The American travel of the botanist Carl Friedrich Eduard Otto (1838-1841)

Abstract

The German naturalist Carl Friedrich Eduard Otto travelled during the 1838-1841 period through the West Indies and the American continent looking for botanical specimen and made a study on the social customs of the inhabitants. He went to Cuba, the United States of America and Venezuela. This work contains a further description of the places he visited and the itineraries he followed. The alive plants he harvested, were sent to the Botanical Garden in Berlin while the dry plants were sent to the Royal Herbarium. This study focuses on Otto and Humbolt's different criteria regarding the slavery and describes Otto's ideological class-conscious positions.