[1] He was also a Freemason and founded the Areopagus Lodge (Areópago de Itambé), a liberal philosophical society which attracted a number of local intellectuals and was involved in the Conspiracy of Suaçunas in 1801.

[3] On returning to Brazil in 1793 he became established in Goiana and undertook a series of mineralogical, botanical and zoological expeditions for the Portuguese Crown in the North east from 1794–1800.

Between March 1794 and September 1795 he explored Pernambuco and Piauí for minerals, Paraíba and Ceará from December 1797 to July 1799, and was in Maranhão from 1799 to 1800.

[3] He was visited by Henry Koster,[6] the American explorer, in 1810 during the latter's travels in Brazil, and who was later to incorporate some of Arruda's work into his own book of that name, published in 1816.

[8] In his home state of Paraíba, the Zoological and Botanical gardens (Parque Zoobotânico Arruda Câmara) in João Pessoa, the capital city, bear his name.

Arruda da Câmara's botanical contributions have not been well served by history, for instance the multiple inaccuracies in the Index Kewensis.