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Title: Brazil today and tomorrow
Author: Lilian Elwyn Elliott
Release date: June 17, 2024 [eBook #73851]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The MacMillan Company, 1917
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRAZIL TODAY AND TOMORROW ***
BRAZIL
TODAY AND TOMORROW
[Illustration: [Logo]]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration:
_Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro._
In the background are the Dois Irmãos Mountains, the flat-topped
Gavea, and the curved granite peak of Corcovado.
]
BRAZIL
TODAY AND TOMORROW
BY
L. E. ELLIOTT, F. R. G. S., F. R. A. I., Etc.
AUTHOR OF “BLACK GOLD,” “CHILE, TODAY AND TOMORROW,” etc. LITERARY
EDITOR, PAN AMERICAN MAGAZINE
ILLUSTRATED
“The time will come when the Ocean will no longer limit the known
lands, when a new world shall be opened up to the followers of the
sea, and Thule will be no longer the Ultima Thule of the earth.”
_Seneca_, “Medea.”
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1917.
Revised Edition October, 1922.
Printed in the United States of America
TO
M. L. E.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
Brazil’s Great Extent—Virgin Interior—Development during Last
Hundred Years—Variety of Soil and Climate—Amazon Basin,
Central Plateau, Coast—Diversified Industries and
Populations—Divergent Interests—Brazil Over-Praised and
Over-Blamed—South American Standpoint—North and South
Americans—Ties with Europe.
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF BRAZIL 10
Discovery—Henry the Navigator—Search for Cathay—Captain
Cabral—Duarte Coelho—The Capitanias—Ramalho and Caramarú—São
Paulo, Bahia and Pernambuco—The Jesuits—Mamelucos—First
Entradas—The Sertão—The Bandeirantes—Raposo—Fernão Dias—Gold
and Diamonds—Destruction of the Missions—Brazil under Spain—
Corsairs—The Dutch in North Brazil—Portugal regains
Independence—Evacuation by Dutch—The French in Rio—Interior
Mines and Settlement—The Marquis de Pombal—Expulsion of
Jesuits—Dom João in Brazil—Dom Pedro I—Independent Monarchy—
Dom Pedro II—Abolition of Slavery—Republic.
CHAPTER II
COLONIZATION 56
Group Immigration Planned—Swiss in Nova Friburgo—First
Germans in Rio Grande—Petropolis and Blumenau—Joinville—
German Emigration Forbidden—Portuguese Colonies—Parceria
System—French and Alsatians—North Americans—Santa Barbara and
the Consul—New Italian Stream—Colonos and the Patronato
Agricola—Poles and Russians—Conditions of Settlement in São
Paulo—Present Status of Colonies—Japanese at Iguape—Numbers
of Immigrants entering Brazil—Future Immigration—Best Points
of Settlement—Class needed.
CHAPTER III
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 76
Brazilian Courtesy—European Influence—Titles—Dominating
Class—Fazendeiros and Commerciantes—Mixed Blood and the
Labouring Classes—Bacharelismo—The Sertanejo—Life in the
Interior—Festas—The Tropeiro—Lotteries—The Bicho—Coffee
Drinking—Religion—Saints’ Days—Ceremonies—Position of Women—
The Brazilian Girl and Wife—City Life—Literature—Novels—
Poets—The Stage—The Press—Influence of Blood, European and
African—Negro Cooking and Folklore—The Native Brazilian—
Pottery and Weaving—Ideas and Ability—Work of Rondon—Fate of
the Indian—Education—Brazil not Revolutionary—The A. B. C.
Treaty.
CHAPTER IV
TRANSPORTATION. I. RIVER AND ROAD 123
Early Water Communication—Waterways Penetrating Interior—
Great rivers—Early roads—New Automobile highways
II. RAIL 129
First Railroad Planning—First Construction—Coffee Railways—
Climbing the Mountain Barrier—Work in Empire and Republic—
Borrowing—Linking Centres—Radiating Lines—Roads Serving
States, South to North—Brazil Railway Company—The Central
Line—Leopoldina—Bahia Roads—Great Western—Northern Lines—
Roads Passing Falls—Financial Conditions—Status of Ownership—
Future Lines.
III. SHIPPING 161
Steamship River Service—Sea Communication—Nationality of
Lines—Brazilian Mercantile Marine.
CHAPTER V
INDUSTRIES 167
The Coffee Industry of Brazil—The Rubber Industry of the
Amazon—The Meat Industry: Cattle Raising and Packing-Houses—
Cotton Growing and Weaving—Herva Matte—Sugar—Tobacco—Wheat—
Fibres—Cacao—Mining—Brazilian Manufactures: Artificial
Industries; Industrial Centres; Capital; National Industries
Competing with Importations; Imposts; Factories of São Paulo;
Textiles; Locality of Mills in Brazil; Labour and Consumption
of Material; National Dyes; Water power.
CHAPTER VI
FINANCE. I. CURRENCY 276
Value of the milreis—Fluctuations—Caixa de Conversão—
Convertible and Inconvertible Paper—Emergency Issues—Treasury
Bills—Paper Currency, at Different Dates—Metal Coinage—
Effects of Fallen Exchange.
II. INVESTMENTS 285
Blood, Brains and Money—British Investments—Railways—Public
Utilities and Industrials—External Loans—French Investments—
German Work—North American Interests—Banks in Brazil.
III. State Debts—Municipal Debts—Federal Debts—Funding Loans—
Resumption of Specie Payments—Sources of State and Federal
Revenue. 297
CHAPTER VII
THE WORLD’S HORTICULTURAL AND MEDICINAL DEBT TO BRAZIL 306
Brazilian Origin of Well-known Flowers—First Botanists—Piso
and Marcgrav—Loudon’s Hortus—Gardner—Orchids—Cattley—Flowers
and Shrubs—Fruits—Medicines—Ipecacuanha—Copaiba—Jaborandi—
Guaraná—Native Remedies—Mineral Waters.
CHAPTER VIII
BRAZIL’S EXTERIOR COMMERCE 316
Dominant Districts and Industries—Figures of Ten-year Periods
of Commerce—The Nine Principal Articles—São Paulo’s Share—
United States Purchases—Imports—Their Origin—Balance of
Trade.
List of Brazilian States, Area and Population 324
Glossary of Brazilian terms 325
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece, Botafogo Bay, Rio
de Janeiro
_Opposite page_
Entrance of Rio de Janeiro Harbour, 4
Ponte Santa Isabel, Recife; Praça Mauá; Water-front
at Bahia, 20
Falls of Iguassú, 32
Old and New Brazil, 38
Two views of S. Paulo City, 46
Two views of the Avenida Rio Branco, Rio, 50
Agriculture in S. Paulo, 66
Barra Road, Bahia; Resaca, Rio; Upper Amazon, 74
Monroe Palacio, Rio; Municipal Theatre, S. Paulo, 88
Igapó near Rio Negro; Caripuna Indians, Madeira
River, 110
Agricultural School, Piracicaba; Butantan
Institute, 116
The São Paulo Railway, 132
Rua Barão da Victoria, Pernambuco; Avenida 7 de
Setembro, Bahia, 150
Porto Velho, Madeira-Mamoré; Igarapé S. Vicente,
Manáos, 154
Water-front of S. Salvador (Bahia); Floating docks
at Manáos, 162
The São Paulo Coffee Industry, 176
Rubber on the Amazon, 200
The Cattle Industry, 212
Carioca Cotton Mill, Rio; Catende Sugar Mill,
Pernambuco, 244
Coffee-loading equipment, Santos; Sugar lands in
Pernambuco, 264
Ministry of War, Rio; Avenida Nazareth, Belem, 284
Fishing Boats; Rocks at Guarujá; Bertioga;
Cantareira Water Supply, 302
On the Madeira River, Amazonas; Victoria Regia
lilies, near Manáos, 310
Map showing factories, employees, etc, 274
Map showing agricultural production, 324
Coloured map of Brazil, showing railways, rivers,
mountains, chief towns, 328
BRAZIL: TODAY AND TOMORROW
The greatest of all American countries is comparatively the least
developed. Brazil, with her 3,300,000 square miles of territory, four
thousand miles of coast, and her incomparable system of great waterways,
has the largest extent of wild and almost unknown country of any
political division of the New World; she, and she alone, owns thousands
of square miles of forests where no one has set foot but the native,
still really living in the Stone Age, mountain ranges never properly
prospected, with their deposits of minerals scarcely scratched, and
millions of acres of grassy uplands waiting for the farmer and the
stock-raiser.
Brazil is not scantily developed because little has been done; on the
contrary, a wonderful amount of development has been accomplished, but
the period of expansion has been short and the country so great and
varied that whole regions remain out of the track of progress. Until a
century ago, when Dom João opened Brazilian ports to international
commerce, Brazil lay in a trance, bound hand and foot to Portugal,
isolated from the world. Her erection into a separate monarchy found her
without capital, without education, for she had neither adequate primary
nor technical schools, without a press, and without any knowledge of her
own resources except that gathered by the interior raids, wanderings and
settlements of her own hardy people.
Everything that has been done to bring Brazil into the race of nations
is the work of the last hundred years; the most intense period of rapid
building since the establishment of the republic has lasted less than
thirty years, for in that time has taken place the great acquisition of
private fortunes in the industrial regions of Brazil. Much of the civic
building, creation of public utilities, establishment of transportation
lines, has been due to foreign capital and technical skill, but Brazil
herself has contributed no small share of enterprise during the last
fifty years; descendants of Portuguese _fidalgos_ have taken up
engineering, agriculture, commerce and city-making with energy and
intelligence which is not always given a due share of recognition by
those onlookers who think that all development of Latin America must
come from without. In Brazil much progress, much creation, has come from
within, and will come to an even larger degree in the future with
improvement in technical education; but the country is enormous, the
centres of population have always lain on or near the sea-border, and
interior Brazil, the virgin heart of South America, remains practically
untouched.
The two great interior states of Matto Grosso and Goyaz cover an area of
more than two million square kilometres; they make up one-fourth of the
whole Brazilian territory, and Brazil covers half of South America: but
this huge heart-shaped wedge in the centre of the continent has no more
than half a million population. This is not because the country is
tropical or worthless, but because it is unopened and unknown.
Within her wide area Brazil encloses a great variety of soils and
climates: she has no snow line, because she has no great mountain
heights; a peak less than three thousand metres high, Itatiaya, in the
Mantiqueiras, is the point of greatest altitude. But she has almost
every other climatic gift that can be included within the fifth degree
of North and thirty-third of South Latitude; between the eighth degree
East and thirtieth West Longitude of the meridian of Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil is a vast plateau with a steep descent to the sea along half her
coast, and a flat hot sea margin of varying widths; this plateau, scored
by great rivers, sweeps away in undulating prairies, sloping in two
principal directions—inland, in the centre and south, to the great
Paraná valley; and in the upper regions, northward to the immense Amazon
basin. This is not a basin so much as a wide plate, for not only is the
course of the huge _rio-mar_ almost flat for the last thousand miles of
its journey to the sea (Manáos is only 85 feet above sea-level) but this
practically level ground extends northward all the way to the confines
of Venezuela and the three Guianas, and southward until the Cordilheiras
of Matto Grosso are encountered. Great expanses of this plate are filled
with the sweltering forests of tropical tradition, forests containing a
thousand kinds of strange orchids, immense and curious trees, insects,
reptiles and animals; from Orellana and Lopez de Aguirre to Humboldt,
Bates, Wallace and Agassiz, from the Lord de la Ravardière to Nicolas
Hortsman the practical Dutchman who announced that El Dorado did not
exist, to Charles Marie de la Condamine, Martius, Spix, Admiral Smith,
Lister Maw, Schomburgk and Wickham, every traveller upon the Amazon has
tried to describe the indescribable Amazonian forest. Deep, monotonous,
silent, dark and changeless, the forest unconquerable walls in the
uncountable rivers traversing it from the snows of Peru and the interior
plateau of Brazil, closing in upon the little cities where man has
settled himself in a puny attempt to steal treasures out of its mighty
heart.
There is a remarkable contrast between this humid forestal area of the
north and the cool high cattle lands of the centre, the pine and matte
woods and wheat lands of the south and the hot coastal belt of the great
promontory with its deep fringe of coconuts, its sugar country, tobacco
fields and cacao plantations; between the coffee country of São Paulo
and the regions of the carnauba palm and the babassú. No physical
contrast could be more acute than that of the flat tropic swamps of Pará
and the austere, fantastic and beautiful granite peaks of the Serra do
Mar near Rio—the slender Finger of God in the Orgão Mountains, the
curved up-rearing of the Corcovado, the cloud-wreathed head of Tijuca.
