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Biography of Candido Mariano da Silva RondonName: Candido Mariano da Silva RondonBirth Date: 1865 Death Date: January 19, 1958 Place of Birth: Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil Nationality: Brazilian Gender: Male Occupations: social activist, marshal, professor Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon (1865-1958) was a Brazilian military man and Indianist. He explored much of the Brazilian interior and studied and helped the Indians of the region.Candido Rondon was born in Cuiabá in the state of Mato Grosso on May 5, 1865. He entered the army in 1881 and by 1890 was substitute professor of mathematics in the Praia Vermelha Military School in Rio de Janeiro. That year he accepted a post with the Telegraphic Commission, which was extending telegraph lines into the deep interior of Brazil.When Rondon began his career in the Amazonian region, the larger part of it had not been explored by civilized man, and Brazil's claim to sovereignty in the region was largely symbolic. He and his coworkers established the first contacts with the outside world for many parts of the Brazilian interior. During his long service with the Telegraphic Commission, he studied intensively the flora …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…country. In 1934 he was the Brazilian representative on a commission which successfully settled a long-standing border dispute between Peru and Colombia which had led to open warfare in that year.During his career in the Telegraphic Commission and the Indian Service, Rondon rose steadily in military rank. In 1955, on his ninetieth birthday, the Brazilian Congress passed a special law raising him to the rank of marshal, the highest in the nation's military service. He received many honors from his own and foreign governments. The new Amazonian territory and its capital city were named Rondonia in commemoration of his work there. Rondon died on Jan. 19, 1958. Further Reading There is a good discussion of Rondon's career in Donald Emmet Worcester, Makers of Latin America (1966). Theodore Roosevelt recounts an expedition with Rondon in his Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914). Some of Rondon's explorations are discussed in Charles E. Key, The Story of Twentieth-century Exploration (1938). |