Brazil

C

2

Discovery of Gold and Diamonds

In the late 17th century, Brazilian explorers known as bandeirantes began to find gold in the mountain streams to the north of Rio de Janeiro. Word of the discovery of gold filtered back slowly to the coast and to Lisbon. By 1700 the western world’s first great gold rush had begun. Thousands of colonists and slaves poured into the rugged mountains north of Rio de Janeiro. The rush eventually spread on a smaller scale to the west, to present-day Goiás and Mato Grosso. It received new stimulus in the 1720s with the discovery of diamonds in the region north of the gold fields. Gold and diamond production rose dramatically until 1760. Probably 80 percent of the gold circulating in 18th-century Europe came from Brazil. The discovery of gold revitalized Brazil’s economy, which had been stagnating since the decline of the sugar plantations, although the increase in available cash also caused prices to rise in the colony. In Lisbon, the Portuguese monarchy grew rich from collecting its one-fifth share of the gold that was mined in Brazil. Sugar, gold, and diamonds established Brazil as the economic heartland of the battered and reduced Portuguese Empire.

For the first time, the Portuguese established effective colonization in the interior. The area of Minas Gerais became the most populous in Brazil. The bandeirantes and prospectors had extended the reach of Portugal far into the interior, creating a Brazil of continental dimensions. The Treaty of Madrid signed by Spain and Portugal in 1750 moved the old Tordesillas line westward to reflect the lands effectively occupied by the two major colonial powers in South America. The present boundaries of Brazil roughly follow that line.

The flow of goods and people into the southeast also drained an already weak northeastern plantation economy. In 1763 the king moved the colonial capital from Salvador to the booming city of Rio de Janeiro, which served as the main entry and exit point for colonists, slaves, and goods to and from Minas Gerais. The result of the gold rush in Brazil is evident in the dozens of beautiful baroque churches and hundreds of statues and paintings, principally in Minas Gerais.

In Portugal the wealth from Brazil made the monarchy very powerful. The dictatorial Marquis of Pombal, the chief minister of King Joseph Emanuel of Portugal, used this power to modernize the imperial system. In 1755 he abolished slavery in Portugal and prohibited the enslavement of Native Americans by declaring them free citizens of Brazil. Pombal wanted to outlaw African slavery in Brazil as well, but he realized that slavery formed a central part of Brazil’s plantation-based economy. Recognizing the importance of Brazil to the economic well-being of Portugal, Pombal tried to improve the efficiency of the Brazilian economy and administration and to lessen tensions between colonists and their Portuguese rulers. He involved Brazilian-born individuals in the colonial government, promoted new crops, and expelled the Jesuits, who had opposed his economic programs.

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D

Independence

In 1789 elites in the captaincy of Minas Gerais revolted, protesting the reassertion of imperial control and the imposition of new taxes. An early sign of Brazilian nationalism, the Minas Conspiracy involved prominent figures as well as military officers. The revolt failed and royal courts sentenced most of the conspirators to prison or exile. The only nonaristocratic member of the conspiracy, a military officer by the name of Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, became the scapegoat. Best known by his nickname, Tiradentes (Toothpuller)—one of his many professions was dentistry—he was hanged in 1793 and became a martyr for the cause of Brazilian independence.

The connection between Portugal and Brazil was severed when Napoleon I and his armies invaded Portugal and Spain in 1807 and 1808. Napoleon, who had become emperor of France following the French Revolution (1789-1799), deposed and imprisoned the Spanish king Ferdinand VII in 1808. This left the Spanish American colonies isolated from royal control and set off a chain reaction that led to a series of long and bloody wars for independence (see Latin American Independence). Brazil avoided a similar fate when the monarchy fled Lisbon shortly before French troops entered the city in 1807. With the help of their British allies, who were fighting Napoleon’s forces, the royal family and 10,000 Portuguese followers made an unprecedented voyage across the Atlantic to Brazil, transferring the center of the empire to Rio de Janeiro. For the first and last time in Western history, a European monarchy would rule its empire from the colonies.