Nor is there less contrast in the different industries resulting from
the different products of the widely diversified regions, and the
population inhabiting them. The extreme north exists largely upon the
rubber business, where independent individuals extract gum from wild
trees in regions that are sometimes scarcely charted; in the south an
imported Italian population performs routine tasks on the highly
organized coffee plantations.
[Illustration:
_Entrance of Rio de Janeiro Harbour_ (Bahia de Guanabara).
Showing the farther shore, the forts, the Pão d’Assucar, and the loop
of Botafogo Bay.
]
In between these two sharply marked divisions there are many industries
and many grades of labour, from the _caboclo_ half-Indian of the north
to the negro of the centre and the Japanese, Syrian and Pole of the
southerly colonies, as well as the descendant of the Portuguese. There
is in some parts of Brazil such a mixture of races and tongues that it
seems as if the Jesuits were needed again to invent a new _lingua
geral_. Contrasts in personality, as well as in soil and climate in
Brazil, and the difference in accessibility between an open seaboard and
a deep and roadless interior, have all aided to bring about the marked
diversity of interests which have more than once proved the salvation of
the country. Publicists in Brazil sometimes sound a note of warning
against the decentralization that has grown more emphatic since the
erection of the Republican system gave autonomous powers to the States;
there have been suggestions of separation of north from south on account
of their distinct interests; but it is impossible to doubt that a
country with a score of industries and of products to offer to world
markets is in a better economic position than lands depending upon two
or three main sources of income.
In the Argentine the city of Buenos Aires is the centre and fount of
business; every great house has its headquarters there, its railway
links and commercial arms reach out into all productive parts of the
country. To Buenos Aires everything comes to be marketed whether from
the interior or from abroad: it is _the_ city, the head and heart of the
Argentine. It is not possible to point to any one city in Brazil and to
say the same. Not even lovely and splendid Rio, federal capital and gay
vortex as she is, can claim to represent the commercial interest of the
country; she is the spending-place of much of Brazil’s income, but she
is not the greatest earner. This honour falls to São Paulo, with Santos
as the biggest exporter of values; no one denies the commercial palm to
the Paulistas, but it is not heresy to say that the elimination of the
coffee industry would not destroy the life of Brazil as, for example,
the disappearance of the cereal or cattle industry would threaten the
Argentine. She would still retain her _herva matte_, her cattle, her
mines; her rubber, wax, fruit, cotton, sugar, and tobacco; her hardwoods
and forestal drugs and dyes, her cacao and fibres and nuts.
A whole world of interests divides São Paulo from Bahia, Bahia from
Pará, Pará from Pernambuco, Maranhão from Victoria, Maceió from Porto
Alegre, Rio de Janeiro from Manáos, Ilhéos from Paranaguá, Mossoró from
São Francisco, Fortaleza from Florianopolis; some of these ports are
great economically, alive with shipping, while others are little
developing points which have not yet achieved international fame; but
each has its distinct _raison d’être_ and has a divergent social and
economic impulse from that of many of her sisters. It is true that
certain states seem to produce almost everything tropical or
sub-tropical as well as being endowed with minerals, as Minas Geraes,
growing coffee, cotton, raising cattle, mining precious stones, gold and
iron ore, weaving her cotton and running a great dairy business with
interstate shipments of her famous cheese and butter; or Pernambuco and
the other states of the great promontory, with a host of different
products; or São Paulo, where an energetic Brazilian _fazendeiro_, to
show what his state can grow besides coffee, cotton, rice and sugar, has
gardens containing “every known fruit” of temperate and tropical zones.
But the distinct local industries of the widely varying Brazilian soil
and climate are the most striking and promising elements of her economic
life.
Many parts of South America have suffered from over-praise as much as
from unmerited blame. None have suffered more than Brazil, shut off from
the non-Latin world rather more than is Spanish America because of her
Portuguese idiom. There is little enough thorough study of Spanish on
the part of Anglo-Saxons, but it is mighty compared to the study of
Portuguese, a beautiful language and probably rather more readily
acquired than the formal and clear-cut idiom of Castile.
Non-comprehension of Portuguese and Spanish has been a bar to
understanding of the soul of Latin America; nearly every person who
wishes to learn something about any part of the Southern Continent runs
to the libraries for a book of travels, generally written by a
foreigner, himself sparsely acquainted with the language of the country
about which he is writing, and frequently entirely from an outside
viewpoint. There is a remarkable absence of study of South America from
the South American’s viewpoint, and it is for this reason that I have
tried in this book to quote from Brazilian books and newspapers rather
than from the ideas of foreigners, however distinguished. It is a loss
to the Anglo-Saxon that so much fine and acute comment and description
of South America by South Americans falls on deaf ears because of the
language difficulty; perhaps the next few years may see the new interest
in things South American stimulated by translations from many more of
the writings of South American authors.
Only by understanding the South American better can the Anglo-Saxon see
the relation that mutually exists, and realize the depth of the gulf
between them at the same time. Especially since the outbreak of the
European War we have seen an astounding number of agreeable but
visionary articles written on the subject of the strong logical tie,
geographical, political and mental, between North and South America. The
truth is however that the two continents have little geographical
connection—Panama was once a strait—and perhaps even less racial,
religious, and mental leanings. Both sections of the Americas have drawn
their blood, language, religion and political ideals from Europe, but
from two strongly marked sections—one, the Protestant Anglo-Saxon,
commercial, mechanically inventive: the other, the Roman Catholic Latin
section, artistic and mentally brilliant but not usually a born
_commerciante_.
It is just as well to realize this difference clearly, to know that, at
least in the past, the Americas have been more closely bound to Europe
than to each other; the ties are especially strong in Brazil, more
tender than in many parts of the New World, because separation in a
political sense was obtained without violence. It is only through
understanding of the mental and social attitude and conditions of the
Brazilian that the newcomer can avoid pitfalls.
Mistakenly advised, and often lured by too golden promises, the stranger
has often rushed to one or another part of South America, has found
bitter disappointment, and gone home with denunciation of all things
South American upon his tongue; but in many instances the fault lay
within himself, in his want of knowledge of circumstances, physical and
mental, and of his improper equipment for the task that lay to his hand.
There are many such tasks, but they must be approached with equipment
and spirit equally prepared; no fortune is to be attained by a mere rub
of the magic lamp.
This book is offered chiefly with the hope of helping to stimulate
interest in Brazil, to induce a more thorough study than these pages can
offer in the only place where Brazil can be studied—in her own fair
confines. If it supplements what has already been written, brings up to
date for the time being the story of Brazil’s development, if it awakens
in more of the energetic and able people of the world a wish to take
part in the opening-up of the great Brazilian resources, this book will
have served its modest purpose. It is the fruit of seven years’ travel
in and study of Latin America, and two years’ special work on and in
Brazil, where seventeen out of the twenty States were visited.
A debt is owing to many Brazilian publications, sources of much
statistical matter as well as illumination of Brazilian thought, as the
_Jornal do Commercio_ of Rio, _Brasil Ferro Carril_, very many local
journals of different States, _Wileman’s Brazilian Review_, the _Diario
Official_ issued by various authorities; the invaluable _Mensagens_,
with their financial and industrial surveys, issued by State Presidents;
to many kind and helpful friends in Brazil, England and America; to the
_South American Journal_; and especially to Mr. W. Roberts of the London
_Times_, to whom I am indebted for most of the subject matter in “The
World’s Horticultural and Medicinal Debt to Brazil.”
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF BRAZIL
Brazil and the Brazilians cannot be understood without knowledge of
their history, for here as in no other part of Latin America the past
has led up to the present without any violent upheaval. While the
Spanish colonies of Central and South America were plunged first in
revolutionary and afterwards in civil war, shedding not only blood but
also tradition and brotherhood with their kin, Portuguese America was
saved from similar conditions by the odd turn of fortune that made her a
monarchy, independent of Europe and yet ruled by a European prince,
during the most critical years of the nineteenth century.
Thanks to Napoleon Buonaparte, no furious chasm, difficult for even
thoughts to bridge, was opened between Brazil and the Mother Country; it
was never necessary for young Brazilians to be taught that Europe was an
oppressor who must be bitterly fought. Brazil gained in the arts of
peace and in the retention of pleasant relations between herself and the
_lusitanos_, while, in contrast, Spanish American feeling is still so
strongly anti-Spanish that in times of unrest it is the immigrant of
Iberian blood who is singled out for special ill-will. These republics
are without memorials to their Spanish discoverers or rulers; Mexico,
for example, has no statue or tablet to the memory of Hernan Cortés,
great figure as he was. Admiration for the _conquistadores_ is generally
forgotten in bitterness against Spanish rule, all history before
revolutionary times is coloured with this deliberately fostered feeling,
and only occasionally does there arise a speaker or writer broad-minded
enough to take up the cudgels for Spain and the rich inheritance she
left to her children.
Brazil was more fortunate. From the time of the first Portuguese
settlement down to the present day she has never suffered any great
internal conflagration: there were persistent Indian troubles in the
first centuries until the survivors of these unlucky natives moved back
to the interior forests, but among the population that grew up in
Brazil, hardy and prolific, there has been little strife with the
insignificant exception of the feuds of the Emboabas, the Mascates and
the Balaios.
Brazil was discovered twice. First came a Spaniard, Vicente Pinzon, an
old companion of Columbus: he found and reconnoitred the mouth of the
Amazon, and sailed south to a point which he named Santa Maria de la
Consolación, but which is now known as Cape St. Augustine. On his return
to Spain his report roused no interest at a Court where new discoveries
of land only added to the _embarras de richesses_, and the attention of
the adventurous was already taken up with the West Indies; the second
discovery (if we ignore the tale of the sight of Brazilian shores by
Diogo de Lepe, whose wanderings were, in any case, unfruitful) was a
pure accident, but, occurring to a Portuguese, was immediately seized
upon as a basis of claim to part of the new lands in the West. This was
on May 3, 1500, three months after the voyage of Pinzon to the Amazon.
Spain, to whom the all-powerful Pope Alexander VI had allotted in the
famous bull of 1495 all the new lands discovered or to be discovered in
the West, while Portugal was given rights to discoveries in the East,
might have contested this claim but for two reasons: the first was that
the Treaty of Tordesillas had shifted the Pope’s dividing line westward
to a point 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands so that Portugal
could retain her Atlantic island discoveries; the second was that either
by accident or design the early cartographers drew Brazil’s easterly
outline about twenty-two degrees more to the east than it should have
been, so that the whole of the enormous tract of what is Brazil today
fell within the legitimate claims of Portugal. It was but a matter of
equity that Portugal should have a share in the lands of the West, for
to the work of that Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, the
initiative for sea adventure was due. Henry, inheritor of sea traditions
on both sides of his parentage, for his mother was an English princess,
daughter of John of Gaunt, spent his life in a long sea dream translated
into deeds; for forty years he lived on the lonely promontory of Sagres,
his observatory full of charts, the haunt of shipmasters and
geographers, with his shipyards below the windows ever busy with the
building of stout caravels: from 1420 until his death in 1460 the
Navigator urged and bullied his captains to go southward down the coast
of Africa, where no sailor had penetrated within Christian times,
whatever they had done in the days of the bold Phoenicians.
Thus were the Azores, the Canaries and Madeira rediscovered and settled,
the pilots venturing with terror into that “Green Sea of Darkness” where
sea monsters threatened their passage, and at last daring to sail
farther into the southern waters where not only the water but the land
boiled with the terrible heat, they said. Rounding Cape Bojador they
found a coast populated with sturdy blacks, began the slave trade that
demoralized half the world; in 1486 Bartholomeo Diaz rounded the “Cape
of Storms” and proved that there was indeed as Henry, dead for a quarter
of a century, had dreamed, a southern gateway to the Spice Isles of the
East—the goal of adventurers ever since Marco Polo’s tale was spread
abroad.
By this discovery the whole imagination of seafaring Europe was
awakened: small wonder that Columbus in the end got a hearing when he
talked of a sea-path to the East by way of the West, or that, on his
return with a story of rich lands, Spain should have been satisfied to
believe the theory that the shores of Cathay had been found. Columbus,
who became half demented towards the close of his life, never knew that
he had found anything but lands on the edge of Cathay; he once forced
his men to take an oath to this effect under the penalty of hanging them
to the yards of his ship.
