HIS 359

Four key themes of Brazilian history (HIST 359)

(1) Problem & promise of geography; (2) decentralized governance; (3) elite attempts to control the territory & populace; (4) the key role of slavery.

How did geography shape Brazil's history?

Massive size led to weak national integration and a weak central state; it also created a split between Europeanized coastal cities and interior agricultural spaces.

Two questions raised by the colonial era

(1) Why was independence from Portugal so peaceful? (2) Why did Portuguese America stay one country (Brazil) while Spanish America splintered into many?

Why was colonial Brazil a "backwater"?

Settlement was as much a response to other European powers as a plan: Spain in the south, the French ("French Antarctica") in present-day Rio, the Dutch in Pernambuco in the NE.

Colonial era dates

1500-1822

Order of Portuguese settlement strategies

First trading forts, then hereditary captaincies (donatary system), then sesmarias (1530), alongside Christian missions.

Hereditary captaincies (donatary system)

Early strategy of dividing the Brazilian coast into strips of land granted to private holders to settle and run. Settlement hugged the coast.

Sesmarias (1530)

Land grants that required agricultural production, usually in the form of plantations.

How did sugar plantations relate to geography?

Self-contained export plantations (to Europe) on the coast with no penetration of the interior; their labor needs forced a shift from Indian to African slave labor.

How did mining change colonial geography?

Gold and diamonds in Minas Gerais pulled the Portuguese off the coast into the interior; towns like Ouro Preto (13 churches, many government buildings, no port) developed entirely in response to mining.

1763: capital moved from Salvador da Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. Why does it matter?

It represents the shift of Brazil's economy from sugar (Northeast) to mining (center-south).

Why did mining limit Brazilian development?

Few backward and forward linkages (unlike silver mining in Mexico and Peru). Slide: "Brazilian gold mined by African slaves financed British industrialization."

Treaty of Methuen (1703)

England wouldn't tax Portuguese wine; Portugal wouldn't tax English industrial goods (esp. textiles). Part of geopolitics (isolating Spain) and showed unequal terms of trade. Pedro I later replicated close ties with Britain.

Marquês de Pombal (ruled 1750-1777)

Prime minister under weak King José I; tightened Portuguese control over Brazil and increased colonial revenue to Portugal (the Pombaline Reforms).

1808: Portuguese royal court moves to Brazil

Napoleon invaded Portugal in late 1807; the Braganzas sailed to Brazil under British protection, arriving January 22, 1808. João VI ruled the Portuguese Empire from Brazil.

What did Brazil gain as "metropole" (1808-1821)?

Free trade with the rest of the world, a royal court in Rio, higher education and scientific communities, and a printing industry. The Enlightenment came to Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro's rise (colonial/imperial era)

Became colonial capital in 1763, seat of the royal court in 1808, and later the imperial capital.

Inconfidência Mineira (1789)

Failed independence plot in Minas Gerais by small planters, merchants, and clergy; Tiradentes (Joaquim José da Silva Xavier) was a key leader. Influenced by the US Constitution and events in France.

Why did the Inconfidência Mineira fail?

It was a multi-racial, multi-class rebellion, which doomed it in a slave society.

Independence timeline (1821-1822)

April 26, 1821: João VI returns to Portugal, leaves son Pedro in charge. Jan 9, 1822: "Fico" (I stay). Sept 7, 1822: Grito de Ipiranga ("Independence or Death!"). Dec 1, 1822: Pedro I becomes Constitutional Emperor.

The Fico (Jan 9, 1822)

Pedro's refusal to obey the Côrtes' order to return to Portugal: "Tell the people that I will stay."

Grito de Ipiranga (Sept 7, 1822)

On the Ipiranga River near São Paulo, Pedro received a Portuguese demand to return, raised his sword, and declared "Independence or Death!"

Implications of Brazilian independence

No real political change, no political or military mobilization (avoided Haiti or US-style upheaval), slavery maintained, social structure unchanged, and no program for where Brazil was going.

Why did peaceful independence hurt nation-building?

It didn't provide an arena for forging a national identity, and the exclusion of Indians and African slaves limited the development of a plebeian (common people's) Brazilian identity.

Two kinds of issues in defining a nation

Juridical (borders, system of government) and socio-cultural (what makes someone Brazilian? what does it mean to be Brazilian?).

