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When in 1885 Luanda based commercial photogra-
pher published his book on Portuguese western Africa,
Luciano Cordeiro, a well-known writer stated this work
to be not only a crucial one in Portuguese colonial aspi-
rations, but also the fi rst such work to be carried in the
depths of the Dark Continent. He was, of course, wrong,
black Africa was not the primary focus of photographers,
but expeditions carried out since the 1850s has been us-
ing photography has a mean of documentation and report
about places and people found. David Livingston’s Zam-
bezi Expedition, in 1858–64, has Livingston’s brother,
Charles as the offi cial photographer for the expedition.
Livingston’s idea was to use the expedition as means to
increase knowledge about Africa. Photography was to
be instrumental in that goal so he instructed his brother
to have the equipment ready to “secure characteristic
specimens of the different tribes.” Unfortunately, only
the photograph of a baobab tree survived.
Some decades latter, John Kirk, also exploring Zam-
bezi River also used photography, in his images people
were displaced from their environment, and places were
photographed as if they were empty of people.
James Chapman also used photography as part of his
hunting and trade expedition in South Africa’s interior
in the years 1859–63. Luciano Cordeiro was, indeed
wrong stating Cunha Moraes work to be the fi rst in Dark
Africa’s interior, however, he was not wrong when de-
scribing the enormous diffi culties endured by an 1870’s
photographer inside dark, humid and warm Africa. At
the time the biggest colonial power (British empire),
and the least powerful one (Portugal) rivaled about
some African territories and being fi rst was important,
even if the words of Luciano Cordeiro are, most likely,
a proof that these early African photographs were never
widely known.
All these images of Africa were important to enforce
already existent ideas of African people as idle and
childlike, due to the fertility of the land. Europeans had
a mission, bring civilization to these childlike retarded
people. They were also important in the creation of a
colonial ideal in European powers.
America, opposed to colonial Africa, was composed
of independent countries, all of them recently created
by the descendents of European settlers, with European
cultures and languages. These new world countries had
much different situations for their Indian population.
Some of them had already destroyed most of their na-
tive population, some were in the process of doing so,
while in others, such as the Andean countries, Indians
were an important part of the population. Photograph-
ing South American Indians was not an enterprise for
the explorers, but mainly to commercial photographers.
Most of these established themselves in South American
countries coming from Europe and using the photogra-
phy of the native as a commercial venture. Photographswere being made to generate profi t, as they were sold
as carte-de-visite, stereographic views and later as
postcards. The main goal for most of these images was
a commercial one, but these images were important in
the building of national identities for those countries.
The context of their production and circulation would
make them closely linked to the cultural stereotypes
already present for those people. These links with
existent stereotypes would also show in the idea that
images could be, when not available, created. Margarita
Alvarado, in her study on the Chilean Mapuche Indian
image, found pictures with white people appearing in
Indian costumes, composed images, in what she calls
the construction of an imaginary image. This imaginary
image was the product of the same commercial photog-
raphers, mostly European newcomers, who were making
the portraits of white people living in Chilean small
towns. Brazil, had to deal with three different kinds of
population: The little known Indians, the Negro slaves
and slave descendents and the new European migrants.
All of then were potential subjects to ethnographic pho-
tography, all of then were in need of surveillance and
control. José Christiano Junior, himself a Portuguese
migrant made studio portraits of slaves in the 1870s,
at about the same time, Militão Augusto Azevedo, a S.
Paulo native, although based in Rio, photographed non
slave Negroes. These were commercial photographers
and these photographs were made using the same tech-
niques used on their portrait sitters. The photographs
of Brazilian Indians were quite early in photography’s
history; the E. Thiesson expedition of 1844 came with
full face and profi le daguerreotypes of Botocudo Indi-
ans, complementing skeletons, now in Paris Museé de
l’Homme.
The North American West was, during 19th. Century,
less known than South America. White settlers were
starting their western migration. Much of midwestern
land and of their peoples were unknown to east coast
society. Exploration photography was of great impor-
tance to the knowledge of the west, and to the building
of United States and Canadian identity. Even if there
were a huge number of different people, the North
American image was made, above all with landscape
photography. There is an exception in the huge survey
on the American Indians made by Edward S. Curtis,
even if it is mostly a 20th century enterprise, is close
enough to 19th century ethnographic photography. The
photographs made of California Indians from 1900 by
Alfred Koeber have similar goals, although a smaller
scope. These surveys were made not on a vanishing
world, but on an already vanished world, since Ameri-
can Indian were all but destroyed as autonomous entity
by 1900. This may explain the small number of Indian
photographs in 19th century Western images, including
surveys on New Mexico, Utah and Nevada Indians,ETHNOGRAPHY
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