- James Cooley Fletcher
James Cooley Fletcher (b. 1823 in
Indianapolis - d. 1901) was aPresbyterian minister andmissionary .Fletcher was the son of
Calvin Fletcher , a banker and one of the first settlers ofIndiana . James Cooley Fletcher graduated fromBrown University in 1846, and studied theology for two years in thePrinceton Theological Seminary underCharles Hodge . His studies were completed in Europe, as he sought to improve his French in order to become a missionary inHaiti . In that period he married a daughter ofCesar Malan , a minister fromGeneva .He went back to the USA in 1850, when his daughter
Julia Constance Fletcher was born. In the next year he went toRio de Janeiro (at that time the capital ofBrazil ) as an agent of both theAmerican Christian Union andAmerican Seamen's Friend Society in a mission which endured until 1854. The American Christian Union worked together with theAmerican Bible Society and theAmerican Tract Society . Both of them also supported Fletcher years later.In 1855 and 1856 Fletcher was back in Brazil, this time as an agent of the
American Sunday School Union . During this trip he traveled more than five thousand kilometers through Brazil, giving outBible s. His travels to Brazil, added to the experiences of the Methodist minister and missionaryDaniel Parish Kidder , became the focus of a book in 1857, "Brazil and the Brazilians Portrayed in Historical and Descriptive Sketches ", with at least eight editions.In 1862, Fletcher sailed more than three thousand kilometers through the
Amazon River to collect species for professorAndré Agassiz . This resulted in the Agassiz expedition of 1865. In 1864 and 1865 Fletcher and the liberal Brazilian politicianAureliano Cândido Tavares Bastos convinced the governors of Brazil and the USA to set up asteamboat line between Rio de Janeiro and New York. Influenced by Fletcher, Aureliano and other Brazilian politicians tried and in some cases managed to make many political, social and economic reforms in Brazil; they also encouraged European and North American migrants.In 1868 and 1869 Fletcher worked as an agent for the
American Tract Society . This would be his last journey to Brazil. Thereafter he was nominated consul atOporto, Portugal , between 1869 and 1873 and was a missionary inNaples, Italy between 1873 and 1877. In 1877 he returned to Indianapolis, where he settled. His daughter stayed in Italy, where she became a prolific writer with the pen nameGeorge Fleming .Fletcher left many important friends in Brazil, including liberal politicians and intellectuals and the emperor
Dom Pedro II . He worked as a North American diplomatic secretary and his book left a strong image of Brazil in the USA. In Brazil, he left behind a strong desire for Protestant and Anglo-Saxon values.
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