Editing Alexander von Humboldt (section)

===New Spain (Mexico), 1803–1804===
[[File:MINA_GTO.jpg|thumb|Silver mining complex of La Valenciana, Guanajuato, Mexico]]
[[File:Vues des Cordillères, et monumens des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique (1813) (14781309784).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Basaltic Prisms of Santa María Regla|Basalt prisms at Santa María Regla]], Mexico by Alexander von Humboldt, published in ''Vue des Cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amérique'']]
[[File:1479 Stein der fünften Sonne, sog. Aztekenkalender, Ollin Tonatiuh anagoria.JPG|thumb|Aztec calendar stone]]
[[File:Humboldt 1810 pp 47 48 50 51 52.jpg|thumb|[[Dresden Codex]], later identified as a Maya manuscript, published in part by Humboldt in 1810]]
Humboldt and Bonpland had not intended to go to New Spain, but when they were unable to join a voyage to the Pacific, they left the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil and headed for [[Acapulco]] on Mexico's west coast. Even before Humboldt and Bonpland started on their way to New Spain's [[Mexico City|capital]] on Mexico's central plateau, Humboldt realized the captain of the vessel that brought them to Acapulco had reckoned its location incorrectly. Since Acapulco was the main west-coast port and the terminus of the [[Manila Galleon|Asian trade]] from the Spanish Philippines, having accurate maps of its location was extremely important. Humboldt set up his instruments, surveying the deep-water bay of Acapulco, to determine its longitude.{{sfn|de Terra|1955|pp=149–150}}{{Sfn|Humboldt chronology|p= lxviii–lxvix}}

Humboldt and Bonpland landed in Acapulco on 15 February 1803, and from there they went to [[Taxco]], a silver-mining town in modern [[Guerrero]]. In April 1803, he visited [[Cuernavaca]], [[Morelos]]. Impressed by its climate, he nicknamed the city the ''City of Eternal Spring''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://masdemorelos.masdemx.com/2018/04/cuernavaca-morelos-eterna-primavera-von-humboldt-exploraciones-historia/|title=La breve exploración de este magnífico personaje puso a Cuernavaca en el mapa mundial|language=es|website=masdemorelos.masdemx.com|date=3 April 2018|access-date=21 April 2021|archive-date=10 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410214717/https://masdemorelos.masdemx.com/2018/04/cuernavaca-morelos-eterna-primavera-von-humboldt-exploraciones-historia/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>http://www.moreloshabla.com/morelos/cuernavaca/por-que-le-decimos-ciudad-de-la-eterna-primavera-a-cuernavaca/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181218191121/http://www.moreloshabla.com/morelos/cuernavaca/por-que-le-decimos-ciudad-de-la-eterna-primavera-a-cuernavaca/ |date=2018-12-18 }} accessed Dec 28, 2018</ref> Humboldt and Bonpland arrived in Mexico City, having been officially welcomed via a letter from the king's representative in New Spain, Viceroy Don [[José de Iturrigaray]]. Humboldt was also given a special passport to travel throughout New Spain and letters of introduction to intendants, the highest officials in New Spain's administrative districts (intendancies). This official aid to Humboldt allowed him to have access to crown records, mines, landed estates, canals, and Mexican antiquities from the prehispanic era.{{sfn|de Terra|1955|p=156}} Humboldt read the writings of Bishop-elect of the important diocese of Michoacan [[Manuel Abad y Queipo]], a [[classical liberal]], that were directed to the crown for the improvement of New Spain.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=527}}

They spent the year in the viceroyalty, traveling to different Mexican cities in the central plateau and the northern mining region. The first journey was from Acapulco to Mexico City, through what is now the Mexican state of [[Guerrero]]. The route was suitable only for mule train, and all along the way, Humboldt took measurements of elevation. When he left Mexico a year later in 1804, from the east coast port of Veracruz, he took a similar set of measures, which resulted in a chart in the ''Political Essay'', the physical plan of Mexico with the dangers of the road from Acapulco to Mexico City, and from Mexico City to Veracruz.<ref>''Plano físico de la Nueva España, Perfil del Camino de Acapulco a Mégico [sic], y de Mégico a Veracruz''. Chart is published in Magali M. Carrera, ''Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping Practices of Nineteenth-century Mexico'', Durham: Duke University Press 2011, p. 70, plate 18.</ref> This visual depiction of elevation was part of Humboldt's general insistence that the data he collected be presented in a way more easily understood than statistical charts. A great deal of his success in gaining a more general readership for his works was his understanding that "anything that has to do with extent or quantity can be represented geometrically. Statistical projections [charts and graphs], which speak to the senses without tiring the intellect have the advantage of bringing attention to a large number of important facts".<ref>Alexander von Humboldt, ''Atlás géographique et physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne'', lxxxiii–lxxiv, quoted in Anne Godlewska, ''Geography Unbound: French Geographic Science from Cassini to Humboldt''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1999, p. 257.</ref>

