The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936 Page: 101

The Confederate Exodus to Latin America

million square miles, was one of the most marvelous areas of the
earth, especially for the scientist and the agriculturist. To the
scientist, it offered for study a thousand species of plant and
animal life; to the agriculturist, it afforded a variety of prod-
ucts unsurpassed, indeed if not unequaled, by any other region
of the globe. In the Virginian's imagination, the possibilities
were so great as some day to allure a hundred million human
beings for their exploitation and enjoyment. It is an interest-
ing observation that the next three-quarters of a century were
to witness the fulfillment of one one-hundredth of this prophecy.
But, were the prophet living today he would muster a convinc-
ing argument explaining why his prophecy had gone awry.
In expatiating upon the wonders of the Amazon Maury struck
the practical as well as the academic chord. The Amazon Val-
ley, perhaps the result of nature's design, was complementary to
the great valley of the Mississippi. Each produced what the
other lacked; together they supplied all that the human mind
craved. The wind and ocean currents facilitated the exchange
of products of one region with the other. A chip thrown into
the Amazon, or one of its thousand tributaries, would eventually
pass through the Gulf ports of the United States. The great
scientist did not tell how the same natural forces might retard to
equal degree the commerce from the Mississippi toward the
Amazon. He was primarily concerned in the material progress
of his beloved South.
Maury's ideas were given to the southern people in various
ways. Between 1849 and 1855 several of his articles appeared
in De Bow's Review, the National Intelligencer, the Southern
Literary Messenger, and the Washington Union--all of which had
wide circulation. Some of the articles at first appeared under the
attractive pseudonym of "Inca"; many of them reached a larger
reading public through reproduction in Letters on the Amazon
and Atlantic Slopes of South America. Maury popularized his
ideas and ambitions through the southern conventions, such as
those at New Orleans in 1851 and Memphis in 1853, which
adopted and printed his memorials, as well as through the pub-
lications of the national government. Two facts greatly aided
the process of dissemination: Maury was a scientist of world
repute; Maury wielded the pen of a wizard. If he could induce

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