To his obsession was chiefly due the lack of any clear conception in
Europe of the existence of a great new continent until the Portuguese
captain stumbled upon Brazil in 1500, although three years before Alonzo
de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci had coasted the Caribbean, charting the
north coast of Venezuela and Colombia as well as the east of Central
America. That year of 1497 was the great year of discoveries, in sea
adventure, for then began the series of voyages of the Cabot family,
Labrador being discovered in that first scouring of the north seas by
Europeans; from that year also dates that strange chapter of oriental
history, Portuguese rule in India, when Vasco da Gama sailed past the
Cape of Good Hope and reached Calicut.
Early in 1500 Captain Pedro Alvares Cabral was despatched with a fleet
of thirteen ships to follow up the conquests of da Gama; warned of the
calms off the African coast which later became notorious among sailors
as the “doldrums,” he stood far out to sea, was caught in strong
currents, and found himself to his astonishment off an unknown coast.
Sailing south until a safe landing place was reached (Porto Seguro, some
twelve miles north of the little town on the Bahian coast that today
bears the name) he landed on Good Friday morning, was received in a
friendly manner by the South American natives to whom Europe was thus
discovered, took possession of the territory in the name of the
Portuguese King, sent a ship back to Lisbon under André Gonçalves to
report the discovery, and sailed on again to India.
Dom Manoel was sufficiently interested by the tale of Gonçalves to make
farther investigation, equipped three vessels and sent them under the
command of the Sevillian pilot Amerigo Vespucci to examine the new Terra
da Vera Cruz. On the way they met Cabral’s fleet returning from India,
and this explorer put his helm about and with them re-found eastern
South America, sailing along and charting most of the coast of Brazil.
It is the precision and not the inaccuracies of these sixteenth century
maps that form their most remarkable feature.
On this journey much hostility was shown by coast-dwelling natives, and
a couple of landing parties met with disaster; the cannibal taste of the
“Indians” was plainly demonstrated. No settlement was made. A year
later, in 1503, Duarte Coelho came with another fleet, seeking the
waterway to India that was one of the dreams of adventurous Europe:
another, allied to the first, was the quest of Prester John. Anyone who
could find a quick sea-path to India and at the same time find and form
an alliance with the mysterious Christian Priest-King, would wield power
beyond rivalry.
Duarte Coelho was unlucky. His flagship and three other vessels were
cast away on Fernando Noronha island, the other two reaching the shelter
of what is today Bahia. Here the natives were kindly disposed, a little
colony of twenty-four men elected to stay behind near Caravellas, and
after a stay of five months the rest of the explorers went back to
Portugal. They took with them logs cut from the coastal forests which
proved to yield a dye equal to that known in Europe as “brasil,” a much
prized deep red colour: they also carried back Brazilian monkeys and
some of the parrots and macaws still common in the north. Many of the
old maps of Brazil are marked “Terra dos Papagaios” (Land of Parrots)
instead of the official “Terra da Vera (or Santa) Cruz,” but it was not
long before the new country became generally known as the Land of
Brazil-wood, and finally as Brazil.
From 1503 onwards no attempt at settlement or conquest of the land was
made for thirty years; captains on their way to India called at the
coast for fresh water, and on the return sailed into some northern
wooded bay and cut brazil-wood. The real attention of Portugal was taken
up with the splendid spoil that fell so readily to her hands in India;
she loaded her caravels with the silks and spices and precious stones of
the East, just as Spain a little later loaded her stout ships with the
treasures of the Aztecs and the Incas. Territory offering nothing more
and nothing less than fertile soil and genial climate was little
considered in the midst of those visions of gold: since then the whole
world has been plunged in blood for the sake of such wide spaces of
land. Land in great areas only became highly valorized, both in the
Americas and Africa, when the virile races of Europe needed space for
their teeming, dominating children.
Brazil benefited from her lack of wealthy cities offering loot. As a
consequence of that lack she was not flooded, as were Mexico and Peru,
with gold-seeking, brutal adventurers, but was instead slowly colonized
by genuine settlers. Some of them did not come willingly, for Portugal
used certain tracts spasmodically as penal settlements, but in the
Middle Ages severe punishment was frequently dealt out for offences that
would today be considered light, and many of the convicts thrust across
the Atlantic turned out to be good citizens: good or bad, they were the
stuff of which bold pioneers are made, and to their extraordinary
hardihood and that of their tireless descendants of mixed blood the
conquest of interior Brazil was due.
Portugal delayed occupation of Brazil until other European countries
began to establish themselves along different parts of the neglected
shore. In 1515 the mouth of the Rio de la Plata had been discovered by
Juan de Solis, and Spanish settlements were set up south of the
Portuguese claims—still indefinite. In 1540 the Spanish captain Orellana
made his wonderful journey from Peru over the Andes and down the Amazon,
and roused the interest of Europe, but long before then the Dutch were
trying to establish outposts on northerly Amazonian tributaries, and the
French had settled a little colony at Pernambuco.
Of these the Portuguese made short shrift, a fleet being sent from
Lisbon specially for their expulsion, but the settlement made by royal
orders on the same spot met with no better fate, for in 1527 French
raiders sacked the infant colony, to be followed a few months later by
an English raiding party under Hawkins. The Portuguese Government,
forced to take measures, determined on a plan which had already given
good results on the island of Madeira. Instead of assuming the burden of
colonization on the account of the government, large grants of land were
made to Portuguese of high standing or wealth; on them fell the burden
of settlement, but on the other hand to them would accrue the chief
rewards of tropical adventure and industry. The Crown attained several
objects at one stroke—the colonizing of a difficult country, the
rewarding of many noblemen whose claims were apt to be troublesome,
while at the same time an outlet was provided for the adventurous and
turbulent. The waning of her power in India left Portugal with a surging
class of stout-hearted folk upon her hands: she sent them to Brazil, and
suffered as Brazil benefited.
The allotment of Brazil into separate _capitanias_ (captaincies) was
made in 1530; the average coastal strip presented to the holders was
fifty leagues, and as to the depth of the land commanded was a matter
for the individual captain: he could have as much as he could conquer.
No one had any idea of what the hinterlands contained, for, with the
exception of the riverine explorations of the Spanish on the Orinoco and
the Plata, Europeans had not visited the South American interior east of
the Andes.
Martim Affonso de Souza came out in 1531 as Admiral of the Coast,
empowered to mark out the capitanias and to keep one for himself; he
found French vessels hovering about Pernambuco, seized them, and went on
to Bahia (Bahia de Todos os Santos) named thirty years before and
frequently visited, where he found a Portuguese sailor, survivor of a
shipwreck, married to the daughter of an Indian ruler and living like a
patriarch with a large family already grown up about him. This Caramarú,
“big fish caught among rocks,” was of great help to the Portuguese when
the colony was founded, and his half-breed family, possessing Indian
knowledge and Portuguese leanings, formed the nucleus of the true hardy
Brazilian of the north coast. Sailing south on his delimitation errand,
Affonso de Souza entered Rio harbour, but passed on to mark out his own
capitania on the hot sands of the São Paulo coast, near the present
Santos, under the name of São Vicente. By a freak of fate, here the
story of old Caramarú was duplicated. On the uplands beyond the Serra do
Mar another Portuguese sailor was living, one João Ramalho married to
the daughter of the native chief Tibiriça, and also surrounded by an
extraordinary number of descendants: these children and grandchildren of
Ramalho were the first _mamelucos_, that bold tribe who were thorns in
the flesh of the Jesuits, but who were instrumental in giving Matto
Grosso, Goyaz and Minas Geraes to Brazil.
Martim Affonso de Souza marked out twelve capitanias, but of the
accepted applicants few besides himself made serious and systematic
efforts to settle and hold their great lands; the rights offered them
were very large, including almost every authority of the king himself
except that of coining money: possession was perpetual and
hereditary.[1] “If these hereditary captaincies had continued to exist,”
says the Brazilian historian, Luis de Queiros, “we should have today so
many republics, corresponding to the number of territorial divisions,
and not a homogenous whole which a nation so full of life and hope as
Brazil constitutes. By good luck, however, almost all of the recipients
of the grants were unsuccessful in their attempts at colonization, and
some of them did not make any real beginning....”
In the far north nothing was done by the _donatario_ to colonize Ceará,
and it was not until the French had for years established themselves on
that coast and inside the mouth of the Amazon that, in 1616, a
Portuguese military expedition from Maranhão turned out these rivals and
founded Pará. Genuine colonization work was done at three outstanding
points—Pernambuco, Bahia, and São Vicente, or rather, São Paulo, which
became active nuclei of agricultural production, of a sturdy population
born on the soil, dowered with a clannish fighting spirit that, local as
it was, did much that was of extreme value in the evolution of Brazil.
The strength of two of these centres, S. Paulo and Bahia, was largely
derived from the two old Portuguese castaways, the battered heroes
Ramalho and Correia; that of the third markedly successful colony,
Pernambuco, was due to the powerful personality and real ability of the
Captain, Duarte Coelho; he was aided by the fertility of the soil of the
north-eastern promontory, Pernambuco showing itself so prolific a
producer of sugar that it began to feed the mother country from very
early colonial days, no less than forty-five ships a year calling to
fetch sugar and brazil-wood. Settled with good immigrants by Duarte
Coelho, who protested successfully against the dumping of convicts upon
his capitania and ruled his people like a feudal lord, Pernambuco was
the only territory that escaped control by the Captain-General sent out
by the Crown in 1549 to try the effect of centralized power upon the
languishing capitanias. Hardy and jealous of their independence, the
Pernambucanos remained a little kingdom apart, ruled over by Duarte
Coelho and his wife’s relatives after him, until the Dutch appeared in
strength off the north Brazilian coast and from 1630 onwards for over
twenty years held possession of Pernambuco and a long strip of the coast
above it. The Pernambucanos have always been a factor to be reckoned
with in Brazilian affairs: the territory they hold is richly productive
and has never looked back in commercial importance. They do not forget
that great tracts of land were in early days won by their ancestors by
hard fighting from the Indians, nor that they have sent many an able son
to high places in the governing of Brazil. It was the productivity of
the Pernambuco (“Nova Lusitania”) and Bahia colonies that made colonial
Brazil valuable and attracted hardy settlers to her shores.
[Illustration:
Ponte Santa Isabel, Recife (Pernambuco).
Praça Mauá—one of Rio’s wharves.
Water-front at Bahia, Lower City.
]
Bahia was the queen city of Brazil from 1549, when Thomé de Souza was
sent out as Captain-General and made this the administrative and
political head of the country, until 1762, when Rio de Janeiro became
the Vice-regal Capital; she also was a fighting city, seized and sacked
now and again but successful in getting rid of her foes in the end, and
she was the centre of tobacco cultivation from early days. When gold and
diamonds were discovered in the interior valleys and serras the Bahianos
played a plucky part in exploration and opening, as well as charting,
regions of forest and sertão hitherto unseen by white men. To the men of
Bahia, as well as to the courageous legions of Pernambucanos led by the
Albuquerque family, Brazil owes much: but the great pioneers, the
unsurpassed confronters of hardship, the men who made Brazil the huge
country that she is instead of the strip upon the Atlantic seaboard that
she might have remained, were the _bandeirantes_ of São Paulo.
When the gallant Martim Affonso de Souza, sailing first to Cananea,
eventually built his modest mud and palm leaf town at S. Vicente, he was
saved from the hostility of the Tamoyo Indians by the friendliness of
Ramalho, father of many children by a daughter of Chief Tibiriça. The
Tamoyos as a rule gave a great deal of trouble to the Portuguese,
although the French in their numerous attempts at settlement along the
Brazilian littoral always managed to make fast friends of this tribe. To
anyone who knows the São Vicente of today, it is difficult to imagine on
what the first settlers lived; the shore is hot, sandy, backed by
mangrove swamps, producing beans, maize, mandioca and sugar. Small
wonder that an early chronicler said that to live in these colonies it
was necessary to forget all European habits of life, to begin a new
existence upon new food, with all old ideas of comfort and even
necessity thrown aside.
When a company of Jesuit priests, headed by José de Anchieta, came to S.
