Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon

Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon aka Cândido Rondon aka Marechal Rondon (born May 5, 1865 died January 19, 1958) was a Brazilian military officer and explorer.

Explorations
In May 1909, Rondon set out on his longest expedition. He set out from the settlement of Tapirapuã in northern Mato Grosso heading northwest to meet up with the Madeira river, which is a major tributary of the Amazon River. By August, the party had eaten all of its supplies, and had to subsist on what they could hunt and gather from the forest. By the time they reached the Ji-Paraná River, they had no supplies. During their expedition they discovered a large river between the Juruena, and Ji-Paraná river, which Rondon named the River of Doubt. To reach the Madeira, they built canoes, and reached the Madeira on Christmas Day, 1909.

When Rondon reached Rio de Janeiro, he was hailed as a hero, because it was believed that he and the expedition had died in the jungle. After the expedition, he became the first director of the Brazilian Government's Indian Protection Agency, or the SPI.

Expedition with Roosevelt
In January 1914 Rondon and Roosevelt, former president of the United States of America. The Roosevelt-Rondon Scientifitc expedition's aim was to explore the River of Doubt. The expedition left the Tapiripuã, and reached the River of Doubt on 27 February 1914. The journey down the river proved harsh. Seven of the expeditions' canoes where destroyed, one man died in the rapids and everyone but Rondon became ill. At one point Roosevelt's leg was punctured in the rapids and it became heavily infected to the point that he requested his son, Kermit, leave him- but his son refused and by April the team reached the mouth of the river, and thus concluded their expedition. The river was from then on known as Rio Roosevelt.