Constituent Assembly of 1823

Elected May 1823: 26 lawyers, 22 judges, 19 priests, 7 military men. Mostly free-trade Liberals who wanted economic, not political, liberalism. Had a broader vision of Brazil than Pedro I, who focused on Portugal.

Pedro I dissolves the Assembly (Nov 11, 1823)

He exiled its leaders, then wrote the 1824 Constitution himself: three branches all controlled by the Emperor, who acted as the "Moderator" of national politics.

Pedro I's nationalism problem

As a Portuguese-born monarch he kept ties to Portugal and Britain; elites felt too little had changed. In 1831 he appointed an all-Brazilian-born cabinet for the first time (nine years late) and then abdicated.

The Regency (1831-1840)

Three powerful men ruled in the name of 5-year-old Pedro II, representing plantation owners. They opposed centralization in Rio and created extreme federalism, with the Regency subservient to the Assembly.

How did extreme federalism affect Brazil?

It deepened the power of regional elites and weakened Rio de Janeiro; slide notes it "kept the nation intact" but limited the government's ability to fight unrest.

Regency-era rebellions (1832-1838)

Five major rebellions in far-flung regions, often involving the poor and people of color; the weak central state had few institutions and was financially troubled.

July 23, 1840

Pedro II declared an adult at age 14; calmed politics, completed the "Brazilianization" of government, and challenged extreme federalism.

Pedro II as "Great Moderator"

Used the 1824 Constitution and shifted cabinets between Liberals and Conservatives to fit political reality, producing political peace that aided economic growth. He came to embody the nation.

Limits of Pedro II's peace

Weak national government limited national infrastructure; federalism was deepened by the lack of physical ties among regions.

Liberals vs Conservatives in the Empire

49 years, 36 ministries. Conservatives: landowners from declining NE areas. Liberals: landowners from powerful states (SP, MG). All supported slavery, and the differences were at the margins.

Coffee's rise (1830s-1889)

Developed in the Paraíba Valley in the 1830s; exports grew 7x from 1833-1889, with coffee about 2/3 of exports. Sugar dominant until the 1840s.

Coffee's impact on geography and nation

Railroads built for coffee exports; economic shift from Rio to São Paulo; rising role of the U.S.; free wage labor, the Bank of Brazil, and commercial codes; and a challenge to the slave regime.

Centralizing tendencies in the Empire

First telegraph, Biblioteca Nacional (1874), and steamers up the Amazon (Belém to Manaus) that cut travel time from months to days.

Paraguayan War (1865-1870)

Brazil's first national mobilization (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay vs Paraguay). Brazil lost 33,000-50,000 men. Created the military as a national institution.

How did the Paraguayan War connect to abolition?

About 6,000 slaves who fought were freed; freedom became tied to modern nationalism; the military became uninterested in hunting runaway slaves.

How did the Paraguayan War shape the military's outlook?

Officers saw Paraguay's industrial strength, began to see a need for development in Brazil, and saw the military's key role in it.

Federalism in the early Republic

Federalism of the Republic codified the regionalism of the Empire. Pedro II had been the ultimate authority; Deodoro wasn't, and states didn't see themselves as beneath the federal government.

Which states dominated the Republic?

São Paulo and Minas Gerais on top; Rio Grande do Sul, Rio state, and Bahia in the second rank, often allied with SP or MG.

Política do café com leite

São Paulo (coffee) and Minas Gerais (milk) dominated national politics and traded the presidency; governors from each took over. Linked to the rise of coronelismo.

Prudente de Morais (inaugurated March 1, 1894)

First elected president; lawyer from interior São Paulo who served the coffee barons. Floriano Peixoto turned to the São Paulo Republican Party (PRP) to save the Republic from regional forces.

Os Dois Brasis ("The Two Brazils")

Urban v. rural; pre-1888 slave v. free; white v. black (later white v. mixed race); coastal v. interior; civilization v. barbarism. Seen as a drag on national development.

1920s-1930s proposed solutions to the "two Brazils"

Gilberto Freyre's "Racial Democracy" and the Modernist intellectuals' "Cultural Cannibalism."

Millenarianism (definition and traits)

Belief in a coming profound transformation of society (Manichean, rooted in 1,000-year cycles). Groups see elites as corrupt, believe only they will survive, ignore social norms, and often withdraw from society.

Three major Brazilian millenarian examples

Canudos (1893-1897), Contestado (1912-1916), Joazeiro (1892-1934).