Vicente, they found their ministrations thrown away on a disorderly and
undisciplined band of settlers. Conceiving their duty to be here, as the
Padre de las Casas and many of his cloth conceived it in Mexico and
Central America, the Christianizing of the natives, Anchieta decided to
leave the coast (where Braz Cubas had now built his little chapel and
hospital on the island where Santos stands today) and seek converts in
the uplands. The mountain barrier was climbed, and on January 25, 1554,
an altar was set up on the green and well-watered plains of the
interior, and mass was said on a site named São Paulo de Piritininga, in
honour of the saint whose day it was. The habit of early missionaries
and discoverers of naming new places with the Roman calendar in their
hands has helped the historian to fix many a doubtful date.
A few miles away from the mission was the town of João Ramalho, who had
been tactfully confirmed in his possession of lands, the “Borda do
Campo,” by Portugal, while his settlement was formally named a township
with the title of Santo André in 1533. Its site was near the present São
Bernardo, an open sunny region of prairie with woods on the horizon.
With this tribe of Ramalho’s making the Jesuits sought no connection;
they could not convert those half-breeds any more than they could make
the hardy impenitents on the coast give up stealing Indians. Better and
more pliable material was to hand in the pure Indian tribes; two groups,
one under Tibiriça and the other under chief Cai-Uby, built their cabins
in new S. Paulo, Tibiriça’s people forming a line which is now the Rua
São Bento, while the other converts guarded the road that led over the
hills to S. Vicente.[2] It was not long before trouble came. João
Ramalho’s children plagued the priests: the priests retaliated by
getting an order from the then Captain-General, Mem de Sá, by which
Santo André was razed to the ground and its inhabitants forcibly
incorporated in São Paulo. The latter soon changed its character as a
peaceful mission settlement, the Indians suffered from aggressions by
the whites who now came up from S. Vicente or their own half-white kin,
and in the end a concerted attack was made by the natives upon the town,
only old Tibiriça remaining loyal. The Indians were beaten, but the
Jesuits saw that the mission could not be restored; they determined to
carry the cross farther afield. With indomitable energy and indifference
to suffering the band of priests made their way across the interior
plains and woodlands, until they founded a new city (Ciudad Real) at the
junction of the Paraná and Piquery, and began to gather the Indians
together in new settlements.
For a time they were undisturbed. But the life of the new Portuguese
colonies depended upon agriculture; the white men were neither many
enough nor sufficiently acclimated to till the fields themselves, and
they seized the unfortunate natives and forced them to field labour. It
was unsatisfactory work, as a rule: the native of the eastern coasts of
South America was not a cultivator of the soil by habit, but rather a
hunter and fisher, as he is still in his interior retreats. They were
too on the whole a gentle as well as an idle race, and they died like
flies under the whip.
It was not long before the coast plantations of the Portuguese were
denuded of workers: to get more slaves it was necessary to follow the
Indian across the sertões. It was about 1562 that the first
slave-hunting expeditions, the “entradas,” began; they were headed by
the _mamelucos_, the descendants of Ramalho, who had no hesitation about
betraying their native kinsfolk to the white man. Violence was avoided:
the preferred plan was to coax any tribe approached “_com muito geito e
enganos_” and only when blandishment failed was force resorted to. Tamed
natives accompanied the “entries” and when the children of the woods
heard tales of waiting pleasures told in their own tongue, whole clans
often followed willingly to the coast, never to return. When they
retreated more deeply and became more wary, and it was found that the
Jesuits were advising them, a grimmer system was planned; it was decided
to conduct open warfare against the missions.
By this time, in the first part of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits
had attained remarkable success with their converts; they were not
content with teaching them the Christian faith, but insisted upon the
girls learning spinning and weaving while the men planted and reaped.
Results were much the same as those desired by the coast settlers, but
methods differed. About Ciudad Real, in the Guayará region, fourteen
great missions flourished when the Paulistas began to disturb them: by
the middle of the sixteen hundreds they were all broken up, the fields
waste, the priests fled, and the Indian converts prisoners in S. Paulo
or hiding in the forests.
To accomplish this, more careful expeditions were arranged than the
earlier “entradas,” although the _mamelucos_ had made some wonderful
journeys, across the river Paraguay, over the Chaco and into Bolivia,
now and again having a brush with the Spanish settlers of the South,
who, later on, were expelled from tentative settlements in Rio Grande do
Sul: no land was too wide for the Paulistas to hold. But the “bandeiras”
were now organized like an army, men enlisted in them regularly and
accepted rigorous discipline. Beginning with the deliberate object of
uprooting Jesuit control of the Indians, explorations continued in this
form for over eighty years with other aims added—conquest of the
interior, discovery for its own sake, and search for mines of gold and
precious stones, as well as the repression of Spanish entries from the
south and from Peru.
At the time when these extraordinary expeditions began the interior of
South America was still unknown. The high sertão and the forests were
still full of mystery, although the coast had been stripped of such
marvels as the giants who frightened Pinzon’s sailors, the men fourteen
feet high seen by Magalhães, and the alligators with two tails which
Vespucci reported. In the interior magic still reigned, with its trees
yielding soap and glass, Lake Doirada with shining cities about its
margin, and the marvellous kingdom of Paititi, lure of many disastrous
expeditions, where some of the natives were dwarfs, others fifteen feet
tall, some had their feet turned backwards and others had legs like
birds. The bandeirante opened the sertão and dispelled these wonders.
In his book, _O Sertão antes da Conquista_, Sampaio says that the
Paulista “was compelled by his habitat to be a bandeirante: the conquest
of the interior was written in his destiny.” If that is true, at least
these labours were taken up with a kind of fierce joy. There was
scarcely an able-bodied man of the time who did not join one or more of
the bandeiras, and there is on record the case of Manoel de Campos who
made twenty-four of these journeys. Many bandeirantes never returned,
remaining in the sertão to found towns in Minas, Matto Grosso or Goyaz;
some, returning after years of absence, found their wives married to
other men, while “many heroes brought back from the sertão children whom
they had not taken in,” says Rocha Pombo.
The bandeira went always under the supreme command of a leader to whom
implicit obedience was due; before setting out the bandeira in a body
heard mass, the leader confessed and made his will, invariably including
the phrase ... “_setting out to war and being mortal and not knowing
what God our Lord will do with me_.”... A priest accompanied each
bandeira, not only to shrive the dying and bury the dead, but by way of
easing the conscience of the band regarding their mission and
“reconciling it with the Divine Mercy.” The outfit for every man was
made at his own cost, and if it is possible to judge by the baggage of
Braz Gonçalves, who died on an expedition in 1636, and whose goods were
scrupulously recorded and sold at auction, it was simple. His greatest
possessions were three negro slaves, but he had also an awl, a bit and a
hammer, a pair of worn slippers; some lead and gunpowder, one tin plate,
a chisel, a mould for casting shot, a ball of thread, an old cape.
It was only possible to face what lay beyond the outposts of settlement
when equipped and ready for war; the bandeirantes knew that there was
constant risk of attack by Indians and that nature opposed them with as
fierce a menace. The country through which they passed was likely to be
foodless, and they were prepared to sow seeds of grain in green valleys,
camp, and wait until the crop was harvested before going on their way.
The rivers of the interior plateau, flowing westward with the tilt of
the sertão, themselves offered a great highway of adventure to the early
bandeirantes, bringing them into Paraguay and the outskirts of Bolivia
and the Argentine, but as they went farther afield the Paraná was left
to the east, Goyaz and Matto Grosso were traversed, and the path of the
pioneers led up unknown mountains, through untracked woodland; they
marched across boundless prairies as if navigating the ocean, with only
a sea-compass and the starry night to guide them. Nothing checked these
explorers; had not the discovery of the General Mines turned their minds
to gold-hunting, they might have followed Antonio Raposo across the
Andes and disputed Peru with the Spaniards. Wherever they penetrated
they established outposts and forts counting a collision with the
Spanish as the best reason for creating a stronghold: it was the work of
these untiring sertanistas that led the way to the present magnitude of
Brazil.
The bandeira was the original creation of the Paulista, without parallel
in history; not even the white pioneer of North America had the same
functions: he neither wandered so far nor performed such deeds. João
Ribeiro remarks that “as in the case of the caravans of the desert, the
first virtue of the bandeirante was a resignation almost fatalistic, and
abstinence carried to an extreme; those who set out did not know if they
would ever return, never expected to see their homes again—and this
often happened.” The bandeira in its greatest phase was a travelling
city, a commune linked by mutual interests, that surged forward over the
silent country; nothing deterred them, whether mountain passes,
precipices, hunger, weariness, or constant fighting. If they had a path
it was that of the crosses on the graves of the men who had gone before
them. They went always on foot.
There is a long list of great sertanistas. It includes many names well
known in Brazil today—Martins, Soares, de Souza, Barreto, Tourinho, Sá,
Leme, Paes, Almeida, Dias, Ribeiro, Carvalho, Rodrigues, and a host of
others; few men escaped the lure of the sertão, and some leave stories
which are the Iliads of Brazil, putting these among the great adventures
of all time. There is for instance Antonio Raposo, who headed a bandeira
which left S. Paulo in 1628, and which was “the biggest and most
devastating known.” Three thousand people composed the expedition, and
its main object was the destruction of the Jesuit missions on the Paraná
river, near Ciudad Real. One by one the missions, which had grown into
thriving industrial communities, were attacked, besieged, and smashed;
as they fell, escaping brothers or converts carried the warning to other
convents, stiff fights were made, and in some cases long resistance was
maintained. But in the end the Jesuits were broken and dispersed, and
the bandeirantes went back to S. Paulo with thousands of Indian slaves.
The courageous Jesuits went deeper into the interior, collected such
remnants as they could of their property and their protégés, and began
the work again.
Raposo, years afterwards, made another journey which brought him into
fame as a legendary hero; he crossed the Paulista sertão by Tibagy,
thence traversed the heart of Brazil from south-east to north-west,
entered Peru, scaling the Andes, crossed to the Pacific and waded into
those waters sword in hand; returning, he discovered the headwaters of
the Amazon, sailed down it, and when at last after years of travel he
came back to São Paulo no one recognized him.
A magnificent figure among indomitable bandeirantes is that of Fernão
Dias de Paes Leme. Well may the wild sertão be haunted by the shade of
such a man as this, or of his lieutenant, Borba Gato, or that father and
son who were known among the Indians of Govaz as Old Devil the First and
Old Devil the Second.
Fernão Dias, the “Hercules of the Sertão,” was the discoverer of the
emerald mines of Sumidouro, after ten years spent in search. He was a
famous slave-chaser of the sixteen hundreds, an extremely religious man
whose zeal was only assuaged by much building of chapels and convents
with the money earned in long raids; practical, astute, suave, he won
his ends by tact rather than violence, among his exploits being that of
leading the whole of the allied Goyana tribes to São Paulo. Approaching
their territory Dias made no threats, but camped nearby, cultivated
fields of cereals and vegetables, and so ingratiated himself into the
confidence of Tombu the chief that one day the old Indian collected his
people and agreed to go to the pleasant lands of which the Paulista
spoke. Five thousand natives thus marched voluntarily into captivity;
Tombu remained the worshipper of Fernão Dias until his death, but with
the exception of runaways none of the Goyanas ever saw the sertão again.
This was in 1661. Three years later the Portuguese court, greatly
desiring the discovery and development of mining regions which should
yield tribute to Lisbon, offered special rewards to discoverers of
mines, appointed an Administrator of Mines in Espirito Santo, where some
coloured stones had been found, and Affonso VI wrote to Fernão Dias
asking him to search the interior that he knew so well for the source of
the “emeralds” whose beauty raised hopes of finding mines equal in value
to those of the Spaniards in New Granada (Colombia), still today the
cradle of the finest emeralds. As a matter of fact the green stones
found in Brazil are the beautiful but semi-precious tourmalines.
Consenting, the famous bandeirante made some preliminary excursions and
in 1676, when he was over eighty years old, led out a great _comitiva_;
the first winter’s camp was made in a valley beyond the Rio Grande, the
second at Bomfim, the third at Sumidouro. At last in the Serro Frio some
showings of gold were located, and on the way back Dias died by the Rio
das Velhas, in the far interior across Minas Geraes. The bandeira had
gone through great suffering, and scores of men were buried by the way:
at one time the remnants of the expedition had appealed to Dias to give
up the hunt and return, and on his refusal made a plan to kill him. The
conspiracy was headed by a young man who was the son of Dias by an
Indian girl, and dearly loved by the old sertanista, but when convinced
of his boy’s guilt Dias hanged him, pardoning the other plotters but
driving them from the camp.
