the chart is thick with depth soundings. At the bottom, there are neatly inscribed scales and an attractive compass rose (an artistic flourish not present on the Depot original).

Not Just Academic

The exercise of copying a chart in this manner was crucial in the education of a midshipman - not just for general facility in chartmaking, but for the prospective naval officer to commit to memory the existing surveys of important locations. When Midshipman Nascentes de Azambuja produced this, Uruguay was in the early years of the Guerra Grande (1839 - 1851), a conflict in which Brazil had a direct interest. Indeed, Colonia had been held by Brazil during the Cisplatine War (1822 - 1828), so the notion of recapturing the port cannot have been far from mind.

Publication History and Census

This one-of-a-kind manuscript was drawn by Carlos Augusto Nascentes de Azambuja, signed by him on January 21, 1839.

Cartographers

Carlos Augusto Nascentes de Azambuja (fl. 1835 - 1867) was a Brazilian naval officer, born in Rio de Janeiro. Virtually nothing is known of him. He entered the Academia de Marinha on March 5, 1835; he would have been between 12 and 16 years of age. He was still a midshipman in 1839, at which time he produced a chart of the approaches to Colonia in Uruguay during the Uruguayan Civil War. In June of 1850, as a First Lieutenant, he was given command of the new corvette Bahiana. In 1867 he was a Lieutenant Commander, serving aboard the gunboat Ivahy; there is a high probability he was actively engaged during the Paraguayan War: the gunboat had already been assigned to the blockade of the Paraná in 1865; it was part of the Imperial fleet at the July 18, 1865 Battle of Paso de Mercedes, and was noted in reports of an engagement in August of that year. These notes of military service, and the manuscript chart of Colonia, are all that are recorded of Carlos Augusto. The Nascientes de Azambuja family were prominent in Brazilian politics later in the century. Bernardo Augusto Nascentes de Azambuja (? - 1876), for example, would become a director of the State Secretariat for Agriculture, Commerce and Public Works, and was president of the Province of Rio de Janeiro in 1875.   Further Details...

Dépôt des Cartes et Plans de la Marine (fl. 1720 - present), often called the Dépôt Général de la Marine, was a French hydrographic mapping organization founded in 1720 under Charles-Hercule of Albert de Luynes (1674 - 1734). Much like the U.S. Coast Survey, the British Admiralty, and the Spanish Deposito Hydrografico, the Dépôt was initiated as a storehouse and distribution center of existing nautical and marine charts. Eventually the Dépôt initiated its own mapping activities in an attempt to improve and expand upon existing material. Some of the more prominent cartographers and hydrographers associated with the of Dépôt Générale des Cartes were, Philippe Buache, Jacques-Nicholas Bellin, Giovanni Rizzi-Zannoni, Rigobert Bonne, and Jean Nicolas Buache.   Further Details...

Condition

Excellent. Few pinholes and creasing, else fine.