Sebastianism

Belief that King Sebastian of Portugal (died 1578 at Fez, Morocco) was a "sleeping king" who would return to restore Portugal's glory. It spread throughout the Portuguese-speaking world after Spain controlled Portugal (1580-1640).

Canudos: what and where?

Settlement in the interior of Bahia, founded by poor migrants fleeing drought; grew to 20,000+ residents. Led by Antônio Conselheiro. Seen as a rejection of the Republic.

Antônio Conselheiro's challenge

A popular religious leader who challenged Church authority and took over patron-client relations, eroding secular authority and undermining labor mobilization.

Why did the federal government attack Canudos?

State officials and police failed, so federal troops intervened (Jan 1897) to put caboclos and sertanejos "in their place." There was a racial and social component to the opposition to Canudos.

Outcome of the Canudos campaigns

Canudos defeated three expeditions with guerrilla tactics and scorched earth. A fourth, huge army under Minister of War Machado Bittencourt won on Oct 5, 1897 after artillery bombardment; thousands of civilians and at least 5,000 soldiers died; the area was later flooded.

Canudos's impact on the nation

Called into question the legitimacy of the Republic and the efficacy of its army; became a symbol of key divides in Brazilian society.

Canudos in national memory

Euclides da Cunha, Os Sertões (1902); Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World (1981).

Contestado Rebellion (1912-1916)

Millenarian rebellion in Paraná/Santa Catarina; a railroad disrupted traditional labor and patron-client (godparenthood) relations, and patrons were seen as selling out to foreign railroad interests. Federal troops took years to subdue the "fanatics."

What did Canudos and Contestado have in common?

Interior folk rejecting urban/coastal people as foreign (and so not Brazilian); competing visions of society; they highlighted physical, social, economic, and intellectual distances and the incompleteness of national development.

Effect of millenarian wars on the military

Officers were horrified by the social distances between coastal and rural Brazil and by the near total lack of infrastructure (it took forever to reach the interior). The military used the uprisings as a reason not to have democracy.

Effect of millenarian wars on the Modernists

They sought national development through physical, cultural, and economic interchange (cultural cannibalism of interior and coast) and the need to physically connect the nation.

Why were millenarian uprisings a form of popular politics?

In a closed, non-democratic system they were one of the more effective forms of popular politics available.

The Amazon in the national imagination

Brazil's "El Dorado": huge, mysterious, poorly known. Home to many quilombos that were tied to Brazil through trade (not autonomous). Hopes for wealth rested on this unknown region.

How did Goodyear change the Amazon?

1840: vulcanization of rubber (Second Industrial Revolution) sent world rubber demand soaring (industrial uses, bicycle craze). Steamship service up the Amazon began in 1852.

Rubber exports growth

69,174 lbs in 1827 to 5,215,560 lbs in 1853.

Seringueiros (rubber tappers)

Usually not indigenous; often mixed-race migrants from the Northeast. Worked alone, tapping about 200 trees spread over huge territory by hand with knives and buckets.

Rubber boom's population impact

Amazon region population grew from about 250,000 (1853) to over 1,000,000 (1910).

Manaus and Belém during the rubber boom

Taxes (not wages) funded city expansion. Manaus: first Brazilian city with electric lighting, modern waterworks, garbage collection, and Latin America's most elaborate opera house (built 1891-1896). Belém: 40,000 (1874) to 100,000 (1900).

Why did the rubber boom end?

The British created plantations in Asia that undercut Brazil on price. Brazil's Rubber Law of 1912 (plantations, transportation, immigrants, lower taxes) failed; rubber had limited lasting impact.

Growth of center-south cities

Belo Horizonte opened 1897 as Minas's new capital (moved from Ouro Preto); São Paulo grew from 65,000 (1890) to 580,000 (1920) with coffee.

Rio's remaking (Pereira Passos)

European-style urban renewal (Haussmann-style): tenements destroyed, poor moved to the periphery and relied on trains; broad boulevards like Avenida Rio Branco; French Second Empire buildings (Brazilian Belle Epoque).

"Para os ingleses ver" and favelas

"For the English to see": modern facades hid poverty; even the most modern cities had areas full of poor people, and favelas rose.

1904 Vaccination Riot (Rio)

Urban discontent against forced vaccination; rioters destroyed trolleys and gas lamps (symbols of the modern capital); on Nov 15, the Republic's anniversary; most rioters were people of color. Shows divides were often class and race rather than region.