To Fernão Dias was due the exploration of what is now the State of Minas
Geraes, the whole of it falling practically under his sway as the
founder of at least a dozen towns in that hilly interior, the majority
surviving to this day. His search had a curious sequel: his son-in-law
and faithful aide, Borba Gato, who had found gold mines in Sabará and
registered them in 1700, was returning to S. Paulo after the death of
his leader when he met with a party headed by the official Administrator
General of Mines. Borba Gato’s charts and proofs were demanded, refused,
a quarrel broke out, and the servants of the pioneer set upon the
Administrator and killed him. Not daring to face S. Paulo with this
tale, Borba Gato fled to the interior where a tribe of Indians friendly
to him dwelt by the Rio Doce, and there lived hidden out of the reach of
the law for twenty years. At the end of that time, attempts to find the
Sabará mines having failed, he was offered a pardon in exchange for the
secret; he accepted the offer, returned to civilization, and presently
retiring to a farm with his family died peacefully in his bed at the age
of ninety.
A direct result of the murder of the Administrator was the stocking of
the sertão of Minas with cattle: the entourage of the dead man, as much
horrified by the deed as was Borba Gato, instead of returning to the
capital took to the bush with the seeds, stores and livestock without
which no expedition set out, and formed nuclei of fazendas in a score of
different places.
One of the earliest discoveries of gold in Brazil was made by
Bartholomeu Bueno da Silva in the Serra Doirada, in Goyaz, about 1682.
He it was who found the Indians wearing scraps of gold as ornament, and
tricked them into showing the place of its origin; displaying a bowl of
agua-ardente (aguardente—spirit made from sugarcane) he set light to it,
telling the Indians that it was water and that he would in like manner
set fire to all their springs and rivers if they did not reveal the
source of their gold. Southey calls Bartholomeu Bueno “the most renowned
adventurer of his age,” and to him is due the opening-up of Goyaz, until
then only entered by passing slave-hunters: but his discoveries were not
followed up and it remained for his son, nicknamed by the Indians
Anhangoera the Second his father having been known to them as Old Devil
the First on account of the incident referred to above, to re-find the
mines and extend the gold-mining fever to Goyaz. It was in 1722 that
this son, then a man of over fifty years, succeeded in obtaining
government help for exploration: by this time Minas was overrun with
gold seekers from every part of Brazil and the authorities were ready to
give active help to new mining expeditions. This bandeira set out with
great éclat, crossed the Rio Grande and wandered for three years, the
leader seeking landmarks dimly remembered from his boyhood. Persistent,
patient, conciliating his weary followers, he founded the town of Barra,
at last located the gold mines, returned to São Paulo and got together a
new band of men, led the way back and settled them at what is now the
City of Goyaz, and so closed with a remarkable colonizing feat the last
of the great expeditions into the high sertão.
[Illustration:
_The Falls of Iguassú._
On the boundary of Argentina with Brazil; this series of lovely
cascades is said to have altogether four times as much force as
Niagara.
]
A little later gold-miners penetrating to Matto Grosso began operating
at Cuyabá,[3] and almost immediately the discovery of diamonds at
Diamantina brought a new rush of people into this far interior region.
The day of the explorer, the true bandeirante, was over, and the age of
mining was by this time in its epoch of greatest excitement.
Few writers on Brazil have refrained from scourging the bandeirantes for
their cruelty to the wretched natives and for their destruction of the
Jesuit missions. It is true that they were brutal, but theirs was a
brutal age, and in explanation, not extenuation, of their deeds it
should be remembered that they, the white civilian colonists, were
fighting for their own preservation against hostile Indians whose hand,
quite naturally, was against the invader, and secondly against their
economic ruin by the line of action taken by the Society of Jesus. Not
only did the patient Jesuits coax and catechise the Indian, but they put
him to work in the fields and sold abroad the product of his hands: when
later on conflict raged in North Brazil between colonists and Jesuits
the chief grievance was that the Society, for whose support the civilian
community was taxed heavily, used the Indian labour denied by Royal
decree to the settlers, and also maintained great stores (_armazens_)
where every kind of European merchandise was kept.
It was for this reason, and not because they were bad Christians, that
the colonists of Maranhão once stood on the shore with guns in their
hands and refused to allow a shipload of Jesuits to land until they had
given a solemn promise to do nothing with the Indians except to convert
them; they regarded the members of this religious body as business
rivals. Nor were the Jesuits tactful in their dealings with colonists or
colonial government authorities; secure in the support given them not
only by the Pope but, especially perhaps in the period of Spanish rule
in Brazil under Philip II, by the King, they made no concessions, defied
the civilians, and apparently courted trials of strength: right or
wrong, they were able to count upon judgment in their favour in any
quarrel referred to Europe.
When the bandeirantes began their unmerciful raids upon the Jesuit
communities in the south Brazilian sertão the number of missions had
increased from thirteen in 1610 to twenty-one in 1628, and to them had
been largely drawn the natives who once, as Thomé de Souza said in
writing to Portugal, had been so thick that “even if they were killed
for market there would be no end of them.” Attacked, the _padres_ might
well have counted upon help from the Governor General of Brazil, but for
the fact that about this time the whole military attention of the
authorities was taken up with the determined aggressions of the Dutch
upon the northern capitanias; the affairs of São Paulo were left in the
hands of the Paulistas. The great matter of regret is that in the case
of the Jesuits much excellent constructive work was wasted, just as the
fine colonizing work of the French in Rio and in Pará and Maranhão was
destroyed, and that of the Dutch on the Amazon and in Pernambuco; the
spirit and the interests of the times forbade the Portuguese to allow
settlers of other races a foothold in Brazil, but nevertheless it was
unfortunate that so much good blood and good work was thrown away in a
huge land that so badly needed both.
While the Paulistas were exploring and adding great tracts to the colony
in the south, a law unto themselves, undisturbed by invasion except an
occasional attempt by the Spaniards from the Plate and attacks on S.
Vicente by English and French corsairs, the history of the north was one
of constant aggression and desperate defence. Until the year 1578 no
concerted attempts were made by England, France and Holland against the
colonies of Portugal, a country towards which feeling was not unfriendly
but in that year King Sebastião of Portugal, with the flower of his
nobility was killed in North Africa in the terrible battle of Alcazar el
Kebir, and Philip II of Spain, the “Demon of the Middle Ages,” seized
Portugal and all that was Portuguese two years later. The South American
colonies automatically came under his sway, and at once fell heir to the
feud between Spain and her European neighbours. Brazil was fair game,
and during the sixty years that elapsed before Portugal was able to
re-assert her independence the easily approached northern capitanias
were threatened, sacked and occupied by one or another of the three
chief enemies of Spain. Sackings of coast towns made no great difference
to the development of Brazil; when the ransom was paid the raiders
sailed away and the business of life was resumed without any vital
change; no towns were ever ruined by such predatory visits. Occupation
of districts was another matter, and, with the exception of loss of
lives every one of which was precious in young colonies, the effect was
good rather than harmful; the period of Dutch rule on the northern coast
of Brazil was a lasting beneficial stimulus. Nor was Spanish control of
any direct hurt to the Portuguese colonies: their internal management
was little interfered with, Portuguese officials continued to be
appointed to Brazilian posts, and if Spain did not adequately defend
them because her hands were already desperately full she at least did
Brazil the kindness to leave it alone. The one serious administrative
measure she took was the formation in Lisbon of a Junta to care for
Brazilian commerce, similar to the Council of the Indies sitting in
Madrid, and this was undoubtedly useful: the narrow monopolistic trading
policy pursued was simply in line with the ideas and practice of the
times. It was protection carried to an extreme, was useful at the time
of its initiation, and, if it outlived its usefulness in its most
irksome manifestations, the principle has so far survived that today, in
the third lustre of the twentieth century, it may be said that only one
great commercial nation has ever definitely thrown it aside.
The group of capitanias extending from Espirito Santo northwards to
Ceará were when Brazil came under Spanish rule the most productive of
all; it was but eighty years from the date of Cabral’s discovery, and
only fifty from the time of colonization, but flourishing populations
were settled along the seaboard, growing sugar, tobacco and cotton and
cutting stacks of dyewoods to fill the fifty ships a year that called at
the main ports. Bahia, seat of the Captain-General’s administration, was
also a bishopric, and the chief religious orders had settled in each
considerable town and founded churches, schools and convents. In 1570 a
Royal Decree forbade the compulsory use of Indians as labourers, and to
fill the ranks of field workers Africans were brought in: to this idea
the Portuguese were inured, for the West Coast of Africa had been a
source of labour supply for them since 1440; it was the discovery that
negroes could be transplanted to the Americas and would there work with
docility, thrive and multiply, that made possible the cultivation of
thousands of square miles of land, both in North and South America, and
warmly as we may reject the principle of slave labour now, it was the
only one which could have opened American lands to the extent which they
attained in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The white man
could not have performed this physical labour.
Indian labour was abolished at the instance of the priests; it was
remarkable that to the enslavement of Africans under circumstances
equally brutal no objection was made. Negroes were brought to Brazil
from 1574 onwards until the abolition of the slave trade, though not of
slavery, in 1854. The debt of Brazil to the African negro is a very
heavy one.
Soon after the junction of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns there began
the series of purely plundering attacks delivered by European enemies of
Spain which lasted until the establishment of the Dutch at Pernambuco,
but which were of so little political importance that in the meantime
the Portuguese authorities were able to destroy entirely the French
settlements at Maranhão and Pará which lasted from 1594 to 1615. The
work of replacing French with Brazilian settlements was carried out by
Jeronymo Albuquerque, son of a dominating Pernambuco family, and not
only were well-started French colonies ruined but the exploration of the
Amazon, commenced by the famous Daniel de la Touche (Seigneur de la
Ravardière) was abruptly ended.
In 1621 the Dutch Company of the West Indies was founded, companion
organization to the rich East Indies Company; with the approval of the
Dutch Government the Company was equipped for settlement and conquest,
and could call upon the home authorities for the help of ships and armed
men if war occurred in the course of operations. A fleet of thirty-six
vessels under Admiral Jacob Willekens sailed for Brazil early in 1624,
made directly for Bahia, and took the city without much trouble. Holding
it was a different matter, the population taking to arms, and a year
later a combined Spanish and Portuguese fleet arrived and forced the
Dutch to capitulate. Another impermanent attack was made in 1627, and in
1630 a different point of aggression was chosen by a great fleet of
seventy vessels: the Pernambucan city of Olinda was besieged and taken,
the Dutch secured themselves in power and remained masters of this and
three other capitanias afterwards seized; they were governed by the West
India Company for nearly twenty-five years.
Evidences of the occupation of Olinda and its sister settlement, Recife,
now the capital and a very flourishing city, are to be seen in the many
houses surviving with curved gables, high unbroken fronts, the exterior
walls shining with blue and white glazed tiles; the Dutch brought with
them their love of order and cleanliness, good methods in plantation
management and excellent organizing power, and the only genuine
objection to the rule of the Hollander in Brazil was that the country
did not belong to him. All Brazilian historians bear witness to the
merit of Dutch methods.
[Illustration:
_Old and New Brazil._
]
A Remnant of Colonial days; street Modern residences near the Gloria
in Olinda, old capital of Gardens, facing the bay, Rio de
Pernambuco. Janeiro.
The West India Company was able to induce an admirable Governor to take
charge of the new possession, Prince John Maurice of Nassau; he reached
Recife in 1637, and inaugurated a conciliatory policy towards such
Pernambucanos as would accept Dutch rule: those who would not were
pursued into the interior forests where they retreated under one of the
Albuquerques, and were forced to flee from Alagôas into Bahia. When such
resisters were caught they were shipped to Dutch settlements in the East
Indies.
Religious freedom was promulgated by the Protestant rulers, more
systematic administration of settlements and estates inaugurated, better
sugar milling methods introduced as well as farming implements, and the
scientific exploration of the interior was made. Prince Maurice brought
with him map-makers, geologists, botanists and expert mineralogists, and
sent them to the valleys and hills of the Bahian hinterlands. Elias
Herkmann took an expedition of one hundred men from Recife in 1641, to
make scientific investigations, and although he did not find mines of
importance he studied native relics and language, subsequently
publishing a book on the Tapuyo race.