Portugal’s prince regent, the future King John VI, arrived in Brazil in early 1808 and for the next 13 years ruled Portugal’s Asian, African, and American colonies from Rio de Janeiro. In 1815 John VI elevated Brazil to the status of a kingdom, placing it on an equal footing with Portugal. The presence of the monarchy and court in Rio brought Brazilian and Portuguese elites together and paved the way for a gradual transition to independence.

By 1815 Napoleon had been defeated in Europe, opening the way for the monarchy to return to Lisbon. John VI, however, decided to remain in Brazil, but in 1820 the Portuguese army headed a revolution designed to bring about a constitutional government. The revolutionaries agreed that John VI would serve as constitutional monarch of the empire, but only on the condition that he return to Portugal. Threatened with the loss of his crown, John reluctantly left for Portugal in 1821. His 23-year-old son Pedro remained in the colony as prince regent of Brazil.

Pedro and his advisers realized that revolutions in other Latin American countries were encouraging a movement for national independence in Brazil. A new and aggressive Cortes (parliament) in Portugal contributed to the demand for independence through a series of inept actions that offended many influential Brazilians. Portuguese members of the Cortes showed open hostility toward the Brazilian representatives, whom they regarded as unsophisticated residents of a backward province. Then the Cortes further alienated Brazilians by attempting to restore Brazil to colonial status. Rather than trying to resist the growing momentum for independence, Pedro and his advisers decided to take control of this movement. On September 7, 1822, after receiving orders from the Portuguese Cortes curtailing his authority in Brazil, Pedro declared Brazil’s independence. Thus Brazil became one of the few Latin American colonies to make a peaceful transition to independence.

Pedro became Brazil’s first emperor as Pedro I. His greatest challenge was to keep this new nation of continental dimensions from fragmenting into several countries, as had happened in Spanish America. He hired Lord Thomas Cochrane, an admiral who had been thrown out of the British navy, to enforce his authority in Brazil. Cochrane defeated the small Portuguese fleet and crushed separatist revolts in the major regional centers along the coast. With a small, hired navy and very few battles, Brazil retained its unity after gaining its independence. Portugal recognized Brazil’s independence in 1825.

Despite his role in leading Brazil to independence, Pedro soon lost much of his support. He had been a resident of Brazil since the age of ten, but he was still Portuguese. Although Pedro abdicated the Portuguese throne, which he inherited in 1826, many Brazilians remained suspicious of his continued involvement in the affairs of his native Portugal. Members of the Brazilian elite were dissatisfied with Pedro for a number of reasons. Many of them opposed the new constitution written under his supervision and enacted in 1824. They were also displeased when he overrode the decision of the newly created Brazilian parliament and surrounded himself with Portuguese-born cabinet ministers. In the 1820s Pedro chose to renew a longstanding struggle with Argentina over the southern border of Brazil. The struggle erupted into the Cisplatine War (1825-1828). The war was unpopular with many Brazilians, especially after Brazil suffered a major military defeat at the hands of the Argentines in 1827. Faced with widespread opposition to his rule, Pedro abdicated his Brazilian throne in 1831 and returned to Portugal.

E

Pedro II and the Brazilian Empire

Like his father, Pedro I left behind his eldest son, the future Pedro II, to take his place in Brazil. Barely four years old when his father and family returned to Portugal in 1831, the young Pedro grew up a virtual orphan and received an extraordinary education. Carefully chosen tutors taught the future emperor Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, and English and gave him a broad education in the arts and sciences.

While the young emperor-to-be grew up, a council of regents appointed by Parliament ruled the country. For the first time, Brazilians governed Brazil. As in most of 19th-century Latin America, two political parties contended for power. Conservatives looked back to Portuguese values and traditions for their inspiration. They sought to maintain a strong centralized monarchy, a slave economy, and the influence of the Catholic Church. Liberals sought to mold their country in the image of England, France, and the United States. They wanted to diminish the influence of the church, restrain centralization and monarchy, and move toward a free labor economy. These were the ideals. When in power, each faction tended to be practical, sometimes implementing programs fought for by their opponents.

