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Christiana Garretson

Dr. Arguello

150 History Latin America to 1824

13 December 2011

Life in Colonial Brazil

On April 22, 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in Brazil as the first person to

explore the land. Brazil was one of Portugal’s colonies from the 16th

century until the

19th

century. Brazil declared its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822 and

became a constitutional monarchy known as the Empire of Brazil.

Portugal gained a lot of profit off of trading with China, India, and Indonesia,

which is why it did not have interest in Brazil. This changed in 1530 when the

Portuguese Crown figured out how to take control over Brazil without having to lose

money over it. A system called the Hereditary Captaincies was used, wherein Brazil was

divided into strips of land that were donated to noblemen of Portugal to occupy these

strips of land and report to the Portuguese king about the condition of the land. This

system, however, failed when only two of the strips of land were successfully occupied

by these noblemen. Since this plan failed, the Portuguese Crown decided to just take

over all of the land and gave it the name Brazil based on the land’s major export, brazil

wood.

Competition over the newly-claimed land was presented to Portugal during the

first two centuries of the colonial period when other European countries made attempts to

set up colonies in multiple parts of the territory claimed by Portugal. French colonists

attempted to settle in what is today Rio de Janeiro, but were driven out by the Portuguese

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with the help of Jesuits and some of the natives who were evangelized by the Jesuits.

The Dutch also made an attempt to take over some land, but their attempt was more

successful and lasted longer than the attempt of the French. Instead of going for the

interior, the Dutch had a strategy - they would begin at the coast. They took Bahia and

the capital, Salvador, and controlled a good part of the coast from 1630 to 1654, until

they were finally worn down by several years of constant attack and siege. In the year

1661, the Dutch withdrew from Brazil, with little ethnic or cultural influences left behind.

The relationship between Portugal and the native Indians of Brazil started out as

somewhat of a civil business relationship, wherein Portugal traded with the Indians for

items such as brazil wood, which Portugal wanted the Indians to bring to the coast of

Brazil. In return for these forest items, Portugal gave the Indians household items such as

pots an tools. When the Indians gained all of the tools and other items that they needed,

they no further showed interest in the trade arrangement with Portugal. This

discontinuation of the agreement led Portugal to switch from civil to violent. Because the

Indians would no longer participate in the agreement that they had, the Portuguese then

decided to enslave the Indians. This resulted in the Indians being viewed by the Crown

as slave labor. Portugal’s economy in Brazil was indeed based on the slavery of the

Indians. Much of the occurrences after this event were indeed shaped by the enslavement

of the Indians.

At one point, cane sugar was Brazil’s main product that they focused on.

However, this changed in the mid to late 1690s. In São Paulo and to the south of it,

newly-discovered gold fields were present. Most likely, the Paulistas found more than

they claimed they found, out of fear that the Portuguese would become greedy and the

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Portuguese authorities would take over São Paulo and rid them of what little

independence they had. Although this discovery of gold occurred between 1693 and

1695, the news of the mines was spread rather slowly. The largest deposit of gold was

along the Serra do Espinhaço, Brazil’s oldest geological formation. Throughout the Serra

do Espinhaço, it “seemed that every river, stream, and brook glittered with gold.” When

the news of the gold discoveries finally did get out, it sparked a gold rush that would not

be replicated or anything close to such, until the California gold rush of 1849. Most of

the miners of the gold were slaves owned by whites. Many of the African slaves ran

away from the hard lifestyle of mining gold, though the first few decades of life in Brazil

were inevitably difficult for everyone, slaves and non-slaves alike. Seemingly simple

items such as corn, meat, and flour were rare and also expensive. For example, a small

flask of salt would cost as much as a half pound of gold. Although gold mining replaced

sugar as the leading economic product of the colony, the value of Brazil’s gold exports

never managed to exceed the value of sugar-led agricultural exports.

Due to the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in November of 1807, Portuguese

officials declared that it would be wise to move the crown to Brazil for safety. They were

faced with a dilemma - lose Portugal to the French and have the British take over Brazil,

or move the crown to Brazil and continue to fight for Portugal. No movement was made

until Portugal was invaded in late 1807. The Portuguese crown then had to essentially

duplicated from scratch the government it had left behind in Lisbon. A Supreme Military

Council was set up along with boards of treasury, trade, agriculture and so on, among

with other necessities for a successful government. The British liberated Portugal from

the French in 1811, stayed in Brazil, and somehow managed to keep British influence to

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a minimum. In 1815, the Portuguese crown raised Brazil to a kingdom that was equal

with Portugal. The crown then arranged marriages between the two princesses and the

Spanish king and his brother, and also between Crown Prince Pedro and the daughter of

Franz of Austria, who was the Archduchess of Leopoldina.

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Sources Used

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brazil

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0015%29

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0018%29

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0019%29