George Marcgraf and Wilhelm Piso are also Dutch names of note in
connection with Brazil; the former studied Brazilian topography and
water systems and wrote a treatise on the subject as well as the
_Historia Rerum Naturalium Brazilium_; the latter was the first
classifier of Brazilian flora and fauna. “We owe to him,” says Dr. Egas
Moniz of Bahia, “the discovery of the emetic-cathartic properties of
ipecacuanha and copaiba” as well as the therapeutic virtues of jaborandi
and red mangue and several other drugs obtained from the Brazilian
_matto_. The first scientific charting of the sertão behind Pernambuco,
Alagôas and north Bahia was done during this time; herds of cattle
already wandered over interior pastures, and settlers led by the
independent spirit which renders the Brazilian indifferent to solitude
had formed fazendas along river borders; explorers had wandered by these
water paths looking for mines, but systematic maps and charts were
lacking.
In 1640 Portugal revolted from Spain, regained her independence, and
offered the crown to a member of the House of Braganza, a line which
retained its inheritance until a few years ago. The effect upon the
Americas was again notable; the Pernambucanos, still carrying on
guerilla warfare from the forests, were heartened, obtained help from an
enthusiastic Bahia, and redoubled their efforts; the Dutch came to an
agreement with Portugal that all possessions conquered by them during
the Spanish régime should be held, and tried to extend their holdings
farther north—an effort which was vain in itself, costly in life and
money, and hardened the determination of the colonists to do for
themselves what the mother country would not do on their behalf. In 1643
Prince Maurice returned to Holland: he had the interests of the colony
as such at heart too much to please the West India Company. A liberal
minded man, he wished to see the colonial ports opened to free commerce,
succeeded in getting the Company to forego all monopolies except that of
taking dyewoods away from Brazil and sending in slaves and munitions of
war, any Dutch captain being free to visit ports controlled by his
compatriots; these were not agreeable pills for a monopolistic
organization to swallow. On the other hand in recalling Maurice of
Nassau the Company lost prestige, henceforward carried on a losing
struggle with the virile Brazilians, and were forced out of section
after section until by 1648 only the forts of Parahyba, Rio Grande do
Norte, the island of Itamaracá and the city of Recife were in Dutch
hands. A certain embarrassment was created in Europe by this situation,
and the Portuguese Government, taken to task by Holland, sent emissaries
to the insurgent Pernambucanos to order suspension of hostilities: the
leaders replied that they “would go to receive punishment for their
disobedience after they had turned the invaders out of Pernambuco,” and
went on with the war. Holland herself, now at loggerheads with England
or rather with Cromwell on account of her support given to the Stuarts,
could not help her Brazilian colony; a severe defeat was inflicted by
the Pernambucans in 1649, at the battle of Guararapes, and the Dutch,
never recovering from this blow, were finally obliged to capitulate to
Francisco Barretto in January, 1654. The Pernambucan attackers were
nerved to this final effort, the storming of Recife, by the news of the
disaster inflicted on van Tromp’s fleet in the English Channel at the
hands of Blake.
Three months later the Dutch commander with all his troops left Brazil,
and the only fragments remaining to the States General after a
tremendous outlay of money and blood were a few islands in the West
Indies and a piece of the Guiana country: small return for great effort.
Portugal paid eight million florins to the Dutch in settlement of
Brazilian differences and agreed to allow Holland free trade with the
American colonies in all articles except the precious brazil-wood.
The chief results of Dutch occupation of the four capitanias of the
north-eastern promontory for twenty-four years were, first, stimulation
of world interest in this part of the vast Americas, for the
sea-captains who carried Brazilian products for the first time into
other parts of Europe than Portugal acted as advance agents of Brazilian
commerce: second, scientific investigation into natural products and
demonstration of the value of drugs peculiar to this part of South
America: third, introduction of better town management systems: fourth,
creation of a healthy national spirit in the northern provinces, with
lasting effect upon character: and the quickening of colonization in the
extreme north. It was not until the Dutch and French settled in Ceará
and Maranhão and on the Amazon that serious efforts were made to develop
these tropical territories under the equator; the year 1620 witnessed
the first arrival of settlers of Portuguese nationality in Maranhão when
two hundred families came from the Azores.
Another interesting and direct result of the Dutch intervention was the
creation of the Companhia do Commercio do Brasil (Commercial Company of
Brazil) by the Governor General, intended as a set-off to the Dutch West
India Company. It was established in 1650, received monopolies and
concessions of a valuable character, and in return was obliged to
provide a powerful armed fleet to convoy merchant vessels through
enemy-infested seas. The Commercial Company did as a fact render great
services to the Brazilians fighting against the Dutch, blockading
northern ports while insurgent armies attacked by land.
While the north was struggling with the Dutch and French and
incidentally becoming solidified by the tussle until a genuine national
feeling came into existence, Bahia, beating off attacks and remaining
the administrative residence of a Captain-General, was the centre of the
wealthiest part of the colony; all the slaves brought from Africa were
sold here, and although they were partly distributed, this was the chief
slave-owning region and is still the place where more pure negroes are
to be seen than anywhere else in Brazil. Farther south Espirito Santo,
one of the oldest of Brazilian colonies, was growing cane and raising
cattle, but suffered from raiding foreigners, as also did Ilhéos; Rio de
Janeiro became the seat of a second Captaincy-General in 1608, for a
time, with command over S. Vicente and Espirito Santo but had no
importance until the discovery of mines made her the chief gateway to
the golden regions. Out of the path of the Dutch, whose object was wide
agricultural lands, Rio neither suffered nor gained as did the North; at
this part of the Brazilian coast the mountain barrier comes right down
to the sea’s edge, the granite wall shouldering into the waters of the
deeply indented bay: there is very little land suitable for plantations
except in narrow valleys until the Serra do Mar is climbed. It was this
lack of sugar land that kept Rio uncolonized, lovely as she is, for half
a century after the colonies on either side of her were started;
settlement by the Portuguese might have been put off still longer if the
French under Admiral Villegaignon had not taken possession of the bay in
1555, made friends with the Tamoyo Indians as the Portuguese were never
able to do, fortified a rocky island, and established a Huguenot colony
here—the ill-fated “_France Antarctique_.” The energetic Mem de Sá,
Captain-General after Thomé de Souza, brought a fleet from Bahia, drove
the French into hiding on the mainland, sent his nephew, Estacio de Sá,
to Portugal to get help, and this gallant young man returned with a
strong force in 1565. In two years’ time, with troops from Bahia and São
Paulo assisting, the unfortunate Huguenots were utterly defeated, the
remnants of the exiles retiring into the woods with their Indian allies
and disappearing from history. The body of Estacio de Sá, killed in the
last decisive fighting, was buried in the shade of the Pão d’Assucar
near the first Portuguese town founded in the bay and named São
Sebastião. Another member of the same family, Correia de Sá, was sent to
head the new Portuguese settlement, and eventually died there at the age
of 113.
Division of Brazil into two captaincies-general in 1608, to be united
again soon afterwards and again subsequently divided, was part of the
experiments made by the European home governments, apparently with the
sincere wish to develop the country; it was supposed that a region so
vast could not be governed by one man, but as a matter of fact the
occupied territory was along the seaboard on the whole, and
communication by sea was fairly speedy; from 1549 onwards, when the
first Captain-General was appointed, the mother country bought up when
convenient the strips of land belonging to the heirs of the
_donatarios_; some new captaincies were also added from time to time, as
that of Grão Pará in 1616, Minas Geraes, Matto Grosso and Goyaz after
the discovery of gold and diamonds, and an independent State of
Maranhão, governed separately from the rest of Brazil was also created
in 1621, thus adding to the governmental confusion in spite of good
intentions. Decentralization was increased by the lack of commercial
exchange between the different regions, and no successful effort
improved this fault until the notable Marquis de Pombal took matters in
hand in a statesmanlike manner in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, buying the capitanias which were yet in private hands, creating
Brazil a viceroyalty and Rio the viceregal capital.
But before that date much water had flowed under Brazilian bridges. It
is not the purpose of this book to give in detail the history of Brazil,
but to show the chief events and their effect upon development.
Following the creation of the capitania system and its series of coastal
settlements came the penetration of the southern interior by the Jesuits
in their “reductions,” and the scattering of these centres of Indian
population at the hands of the bandeirantes; the next happening of
extreme importance for Brazil was the seizure of different parts of the
coast by the Dutch and French, with their stimulating effect upon
Portuguese colonization; it was after this that the gold rush to the
interior of Minas, Goyaz and Matto Grosso populated and opened up the
sertão in tiny patches, but at the same time half denuded the coast of
its settlers and injured the agricultural production of the country, the
prosperity of which was almost entirely owing to the introduction of
negro slaves, another great factor in Brazilian progress.
Today the mining industry of Brazil accounts for a very small item on
her exports lists, chiefly because the diamonds which go out are mostly
contraband, the gold is produced by only two principal mines, and while
there is a promising export of manganese it is insignificant compared to
the big business of the country or to the possibilities contained in
Brazil’s mineral seamed mountains. In the early eighteenth century
Brazil was a famous gold country, and it is reckoned that over five
hundred million dollars’ worth of this metal has been taken out. Nearly
all this gold was found in placers easily washed out by hand in the
crudest manner; when the rich alluvial deposits along river valleys were
exhausted Brazil ceased to be a gold producer on a spectacular scale. In
Minas Geraes rich sands were found near the present Ouro Preto, the
first mining city that was founded bearing the name of Villa Rica; all
about it the whole country is still in heaps, turned over by the miners
who came a couple of hundred years ago. In that day people flocked into
Minas, coming by road from S. Paulo, by the S. Francisco river from
Bahia, and by a shorter cut over the mountain passes from Rio. The bones
of many folk remained by the way: it is said that of one band of 300
Paulistas setting out in 1725 only five persons, two white men and three
negroes, reached their objective, the far interior mines of Cuyabá. It
became necessary for the authorities to forbid the taking of negroes to
the mines, so general was the abandonment of plantations, but the
protest of the Crown was only half-hearted; it was eminently
satisfactory that a stream of gold and diamonds should flow across the
Atlantic to Lisbon, and it was of as little use for governors to point
out the bad economy of coastal depopulation in the seventeen hundreds as
it had been for Governor Diogo de Menezes to write to the King in 1608:
“_Your Majesty may believe me that the true mines of Brazil are sugar
and brazil-wood, whence your Majesty draws so much advantage without
costing the Royal Treasury a single penny_.”
[Illustration:
_Two Views of São Paulo City._
São Paulo, premier city of the leader State of the Brazilian Union,
stands on the breezy uplands of the southern plateau; it is a busy,
prosperous centre with the first modern civic equipment. Population
550,000.
]
Quarrels at the mines led to the “Guerra dos Emboabas,” a factional
disturbance between the Paulista discoverers and stranger gold-diggers;
in the end the Paulistas were driven back, retired to their own uplands,
and Minas Geraes was politically separated. Indomitably energetic, the
men of S. Paulo turned their attention southward, where the Spaniards
had entered and settled, drove the intruders out of Rio Grande do Sul
and thus secured another, and one of the finest, regions for Brazil.
In 1750 King John V of Portugal died. The death of Portuguese monarchs
did not as a rule make more than a perfunctory difference to the
Colonies, but in this case the succession of José I was important
because, with infinite faith in his brilliant Minister Sebastião José de
Carvalho e Mello, afterwards Marquis de Pombal, he left the chief
affairs of the kingdom to these able hands. Pombal has been bitterly
attacked: he was without doubt a man of iron; but he was a man of
unusual foresight and intelligence who thoroughly realized the great
value of Brazil, and did much to improve economic conditions in that
huge possession. He seems to have had what Brazilians call a _palpite_
concerning the destiny of Brazil and Portugal.
Almost the first act of this statesman was the curtailing of the powers
of the Inquisition: he abolished _autos da fé_, which must have given
relief to Brazil if the historian Porto Seguro is correct in saying that
no less than 500 Brazilians had been burnt alive in Lisbon by the Holy
Office. With a special eye to Portuguese America he reduced taxes on
tobacco and sugar, had the diamond traffic strictly supervised, created
commercial companies to trade with Pará, Maranhão, Pernambuco and
Parahyba; specially encouraged the plantation of rice and cotton in the
North; legislated most of the commerce which was in the hands of the
enterprising English into Portuguese channels; inaugurated good
ship-building yards in Brazilian ports; settled boundary disputes with
the Spanish on Brazilian borders; brought all capitanias still in
private control under the Portuguese Crown—Cametá, Caeté, Ilha de
Joannes, Itamaracá, Reconcavo de Bahia, Ilhéos, Porto Seguro, São
Vicente and Campos dos Goytacazes; and as his most powerful and bitterly
assailed effort he laid hands on the Jesuits. The Society, overwhelmed
in the South, was strongly entrenched in the North since the opening of
Pará and Maranhão; they had done wonderful and self-sacrificing work
there; but they hostilized the colonists and made the mistake of arming
their protégés the Indians against the settlers. They constituted
themselves in Brazil as Bartolomé de las Casas did in Mexico and
Guatemala, the Defenders of the Indians; they were extraordinarily
successful with them, and it is not impossible that if some working
arrangement could have been found between the colonists and Jesuits a
great problem might have been solved—that of obtaining some control over
the natives and teaching them industries without undermining their
peculiar physical constitution. With the best intentions in the world,
more modern efforts made to hold the Indian tribes in civic life have
ended in their speedy dwindling and extinction; no one except Colonel
Rondon seems able to teach the Indian and keep him alive.
