Humboldt,Alexander VON b. September 14, 1769; Berlin, Prussia d. May 6, 1859; Berlin, Prussia
Brother of Wilhelm von Humboldt; Prussian traveler who became a world-famous icon of science in the nineteenth century. From 1799 to 1804 Humboldt explored extensively in South America and later in his life published widely about his travels.
He started his studies at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1787, but returned to Berlin soon after to have private science lessons before enrolling at the University of Gottingen in 1789. He finished his university education in early 1790 and then embarked on extensive study trips. Humboldt engaged in mercantile studies in Hamburg, followed by studies at the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony until 1792. A four-year stellar career in the Prussian mining authority followed. The profits of the mines he supervised increased remarkably, due to his superior knowledge of geology and vocational training that he organized for the miners.Humboldt was a man of extraordinary intellectual capacities and a master of creating publicity for his research and persona. He gained access to the leading scientists, intellectuals, and decision-makers of his age, with whom he created a synergic environment, profiting from their contributions. After the death of his mother in 1796, the inheritance made him very wealthy, and he started preparations for a scientific voyage to South America. He learned Spanish and acquired knowledge about the New World in many libraries across Europe.
King Charles IV of Spain approved of Humboldt’s endeavor after Humboldt had presented his plans. Together with the French botanist Aime Bonpland, he arrived in South America on July 16, 1799. This marked the start of a five-year intense study of the region, systematically applying the ideas and methods of the Enlightenment through what today is known as Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, and Cuba. Humboldt and Bonpland did not just follow the beaten paths of the trade and mail routes of the viceroyalty of New Spain, they also embarked on an almost fatal excursion down the Casiquiare Canal from the Orinoco to the Amazon River system to prove that a connection actually existed.
En route from Bogota to Lima, Humboldt climbed volcanoes, disregarding or unaware of the dangers of climbing in high altitudes. Measuring the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador (20,702 feet), Humboldt ascended to 17,400 feet, setting a world record.Large parts of the collections that Humboldt and Bonpland shipped to Europe disappeared or were damaged by heat and humidity. As important as adventurous fieldwork were the resources available locally. In Caracas, Bogota, Quito, Lima, and Mexico City Humboldt had access to official archives and libraries, where he copied scientific, statistical, and historical sources collected by enlightened Spanish administrators and clerics. Don Jose Celestino Mutis in Bogota, who had collected the world’s second-largest herbarium with a total of 20,000 specimens, readily shared his knowledge.
Shortly before returning to Europe from Cuba, Humboldt decided to visit the United States. They arrived in Philadelphia on May 24, 1804, where Humboldt became a member of the American Philosophical Society. Between June 1 and June 13, Humboldt was received several times by President Thomas Jefferson in Washington, who had been impressed and flattered by a letter of introduction Humboldt had sent in advance.
Because the Louisiana Land Purchase of 1803 had given the United States a large undefined border area with Mexico, Jefferson was interested in the geographical knowledge that Humboldt had assembled. Humboldt willingly shared maps and a copy of a memorandum he had written for the Spanish viceroy summarizing vital statistics about the colony with the president.
On June 30, Humboldt and Bonpland finally left for Europe. Soon after their arrival in Paris on August 27, Emperor Napoleon celebrated their achievements with a grand reception. Even with a team of consulting scientists and artists, thirty years were necessary for the editing and publishing of the thirty-four volumes of Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland aux regions equinoxiales du nouveau continent (Voyage of Humboldt and Bonpland to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent), all paid for by Humboldt himself. Three of these volumes, known under the abbreviated title Relation historique, were published in English translation beween 1814 and 1829 as Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent.
In 1827 Humboldt had exhausted his wealth and returned to Berlin as a cultural and scientific adviser to King Friedrich Wilhelm III, with the title of chamberlain. Performing diplomatic duties for Prussia, he made extended trips to Paris and kept contact with leading circles in politics and science. In 1829 he embarked on an eight- and-a-half-month journey to Siberia.
German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, in an 1806painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch. (Bettmann/Corbis)
His next project was Cosmos, the attempt to write a comprehensive description of the universe. He had held lectures for a broad audience at the University of Berlin with the same title from November 1827 to April 1828. The first volume was printed in 1845. The following volumes were published when he had already reached his seventies and eighties, the fifth and last volume remained unfinished.
Although Humboldt never returned to the United States, his friendships with American intellectuals and politicians developed into a network for intellectual exchange between Prussia and the United States throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. He corresponded with U.S. scientists and intellectuals, especially on the topic of precious metals, the possibility of a Panama Canal, and slavery. Most
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prominent was the exchange of letters and gifts with President Jefferson. Humboldt felt Jefferson was a personification of American democratic institutions. Jefferson defined the spheres-of-interest idea that later became the basis for the Monroe Doctrine. Humboldt had also befriended the secretary of the U.S. treasury, Albert Gallatin, a pioneer in ethnological studies of Native Americans, who was minister to France from 1816 to 1823.
From 1836 to his death Humboldt was in regular contact with the diplomats of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.
He received American visitors such as John Quincy Adams, George Ticknor, George Bancroft, Alexander Dallas Bache, John Loyd Stephens, Bayard Taylor, and Samuel Morse in his home. In the United States, Humboldt’s fame spread outside intellectual circles mainly after the publication of the first volume of Cosmos. Geographical features worldwide were named after the admired explorer (the Humboldt Stream on the West Coast of South America, the Humboldt River in Nevada, the Humboldt Mountains in China). Counting important landmarks only, North America has forty- five, Latin America thirteen, and Europe eleven.Humboldt often described himself as “half an American.” Yet he saw limitations to freedom in the United States, which was already on its path to the Civil War. Humboldt had made occasional use of slaves during his South American voyage, but was an outspoken opponent of slavery and serfdom. He publicly protested when a U.S. publisher omitted the chapter on the sensitive issue in an 1856 edition of his “Essay on Cuba.”
Tommy Tobiassen
See also Adams, John Quincy; Bancroft,
George; Humboldt, Wilhelm von; Panama;
Taylor, (James) Bayard; Ticknor, George
References and Further Reading
Botting, Douglas. Humboldt and the Cosmos.
New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
Dassow Walls, Laura. “‘Hero of knowledge, be our tribute thine.’ Alexander von Humboldt in Victorian America.” In Alexander von Humboldt’s Natural History Legacy and Its Relevance for Today. Northeastern Naturalist 8, Special Issue no. 1. Steuben, Maine, 2001.
Humboldt, Alexander von. Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. London, New York: Penguin, 1995.