Joseph Gumilla (1686, in Cárcer – 1750, in the

Llanos The Llanos (Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, sav ...

) was a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

priest who wrote a natural history of the

Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

region.

Biography

In 1705 he left Spain for

New Granada New Granada may refer to various former national denominations for the present-day country of Colombia. *New Kingdom of Granada, from 1538 to 1717 *Viceroyalty of New Granada, from 1717 to 1810, re-established from 1816 to 1819 *United Provinces of ...

(today Colombia) where he studied at the Universidad Javeriana in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

. He was ordained in 1714 and went to the Orinoco Mission. In 1701 he went to

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

and worked there for 35 years. He was sometime Rector of the School of Cartagena, Provincial Superior of New Granada, and Procurator in Rome from 1738. Here he wrote ''El Orinoco Ilustrado'' (Madrid, 1741). He returned to South America in 1743 with

Filippo Salvatore Gilii Filippo Salvatore Gilii (Spanish: Felipe Salvador Gilij) (1721–1789) was an Italian Jesuit priest who lived in the Province of Venezuela (in present day central Venezuela) on the Orinoco River. Gilii is a highly celebrated figure in early Sou ...

. Gumilla introduced coffee into Venezuela in 1732. The beans were exported to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

References

*Gumilla, (Padre) Joseph. El Orinoco ilustrado y defendido. ''Historia natural, civil y geográfica de este gran río y de sus caudalosas vertientes''. Escrito en 1731. Ediciones posteriores: 1745, 1791 y 1882. Versión francesa, 1758. Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, Fuentes para la Historia Colonial de Venezuela, Nº 68, 1963. *Gumilla, José. ''Tribus indígenas del Orinoco''. Caracas: Instituto Nacional de Cooperación Educativa (I.N.C.E.), 1968. *Ramos Perez, Demetrio. Un plan de inmigración y libre comercio defendido por Gumilla para Guayana en 1739. ''Anuario de Estudios Americanos'', Tomo XV, 1958.

External links

Jesuit Stamps
Portrait on a postage stamp. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gumilla, Jose Spanish naturalists 1686 births 1750 deaths 18th-century Spanish Jesuits