Defining the frontiers of South America in the late colonial period: cartography, indigenous informants and geographical knowledge

Abstract

This study examines how cartography was used and interpreted by the governors of Mato Grosso and Paraguay in their disputes over the frontier limits of the Iberian empires in the regions they governed at the end of the 18th century. This analysis contributes to understanding how frontiers were interpreted and presented in colonial discourses and cartographic production. It also explores the activity of the members of the demarcation commission sent to the region after the signature of the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1777), highlighting the centrality of the contributions of indigenous informants and interpreters both for the construction of geographical knowledge about the border area, that remained, mostly, outside the effective control of both Iberian Crowns and for its materialization in maps in which their presence was, however, silenced.