To break up the Jesuit missions, Pombal in 1755 decreed the
“emancipation of the Indians of Pará and Maranhão,” a curious corollary
to the laws that the Society had themselves obtained earlier forbidding
the Portuguese settlers to enslave Indians. A little later occurred in
Portugal an attempt against the life of the King: the Jesuits were,
quite unjustly, accused of being concerned in it, and on this pretext
they were ordered expelled in a body from Portugal and from all
Portuguese possessions. This was in 1759, expulsion from Brazil taking
place during 1760; not content with this, the abolition of the Society
of Jesus was obtained from Pope Clement XIV in 1773. This severe measure
was rescinded in 1814, and the Jesuits came back to Brazil as to other
world dominions, doing excellent educational work at the present time;
their colleges are magnificent institutions, and it is commonly said in
Brazil that the very best education for men is obtained in the Jesuit
college at Itú, in the interior of São Paulo State.
José I died in 1777, and Pombal promptly descended from power; but his
work in the stimulation of Brazilian industries, the creation of a
genuine Brazilian entity through strong centralization, and the erection
of Rio into a viceroyalty, paved the way for the next great change.
Early in the nineteenth century, when the North American colonies of
Great Britain had successfully revolted, and the French Revolution was
an accomplished fact, ideas of republican independence began to agitate
many heads in South America. Brazil had only one uprising, the famous
Conspiracy of Minas, which got no farther than plans; it was headed by
one of the influential Freire de Andrade family, and all the plotters
were eventually pardoned except one scapegoat, who was executed publicly
in Rio in 1792, and thus achieved immortality: his nickname of
_Tiradentes_ is preserved in the name of a square in Rio and a public
holiday on the anniversary of his death.
A few years later Napoleon was overrunning Europe. Portugal, friendly to
his enemy England, incurred the Napoleonic wrath, tried to make terms
too late, and was being actually invaded by the French when an English
naval squadron appeared in the Tagus commanded by Sir Sidney Smith; the
Portuguese royal family and a host of courtiers went aboard Portuguese
vessels and were convoyed across the Atlantic, out of Napoleon’s reach,
to Brazil. It would not at all have suited England for the Braganzas to
fall into hands which already held too many royal prisoners. It was one
of the most remarkable transferences of a crown in history, this
emigration of Dom João to his American colonies; it was a useful and a
dignified refuge for him and at the same time was of great value to
Brazil, probably saving her from years of disorder and bloodshed.
[Illustration:
_Two Views of the Avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro._
The beautiful Avenida, over a mile long, was driven through the city
from the docks to the Avenida Beira Mar as part of the extensive
city improvements costing over £20,000,000 begun in March, 1904; the
avenue was completed in November, 1905. Rio has 1,250,000
population.
]
The royal party arrived first at Bahia, where the town turned out in
enthusiastic welcome and invited Dom João to make this city his seat of
government; but his destination was Rio, and he sailed on, first giving
out a proclamation which ensured him a good reception in the Capital—the
_Abertura dos Portos_, or opening of the ports of Brazil freely to the
ships of all the world “friendly to Portugal.” Public printing presses
were now permitted, a newspaper was started, chiefly engaged in training
the minds of the _nascidos no Brasil_ (Brazilian born) to appreciation
of the monarchical presence, but still the commencement of Brazilian
journalism; foreign capital began to come, and active Europeans,
attracted by the advertisement that the transference of the monarchy
gave Brazil, entered and established businesses; the Banco do Brasil was
inaugurated; fine buildings were erected in Rio; the Regent’s collection
of pictures and books, brought with him, formed the nucleus of the
excellent museum and library of modern Rio; the harbour was improved, a
School of Art and Naval College founded. By the time that Portugal was
free from the Napoleonic shadow, and, in 1821, called Dom João home
again, he left behind a Brazil to which a tremendous impetus had been
given, and which had been raised to the dignity of a kingdom equal in
importance with Portugal and Algarves six years earlier. North and south
of Brazil the newly freed Spanish American countries were deep in
troubles born of a sudden injection into independence of unaccustomed
populations. Brazil herself could scarcely have avoided being drawn into
the vortex had her citizens still to complain of the narrow policies and
repressive measures of the colonial system; they had become too proud
and too strong for development to be longer retarded, and the European
turn of fortune came in the nick of time. It was lucky that Dom João was
a man of shrewd good sense. Dom Pedro, son of Dom João, remained in
Brazil as Regent, and the country was still linked to Portugal; it was
soon apparent that this condition could not endure. The jealous
legislature in Lisbon wished to reduce Brazil again to the level of a
colony under tutelage, despite the efforts of Dom João; the news came to
Rio together with a peremptory order for the return of the prince, and
he, a good diplomat, elected to throw his lot in with Brazil, and
declared the Independence on the historic hillside of Ypiranga, in
1822.[4]
Proclaimed Emperor soon afterwards, Pedro ruled for nine years and then
abdicated in favour of his five-year-old child, Dom Pedro _segundo_. To
this rather stormy period of control is due the commencement of
deliberate colonization of Europeans into Brazil; it was a policy widely
continued later on by Pedro II, and afterwards adopted both by the
Federal Government and by separate States of the Union. A regency lasted
until Pedro was fourteen years old, the most remarkable hand on the
reins of power meanwhile being that of the astute priest, Father Diogo
Feijó.
Pedro II endeared himself to Brazil by his kindly and tactful spirit,
his genial broadmindedness; he was a scholar by instinct, and did his
best to advance Brazil by the encouragement of railroad building,
invitation to foreign capital, and the throwing open of wide spaces of
southern land to good class immigrants. It was during his reign that the
English, who had established themselves firmly during the first
monarchical periods, sending ships regularly and opening markets for
Brazilian products, were followed by the commercial French and later by
the German merchant. The industrial and educational advance of Brazil is
largely owing to the personal initiative of Dom Pedro II. His reign was
one of the longest in history, from 1831 to 1889, and the development
within this period includes inauguration of city tramways as well as
railroads; the discovery that coffee would grow in Brazil and its
systematic cultivation; discovery of the properties of rubber; the
introduction of factories; use of hydraulic power.
Following the world agitation against slavery, Brazil in 1854 forbade
the introduction of negroes; there were however still large numbers of
these people in bondage as well as a much larger number free.
Public feeling was much excited about the question in the eighties, and
at last in 1888, when Dom Pedro during a period of illness had made his
daughter, the Princess Isabel, Regent, the powerful influence of many
highminded Brazilians was brought to bear, and the decree of abolition
was signed.
Slave holders were not so pleased as statesmen, when their farm workers
immediately forsook the field and flocked into the cities; agriculture
undoubtedly suffered, and to the discontent of the planters is credited
the agitation that now gathered head against the continuation of the
monarchical system. The truth seems rather to be that the Empire had
outlived its usefulness, and surrounded by republics could not survive.
There was also a general fear lest Isabel, said to be priest-dominated,
should be permanently appointed Regent, and this idea hastened the day
that would otherwise have been postponed, in all probability, until the
death of the good and highly revered Dom Pedro. A growing band of
republicans, some of the foremost men in Brazilian affairs today, found
themselves strong enough to proclaim the end of the Empire; Dom Pedro
was informed and asked to leave the country within twenty-four hours,
and did so; the Republic in Brazil dates from November 15, 1889.
The first years of the new régime were darkened by disorders, the worst
being the revolt, long-drawn-out, in Rio Grande do Sul. Two military
presidents were succeeded by four civilians, and these in turn by a
third militarist, and notably extravagant, presidency from 1910 to 1914.
The present President, a lawyer, Dr. Wencesláo Braz Pereira Gomez, is
making heroic efforts to redeem the financial condition of the country,
and is fortunate in being aided by a group of exceedingly able men. The
country became deeply involved during the last twenty-five years; if she
were an old land the burden would be severe: her strength lies in her
youth, internal vigour, and unsurpassed abundance of untapped resources.
The tremendous money spending of Republican times has been sharply
censured since the outbreak of war in Europe suddenly pulled up the
country to a realization of her debts; it is probably fortunate that she
was just too late to arrange yet another, for which negotiations were
opened in 1914. But while it is true that literally tons of money were
borrowed and spent after 1889, it is also from that date that the great
leap forward of the country is reckoned; her extravagance was a wide
advertisement—the attention of the world was called to this spoilt child
of the nations as no modest jogging along the beaten track would have
done. Bankers, commercial firms, writers, settlers came to Brazil; there
was a feverish expansion in railroad building, and from this period
dates the inauguration of good modern port works in Rio, Bahia, Pará,
Pernambuco, Santos, Victoria, and many other points of call for
ocean-going vessels; waterworks and town drainage, the better paving of
a score of cities, extinction of yellow fever and other tropical pests,
were all accomplished with money borrowed in the hey-day of Brazil.
The check in facile borrowing of very large sums on easy terms has
undoubtedly acted as a cold shower upon South America in general,
somewhat accustomed to financial sunshine; the result has been salutary
in awakening the people all over the continent to the need for
unprecedented personal effort. It has, too, brought about a new sense of
North American relations, created and needed, with South America. The
European War has turned the United States from the position of a debtor
to that of a creditor country, and while up to the end of 1922 her loans
to the whole of South America have not exceeded two hundred million
dollars, chiefly short-time State borrowings, caution is mutually
beneficial. There is, however, much work to be done which calls urgently
for gold supplies, and it is but logical that the country accumulating
money rapidly should be willing to take up a due share of the
development work waiting; European interests need not and should not be
ousted, but can be readily and happily supplemented.
The United States of Brazil today contain over 24,000,000 people, still
largely concentrated upon the sea coast, in a score of thriving cities.
She is at peace with her neighbours, with no shadow upon her political
horizon; her only great problem is the industrial, financial one, and
this, with the concentrated effort of Brazilians and the right kind of
external help, can be solved. The entry of Brazil into the War upon the
side of the Allies, after the torpedoing of the Brazilian vessels and
the declaration of war by the United States against Germany, brought
about a new international comradeship, and has awakened the world to a
better understanding of the spirit and power of the country.
CHAPTER II
COLONIZATION IN BRAZIL
The story of colonization in Brazil is unique in the annals of the human
movement across the world that has been going on ever since man began to
multiply and to seek elbow-room; it is one of the phenomena of exodus.
Arrival upon the shores of Brazil of an extraordinary variety of races
was not a voluntary immigration in most instances. It was the result of
a studied policy, inaugurated by the Emperors of Brazil, and carried on
to the present day by the Federal Government and certain of the separate
States; experiments in various kinds of people were made on a concerted
plan, the colonies were grouped, in many cases isolated, retained their
language and customs, still produce the food to which they were
accustomed in the home land, and only become assimilated as their
populations leave them or touch in time the fringe of others. The
official mothering which they received tended rather to keep them
grouped than to spread them in the earlier years.
The first official, deliberate importation of colonists of blood foreign
to Brazil or Portugal began in 1817, when Dom João brought in Swiss
settlers. Agents of the Brazilian Government recruited no less than five
thousand in Bern, although owing to delays and accidents only about two
thousand sailed from Amsterdam and Rotterdam: landing on a hot coastal
belt after a trying voyage, fever took the mountaineers, and but a
sparse seventeen hundred reached the foot of the Serra do Mar. Climbing
to the pretty nook where the town of their founding, Nova Friburgo,
stands today in a shelter of green mountains, sickness still followed
them, and only the hardiest or most resistant clung to the colony,
survived and left their name to another generation. Many dispersed to
other localities. Nova Friburgo, now reached by the Leopoldina railway,
and a thriving city, fresh, flowery, producer of cereals and peaches,
owns few Swiss inhabitants today. A second batch of immigrants, three
hundred and forty-two Germans, filled some gaps in the ranks: their
readiness for labour may have been heightened by memories of the
difficulties of transit to Europe, for the journey had taken one hundred
and eighty days in a sailing-ship. Germany at this period had not begun
the industrial expansion which later kept all her people at home;
economic conditions were severe on the ambitious worker, laws and social
customs were irksome, and enterprising men looked across the seas for
free lands. Germany became for about twenty-five years the very best
recruiting ground for Brazil.
