Cartography and geography fulfilled a crucial role in the process of colonization of the Western Amazon rainforest. Most of us have seen maps from the region scratched with international boundaries dividing the region between Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia minimizing or completely erasing indigenous territories. Nineteenth-century maps mostly detail rivers and resource areas that could be exploited; the information maps displayed correlated with the advance and desires of colonization and the geographies of capitalism. The goal of this project is to begin a historical cartography that completely shifts our geographical perception of the Amazon rainforest while visualizing the ongoing process of colonization of the region. The Amazon was never empty, indigenous territories or even indigenous populations in voluntary isolation that still lived today on the Amazon are evidence of the resistance to colonization. However, through digital tools and a reorganization of the information displayed on maps, it is possible to shift their purpose and visualize the historical process of colonization, thereby countering the processes that have attempted to make invisible the indigenous history of this region. With the digital humanities summer funding, I will finish a small-scale sample database of settlements in the Amazon, a database for commercial routes, and a database for indigenous territories. The databases will be displayed on six maps one for each decade from 1850 to 1912 to visualize the transformation and colonization of the indigenous territories in the Western Amazon.

---