By Ori Preuss, Tel Aviv University
“The enthusiasm with which he described what he calls the ‘the major phenomenon of the Latin race in the nineteenth century,’ his endless admiration for a growth unmatched by any other people of our origin, made me embarrassed for having been so many times in Europe and for not having visited yet the River Plate,” thus wrote Joaquim Nabuco in an article that appeared in a popular Rio de Janeiro newspaper in 1887. The piece narrated travel impressions recounted to Brazil’s foremost abolitionist leader by Portuguese author Ramalho Ortigão, who had gone from Rio to Buenos Aires and back that year. I first came across it in one of the scrapbooks of Argentine statesman-writer Estanislao Zeballos. It was a Spanish version, published in the Buenos Aires press under the title “Ramalho Ortigão in the River Plate / Enthusiastic Concepts / The United States of South America / An Article by Nabuco / From O País of Rio de Janeiro,” attesting to the circulation of both people and information between the two capitals. Continue reading
