Teddy Roosevelt and the River of Doubt
Four years after America’s 26th President left office—a man averse to idle vacations—Teddy Roosevelt and his son Kermit embarked on a perilous journey down the Amazon’s uncharted Rio da Dúvida or River of Doubt—an adventure that nearly cost the 55-year-old ex-president his life. Whether herding cattle on his ranch in the Dakotas or hunting cougar in Arizona—even spending a year on safari in Africa—all of Roosevelt’s pursuits came with high levels of hardship and risk; two components which he once famously termed as “the strenuous life.”
Forewarned of Dangers
Calling the trip his “last chance to be a boy,” the two Roosevelts set out with veteran Brazilian explorer Colonel Candido Rondon, and when the head of the American Museum of Natural History attempted to warn Roosevelt of the dangers that lay ahead, Roosevelt replied, “If it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so.” After completing a lecture tour of South America, in late 1913, Roosevelt and Rondon set out with a small army of porters, scientists and explorers, traveling by steamship to the remote Brazilian town of Tapirapoan, before embarking on a two-month overland journey to the River of Doubt.
A Fatal Decision
Reaching the river in February of 1914, 22 intrepid explorers began their treacherous descent of the uncharted river, despite constant attacks by snakes, alligators, piranhas, hostile indigenous people, mosquitos and stinging flies. Slowed by repeated waterfalls on the river, the team of explorers were forced to either run the rapids or portage their dugout canoes overland, but when Roosevelt’s 23-year-old son decided to run one particularly dangerous rapids on March 15th, Kermit’s canoe was sucked into a hydraulic before plunging over a waterfall, taking the life of a Brazilian named Simplicio.
Hostile Natives
Stalked by hostile natives and plagued by malaria, dysentery and a troubling lack of supplies, Roosevelt fell ill to Malaria before slicing his leg open on a rock. Reaching a low point in early April, after a porter named Julio shot and killed another man who had caught him stealing food, when the team failed to capture the murderer, they simply abandoned him to certain death in the jungle. Their clothes reduced to rags, Roosevelt weakened badly as the party survived on fish and hearts of palm.
A Narrow Escape
Losing a fourth of his body weight and now delirious from fever and infection, Roosevelt repeatedly implored the team to leave him behind to die, but Kermit would have no part of that, rowing his father to civilization on April 26th, 1914, after a two-month journey that left every man thankful to be alive, making Teddy Roosevelt’s trip down the River of Doubt, a life-altering adventure for the record books.