Humboldt was impressed with Mexico City, which at the time was the largest city in the Americas, and one that could be counted as modern. He declared "no city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico".<ref>Humboldt, ''Political essay'', p. 74.</ref> He pointed to the [[Palacio de Minería#History|Royal College of Mines]], the [[National Palace (Mexico)#Viceregal palace|Royal Botanical Garden]] and the [[Academy of San Carlos|Royal Academy of San Carlos]] as exemplars of a metropolitan capital in touch with the latest developments on the continent and insisting on its modernity.{{sfn|Brading|1991|pp=526–527}} He also recognized important [[Criollo people|criollo]] savants in Mexico, including [[José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez]], who died in 1799, just before Humboldt's visit; Miguel Velásquez de León; and [[Antonio de León y Gama]].{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=527}}

Humboldt spent time at the Valenciana silver mine in [[Guanajuato]], central New Spain, at the time the most important in the Spanish empire.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=525}} The bicentennial of his visit in Guanajuato was celebrated with a conference at the [[University of Guanajuato]], with Mexican academics highlighting various aspects of his impact on the city.<ref>José Luis Lara Valdés, ''Bicentenario de Humboldt en Guanajuato (1803–2003)''. Guanajuato: Ediciones La Rana 2003.</ref> Humboldt could have simply examined the geology of the fabulously rich mine, but he took the opportunity to study the entire mining complex as well as analyze mining statistics of its output. His report on silver mining is a major contribution, and considered the strongest and best informed section of his ''Political Essay''. Although Humboldt was himself a trained geologist and mining inspector, he drew on mining experts in Mexico. One was [[Fausto Elhuyar]], then head of the General Mining Court in Mexico City, who, like Humboldt was trained in Freiberg. Another was [[Andrés Manuel del Río]], director of Royal College of Mines, whom Humboldt knew when they were both students in Freiberg.{{sfn|de Terra|1955|pp=51, 156}} The Bourbon monarchs had established the mining court and the college to elevate mining as a profession, since revenues from silver constituted the crown's largest source of income. Humboldt also consulted other German mining experts, who were already in Mexico.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=527}} While Humboldt was a welcome foreign scientist and mining expert, the Spanish crown had established fertile ground for Humboldt's investigations into mining.

Spanish America's ancient civilizations were a source of interest for Humboldt, who included images of Mexican manuscripts (or codices) and Inca ruins in his richly illustrated ''Vues des cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amerique'' (1810–1813), the most experimental of Humboldt's publications, since it does not have "a single ordering principle" but his opinions and contentions based on observation.{{sfn|Kutzinski|Ette|2012|page=xxi}} For Humboldt, a key question was the influence of climate on the development of these civilizations.{{sfn|Brading|1991|p=523}} When he published his ''Vues des cordillères'', he included a color image of the [[Aztec calendar stone]], which had been discovered buried in the [[Zócalo|main plaza]] of Mexico City in 1790, along with select drawings of the [[Dresden Codex]] and others he sought out later in European collections. His aim was to muster evidence that these pictorial and sculptural images could allow the reconstruction of prehispanic history. He sought out Mexican experts in the interpretation of sources from there, especially Antonio Pichardo, who was the literary executor of [[Antonio de León y Gama]]'s work. For American-born Spaniards ([[Criollo people|criollos]]) who were seeking sources of pride in Mexico's ancient past, Humboldt's recognition of these ancient works and dissemination in his publications was a boon. He read the work of exiled Jesuit [[Francisco Javier Clavijero]], which celebrated Mexico's prehispanic civilization, and which Humboldt invoked to counter the pejorative assertions about the new world by Buffon, de Pauw, and Raynal.{{sfn|Kutzinski|Ette|2012|p=xv}} Humboldt ultimately viewed both the prehispanic realms of Mexico and Peru as despotic and barbaric.{{sfn|Brading|1991|pp=523–525}} However, he also drew attention to indigenous monuments and artifacts as cultural productions that had "both ... historical ''and'' artistic significance".{{sfn|Kutzinski|Ette|2012|p=xxxiii}}

One of his most widely read publications resulting from his travels and investigations in Spanish America was the ''Essai politique sur le royaum de la Nouvelle Espagne'', quickly translated to English as ''Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain'' (1811).<ref>''Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain'', (four volumes) translator John Black, London/Edinburgh: Longman, Hurst, Rees Orme and brown; and H. Colborn and W. Blackwood, and Brown and Crombie, Edinburgh 1811.</ref> This treatise was the result of Humboldt's own investigations as well as the generosity of Spanish colonial officials for statistical data.<ref>Benjamin Keen, "Alexander von Humboldt" in ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, p. 664.</ref>