1852 Millard Fillmore - Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon

On January 20, 1851 U.S. Navy Captain William Lewis Herndon finally received his command to be the first American to explore the Valley of the Amazon.  Herndon was commanded to proceed to Lima and Bolivia to collect from the monasteries and other "authentic sources" information about the Amazon headwaters and the region drained by the Peruvian tributaries.   Herndon arrived in Lima on February 6th and began preparing for his travels to Pará,  Brazil through the Valley of the Amazon.   For almost one year he traveled by foot, mule canoe and small boat from the trickling headwaters of Amazon's tributaries sixteen thousand feet above sea level to the Atlantic Ocean 4000 miles away.   Herndon compiled lists kept time tables, took boiling points, measured the weather, and studied the animals, birds and flora.  His report was filled with rich narratives of the legends and beauty of the curious customs of the region and the colorful scenes.  It became one of the finest accounts of travel and discovery ever written.  He described exotic animals such as poisonous blowdarts and serpents 18 feet long and wrote about his encounters with men painted blue and earlobes drooping to their shoulders.   The Secretary of the Navy was so impressed with the writing, that he ordered 30,000 copies of the report and when published it became an international best seller.

The book itself, was not published until 1854, but in December of 1852 President Millard Fillmore announced that the report would be available soon calling it "an interesting and valuable account of the character and resources of a country abounding in the materials of commerce".  Fillmore described the Amazon Valley as an "inexhaustible fund of wealth".  Perhaps Fillmore, read Herndon’s words describing the great wealth of he Amazon:  "if trade there is once awakened, the power, the wealth, and grandeur of ancient Babylon and modern London must yield to that of the depots of this trade that shall be established at the mouths of the Oronoco, the Amazon, and the La Plata". 

"Two officers of the Navy were heretofore instructed to explore the whole extent of the Amazon River from the confines of Peru to its mouth. The return of one of them has placed in the possession of the Government an interesting and valuable account of the character and resources of a country abounding in the materials of commerce, and which if opened to the industry of the world will prove an inexhaustible fund of wealth. The report of this exploration will be communicated to you as soon as it is completed."

Captain Herndon died five years later in one of America's worst disasters ever when the 280-foot side-wheel steamer the SS. Central America was tossed into the trough of the sea by a hurricane 200 miles off the Carolina Coast.   The ship was carrying 500 men and 60 women and children to the California Gold Rush.  Through the heroics of Captain Herndon and his men every woman and child along with some of the men were safely transferred to another vessel.

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). Third Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/third-annual-message-7 [Accessed 22 Dec. 2018].

Herndon, W. and Kinder, G. (2007). Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1851-1852. New York: Grove Atlantic, p.Forward.