Fordlândia (and Belterra)

Henry Ford's rubber plantations: planned towns, US-style housing, free health care and education, discounted food and housing, high wages. Failed because Amazonian soil couldn't support plantation agriculture, but symbolized an attempt to bridge the "two Brazils."

Brasília (1960)

Next great effort to bridge the divide: a new modernist capital opened in the interior.

Brazil's slavery "key facts"

Largest slaveholding society of the 19th century; abolition (1888) was the latest in the Western Hemisphere; the Myth of Racial Democracy shaped politics and development.

Why did Brazil turn to African slavery?

The Portuguese enslaved Indians (unlike the Spaniards), were interested in labor, not souls, and had a long history of using African slaves on their Atlantic sugar islands. Indians often fled to the interior; sugar profits let planters import Africans.

Slavery across Brazil's economic cycles

Sugar in the Northeast (16th c.); mining in Minas Gerais (mid-17th to 18th c.); coffee in the Paraíba Valley (1830s). Physical labor became synonymous with slavery.

Economics of slavery (fixed vs variable capital)

In slavery, labor becomes fixed capital instead of variable capital, which retards capitalist development.

Brutality of Brazilian slavery

Among the worst; life expectancy was about seven years after arrival from Africa.

Slave arrivals 1845-1851 and their significance

Peaked near 60,000 in 1848, then fell to 3,287 by 1851. High imports show brutality and a growing economy, and ongoing arrivals aided a vibrant Afro-Brazilian culture.

Complexities of slavery in Brazil

Some slaves were highly skilled and rented out by owners; some saved money and bought goods/services; avenues for redress or freedom existed, including buying freedom with earned or pooled money.

Slave brotherhoods

Proto-unions dominated by skilled slaves; helped slaves buy freedom and provided a decent funeral.

Quilombo

Runaway slave community; flight was a key tool of resistance. Palmares was the most famous. Mixed with Indians, mestiços, and others; a key form of interior settlement before the 20th century.

Senzala

Slave quarters on a plantation.

Slavery's long-term impact

Absence of freedom for most of the 19th-century population; reliance on unfree labor denigrated work; hindered capitalism and democracy in the 20th century.

How does slavery challenge national myths?

It challenges Racial Democracy and Conciliation, but features of Brazilian slavery (avenues to freedom, mixing) help explain how those myths arose.

Brazil's population and slavery, 1822 vs 1888

1822: about 4 million people, half enslaved. 1888: about 14 million people, only about 750,000 enslaved (around 5%).

Gradual abolition laws

1850 Queiróz Law (slave imports collapse); 1871 Law of the Free Womb; 1885 Saraiva-Cotegipe Law; May 13, 1888 Golden Law (Lei Áurea). "Evolution not revolution."

Two late-19th-century views of slaves

Slaves as an "enemy within" vs. slaves as people to be integrated into society. Both saw abolition as inevitable.

Golden Law (May 13, 1888)

Signed by Princess Isabel(la); freed about 750,000 slaves. Slavery had already declined dramatically but remained a key issue after abolition.

Why did the Empire's liberals and conservatives agree on slavery?

All supported slavery during the Empire; violence was used to maintain slavery but there was little conflict among elites.

From abolition to republicanism

Shift from subjects to citizens; Republican parties (Partidos Republicanos) founded; military men were drawn to capitalism, republicanism, and positivism.

Positivism

Belief in a scientific method to discover truth (Auguste Comte, French, 1798-1857): Order, Progress, and Love. Brazil's flag motto "Ordem e Progresso" comes from it.

Clube Militar (1886)

Positivist and Republican; the military was Brazil's one true national institution.

Fall of the Empire (Nov 15, 1889)

Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca led the military in ending the Empire. "Passive voice": pillars of support withdrawn (tied to abolition) without popular mobilization, so the Republic had no narrative of popular democracy.

Juan Bautista Alberdi's phrase

"To govern is to populate": Argentine idea of filling open spaces with white European immigrants; Indigenous and Afro-Argentine populations were read as a "drag" on development.

Why did Brazil want immigrants?

To populate and control its massive territory, to ease social/racial/class divides (slavery and abolition, Canudos and Contestado, the 1904 Vaccination Riot), to integrate markets for labor, goods, and services, and to peacefully unify the nation.

Push vs pull factors

Push: factors in Europe and elsewhere driving people to seek work/a better life. Pull: opportunities in the Americas attracting them.