EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...
EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...
EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...
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have much broader support in the chambers. Santa C<strong>at</strong>arina seems to have been lost in<br />
the effort to find a more temper<strong>at</strong>e clim<strong>at</strong>e.<br />
This new non colonial effort to transplant its citizens did not fulfill the<br />
imperialistic aims <strong>of</strong> Leopold but did have much broader support in the chambers.<br />
Leopold’s involvement in Brazil had taken several different aspects. He had briefly<br />
considered Brazil in 1838 and 1839 in terms <strong>of</strong> either exporting the excess prison<br />
popul<strong>at</strong>ion or training the Belgian army by lending it to the Brazilian government in its<br />
<strong>at</strong>tempts in to increase its military <strong>at</strong> th<strong>at</strong> time. Leopold had let his name, as had the<br />
Brazilian Emperor Don Pedro II, be used on the share certific<strong>at</strong>e <strong>of</strong> the second<br />
Compagnie belge-brésilienne de Colonis<strong>at</strong>ion. As l<strong>at</strong>e as 1846, Leopold indic<strong>at</strong>ed th<strong>at</strong><br />
he thought th<strong>at</strong> he could or should help the colony in Santa C<strong>at</strong>arina, perhaps by a<br />
stronger associ<strong>at</strong>ion <strong>of</strong> his name with the effort. But he was strongly dissuaded from<br />
doing so by the foreign minister. 313 Soon the events <strong>of</strong> 1847 and 1848 began to divert<br />
his time and effort, and he seems to have lost interest in the Brazilian effort.<br />
A significant distinction between Santa C<strong>at</strong>arina and all other Belgian efforts in<br />
the colonial area was the oversight th<strong>at</strong> was available, and the fact th<strong>at</strong> despite Belgian<br />
governmental oversight, the colony still failed. From the first involvement <strong>of</strong> De Jaeger<br />
in 1842 through the visits by van der Str<strong>at</strong>en Ponthoz in 1847, Van Lede and his<br />
successors were in constant communic<strong>at</strong>ion with members <strong>of</strong> the Belgian leg<strong>at</strong>ion in<br />
Rio de Janeiro. Although the distance was over four hundred miles between the main<br />
settlement <strong>at</strong> Itajahi and Rio de Janeiro, it was a certainly a lot closer then <strong>Texas</strong>, Santo<br />
312 Ibid., 22-4.<br />
148