Throughout the 1830s the absence of a strong executive, disputes between liberals and conservatives, and powerful regional revolts threatened to shatter the fragile unity of the new nation. The constitution did not allow for the coronation of young Pedro until his 18th birthday, in December 1844. However, several factors combined to result in his coronation in 1840. Pedro was exceptionally mature, and both parties hoped that a monarch would provide the stability to prevent rebellions. In addition, both parties hoped that they might dominate the teenage emperor. In 1840 the Parliament offered the 13-year-old Pedro the crown. He accepted, beginning an era known as the Second Reign that lasted from 1840 to 1889.

E

1

A Changing Economy

The 1840s also mark the emergence of coffee cultivation, which became the engine of economic growth that transformed Brazil during the next century. Like sugar, coffee was not native to the Americas, but had been transported there from its place of origin in Africa. Cultivation spread through the fertile valleys near Rio de Janeiro in the 1820s and 1830s. During the next century, coffee cultivation also spread rapidly in the area north and west of Rio, in southern Minas Gerais and, most prominently, in the province of São Paulo. The rapid expansion of coffee fields quickly made Brazil the world’s leading exporter, a position it continues to hold today. Revenue generated by coffee drove the Brazilian economy until the Great Depression of the 1930s caused the collapse of national economies around the world. Coffee established southeastern Brazil—principally the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo—as the economic and political core of the nation.

In 1839 the discovery of vulcanization—a process that stabilizes products manufactured from rubber—caused rapid financial growth in the frontier towns of the Brazilian forests, where rubber was harvested from the sap of trees native to the area. Brazil produced the vast majority of the world’s rubber until early in the 1900s, when the British used smuggled seeds to establish more efficient plantations in East Asia.

E

2

Slavery

The coffee economy remained the backbone of the Brazilian economy long after rubber production collapsed, and it ran on slave labor. Brazil had imported half a million slaves in the 17th century to work on the sugar plantations of the Northeast. In the 18th century the gold fields of Minas Gerais had absorbed another 1.5 million Africans. In the first half of the 19th century alone, Brazil imported another 1.5 million slaves to fill the demand for labor on the coffee plantations of the southeast. As the abolitionist movement gained strength in England and the United States in the 19th century, British pressure forced Brazil to halt its 300-year-old Atlantic slave trade in 1850.

The 3 to 4 million Africans who entered Brazil as slaves up until 1850 fundamentally shaped the composition of Brazilian society. In 1800 Brazil had the largest slave population in the world (half of its population of 3 million), and this forced migration created a truly African American culture in Brazil. African music, religions, foods, and language patterns blended with the culture of the Portuguese and the Native Americans to produce a cultural mosaic that was a mixture of African, European, and Native American influences. European colonists adopted Native American customs and borrowed words from the indigenous languages, while African slaves blended their own religious rituals with those of Christianity to form such new Afro-Brazilian religions as Umbanda, Macumba, and Candomblé.

Although the slave trade was abolished in 1850, slavery remained legal in Brazil. Slavery had been central to the fabric of life in Brazil for so long that dismantling slavery took much longer than in any other society in the Americas. The slave system began to disintegrate in the 1880s with the rise of a vocal abolitionist movement, largely in the cities, and the growing tendency for slaves to flee from their masters. Legislation by conservatives attempted to stretch the process over decades by gradually freeing the children of slaves beginning in 1871 and by emancipating elderly slaves after 1885. By 1888 unrest on plantations, and the refusal of the army to step in and halt the flight of slaves from their masters, brought the system to the brink of chaos. Ruling in place of her father, who was in Europe for medical treatment, Princess Isabel decreed the end of slavery in the “Golden Law” of May 13, 1888. Rather than face the anarchy and upheaval of massive slave unrest and flight, slave owners grudgingly accepted abolition.

With the supply of new slave labor cut off after 1850 and the slave system in a state of disintegration, coffee planters turned to European immigration to meet their labor needs. Some 2.7 million immigrants—mainly from Italy, Spain, and Portugal—arrived in southeastern and southern Brazil between 1887 and 1914. These immigrants gradually replaced slaves as the labor force in the coffee fields. They turned southern Brazil into an area with a more urban and European culture, strikingly different from the older mining and plantation regions of Minas Gerais and the Northeast, where a more relaxed, rural atmosphere prevailed and where African cultural influences remained strong among the Afro-Brazilian population.

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