The second official colony was founded in Rio Grande do Sul, and
consisted entirely of Germans—one hundred and twenty-six persons
originally—who came in 1825. The colony was named São Leopoldo, used the
water highway of the Rio dos Sinos until a railway line was built
connecting it with Porto Alegre and with new colonies to the north, and
has developed into one of the chief towns of the state, with forty
thousand inhabitants. Its establishment was followed rapidly by that of
Tres Forquilhas and S. Pedro de Alcantara, both in Rio Grande and both
German, 1826; by another S. Pedro de Alcantara, also German, in Santa
Catharina, 1826; Rio Negro, in Paraná, 1828, formed by disbanded German
soldiers. Petropolis, the model city in the hills above Rio, owed its
inception to Dom Pedro and was founded with Germans and Swiss, but not
until 1848, for more than ten years of civil war down south in Rio
Grande, when the “República de Piritinim” was proclaimed, checked
colonizing projects in the Empire. With the suppression of trouble
German colonizing was resumed in the south, Santa Catharina creating the
Santa Isabel colony in 1845, while Rio Grande started five new centres
between 1849 and 1850. The latter year is also memorable for the
foundation of Blumenau, in Santa Catharina, by the good Herr Blumenau of
Brunswick. At the same point on the lovely river Itajahy a little
nucleus had existed precariously since 1827, added to by a group of one
hundred and twenty-two Belgians in 1844; Herr Blumenau brought in
Germans gradually at his own expense, supervising the colony in the rôle
of a kind of paternal burgomaster, and in 1864 was able to count two
thousand five hundred people; his efforts had, however, cost him about
twelve thousand dollars. The Brazilian Government repaid him his outlay
and made him official Director. Today Blumenau, once a small
self-contained _nucleo_, is a bustling city with fifty thousand people,
a lively exporting business and a railroad line. In 1850 the Dona
Thereza colony in Paraná was started, while the famous Joinville, first
called Dona Francesca, began in 1851 in Santa Catharina; it owed its
existence to the fact that an Orleans scion, the Prince de Joinville,
married a Brazilian princess who inherited large estates chiefly
consisting of _matto_ in Santa Catharina. The family ceded twelve square
leagues of this land to the “Colonizing Union” of Hamburg, whence
settlers were promptly sent, both the Prince and the Brazilian
Government making a protégé of the _nucleo_. The large sums of money
spent resulted in a fine town, now numbering some twenty-five thousand
people, served by the Brazil Railways. A little later (1852) the Minas
Geraes colony of Mucury was founded, but by this time German colonizing
in arranged shipments had come to an end; any additional German
colonists came singly. The German Government, both alarmed at the losses
in blood—for emigration to North America and other parts of South
America was also proceeding, although along different lines—and by
reports sent home as the result of investigation which gave a poor
account of the condition of the isolated _nucleos_, passed a law to
forbid emigration to Brazil. Dom Pedro had to turn his attention to
other countries.
Before the coming of the Germans, South Brazil was almost totally
neglected; demand for tropical produce such as sugar and tobacco had
kept the attention of Portuguese and their mixed-blood descendants for
over three centuries to North Brazil, where negro slaves multiplied on
the warm coast; the grassy uplands of the south attracted few
Brazilians, and these chiefly bandeirantes whose main business was to
keep out Spaniards from the Plate, and whose wild cattle strayed and
bred on the natural pastures. So wild and untenanted was the country
that up to the middle of the nineteenth century the German colonists had
trouble with Indian raiders. But it was the right climate for the
north-born Europeans, a wise choice that proved a success while other
settlements dwindled out. During the same period there were several
attempts to colonize Espirito Santo, notably at Santa Isabel, and
Cachoeiras and Transylvania, six or seven starting between 1847 and
1856. The energy of the settlers was discounted by the hot climate, and
many moved south, where the great increase in settlers’ populations is a
fair criterion of their success. The official figures of German entries
into Brazil from 1820 to the end of 1915 are one hundred and twenty-two
thousand eight hundred and thirty, but the people of German blood in
Brazil are now reckoned at about 250,000. The southerly towns under
their influence are clean, well-kept, live centres, with constantly
expanding industries. Rio Grande today is quite one of the best sections
of Brazil: the influx of Italians brings them more than equal in numbers
to the German element, taking the state as a whole.
With organized German settlement checked, Brazil during the eighteen
fifties turned her attention to the mother country, and brought in
Portuguese; they were settled in the warmer latitudes. In 1853, such a
colony was begun in Maranhão, at Santa Isabel, followed by five more in
the same northern and sultry state in 1855; in the same year three
Portuguese colonies were established in Pará, at Nossa Senhora d’O, at
Peçanha and at Silva, while Rio de Janeiro was planted with another
five. A little later Bahia was given Portuguese colonies at Sinimbú,
Engenho Novo and Rio Pardo. These and others were not strikingly
successful until or unless joined by other colonists, for the
Portuguese, who are artisans rather than agriculturists, melted from the
lonely settlements and found jobs in the coast cities.
By this time coffee culture was coming into favour, the slave business
was doomed, although the actual abolition of slavery did not occur until
1888, and planters invited immigrants to their developing estates. The
work of obtaining immigrants was undertaken by individuals, as the
Vergueiro family by Theophilo Ottoni and the Visconde de Baependy, with
varying success, as well as by the International Society of Immigration
of Rio, with headquarters in Antwerp. Colonists sent to coffee estates
worked on the _métayer_ or _parceria_ system, inherently vicious. The
colonist had the satisfaction of considering himself an independent
worker, but as he started with a large debt, never owned land and earned
no wages, his lot was a poor one if crops failed or the _fazendeiro_
chanced to be unfair. He arrived owing for the passage of himself and
family, and was given a house and a quantity of food—of the country; he
cultivated a certain number of coffee trees, or allotment of sugarcane,
took the harvest to the owner’s mill and received half the result after
milling. It is said by J. L. Moré, in his book _Le Brésil en 1852_, that
the hardworking Bavarians and Holsteiners who worked on this system in
São Paulo often paid off their debts in four years and then had money in
hand; but other investigators spoke adversely on the subject, finding
colonists of ten and twelve years’ standing still indebted and living
hopelessly. In the end the _parceria_ gave way before a general wages
system. The _métayer_ plan still exists in some parts of Minas, Espirito
Santo, São Paulo and other coffee regions, and can be found in the sugar
districts and in the cacao region of Bahia, but large ownership of great
scientifically-run estates has driven it from general employment.
Investigations made by J. von Tschudi, sent by the Swiss Government in
1857, and by the German Consul Haupt ten years later, proved the failure
of the share system; colonists could be seized and imprisoned if they
tried to leave the estate on which they worked, and, unable to support
life on the produce of their allotments, would have been even worse off
had it not been for the “many acts of benevolence for which the
emigrants had to thank the kindness natural to so many Brazilians,” says
the author of _Brazilian Colonization_, a little brochure published
under a pseudonym in London in the year 1873.
The same writer, giving a list of nationalities comprising the
immigration into Brazilian states up to that time, nearly thirty-five
years ago, before the great entry of the Italians had begun, or that of
the Poles and Russians with their gift of hardy persistence, names a
French colony taken to the banks of the Ivahy river in Paraná about
1850, which expired for want of transportation and therefore of markets;
this, with the influx of Algerian French in 1868–1869 to a spot near
Curityba, also in Paraná, is the most important attempt of the Gallic
race to found settlements in Brazil; the disturbances of the latter, the
first vine-growers of the state, gave the authorities as much trouble as
the subsequent adventures of the Russians ten years later in the same
region.
“Jacaré Assu” also mentions a few Alsatians in Nova Petropolis (Rio
Grande); the Dutch families in Joinville, Rio Novo, Petropolis, and
Leopoldina (Espirito Santo); the Tyrolian wanderers; the Danes of
Estrella; the Mongolians—five hundred and sixty-six of them, who came by
contract in 1856; and the colony of Icelanders who went to Joinville,
and were “said to be doing very well.” He also speaks of the “colonies
of Brazilians” in Brazil, who were settled in Estrella, at Sinimbú,
Iguape and Itajahy; and the North American influx of 1867. This later
item was the result neither of population overflow nor invitation, but
was the result of the struggle between the North and South of the United
States, the disappointed slave-owning southerners seeking a land where
their losses could be forgotten. The exodus, of course, was in several
directions: groups went into Mexico, some to Canada, to different parts
of South America; I have seen an excellent colony of these migrants and
their descendants at Toledo in the south of British Honduras, growing
sugarcane and prospering. Those who came to Brazil were brought from the
port of New York by the “United States and Brazil Mail Ships,” since
defunct, the first batch of two hundred leaving in December, 1866. They
were followed by some thousands, but today it is difficult to trace
them, the groups into which they were originally assembled having long
since broken up.
Seeking these settlements, I visited Villa Americana in São Paulo state
but found it long since turned into a villa Italiana, with only one
family of American origin which seemed to have thriven; forty miles or
so across country, at Piracicaba, however, I found an American school,
admirably conducted by a little old lady who told me that she had come
with the original settlers of Santa Barbara, founded in the parish of
Piracicaba, but now a shadow. Her school was a delightful one, with the
stocky girl pupils going through gymnastic exercises in unwonted
rational clothes, but they were all Brazilians; the Americans had
melted, the ones who remained not being able to keep up in the struggle.
There seem to have been at least four definite attempts at settlement
besides individual selection of dwelling places: these were at Santarem,
on the Amazon’s junction with the Tapajoz river; Cannavieiras, on the
coast of southern Bahia; Juquiá, or Cananea, below Iguape in southern
São Paulo; and the Santa Barbara-Villa Americana group in central São
Paulo. Some of the immigrants had money, but in many cases the war had
swallowed it; former owners of slaves, they were often less fitted to
make a living from the soil than the negroes they had left behind. The
one crop that they understood thoroughly was cotton, and it seems to
have been tried at each of the four spots named, but in at least two
regions success was nullified by climate. In São Paulo’s interior lands
a fair measure of reward was obtained and an impulse to cotton growing
dates from this time. The Cananea colony, where some English were
introduced about the same time, was a notable scene of discontent; both
groups of colonists hurried back to Rio and made so many complaints that
the consuls went through sieges. The fact was that the site for the
settlement was unsuited to Anglo-Saxon modes of life and that
insufficient preparation had been made: a few years ago a colony of
Japanese was given land a few miles from the ill-fated spot, at Iguape,
and, settling down to grow rice, have made a striking success. But the
points of view of the two nationalities, as well as colonization methods
pursued by the organizers in the different cases, had nothing in common.
At Cannavieiras there is today a thriving series of cacao plantations
and a Brazilian population: these people keep in order, carefully
weeded, a grave. There is a fence of hard Brazilian _massaranduba_ about
it, perennial flowers blossom above; under the soil lie the three little
children of the leader of the American colony, and of it there is no
other trace.
Of the Santa Barbara colony there is a story told which is comedy
instead of tragedy. The colonists grew, besides cotton, watermelons: one
year just as the crop ripened, cholera broke out in S. Paulo, the sale
of melons was forbidden, and the growers faced ruin. At this time
President Cleveland had come into office in the United States, and had
just appointed a new consul at Santos: he must, then, be a good
Democrat. The settlers, who on landing in Brazil had ceremonially torn
up the Constitution of the United States and offered thanks to heaven
for having permitted them to reach a land where the sacred Biblical
institution of slavery was still in force, remembered that they were
American citizens. They wrote to the consul a letter of congratulation
on his arrival and at the same time detailed their grievances with
regard to watermelon sales. The consul replied cordially, suggested that
he should visit them, and received post haste a warm welcome. The
afternoon of his arrival at the colony found the entire population drawn
up on the platform, a southern Colonel at the head of the deputation.
The train rolls up, a first-class compartment door opens, a gentleman
steps out with a suitcase, and walks up to the Colonel with outstretched
hand. It was the consul—but a consul as black as the ace of spades.
It is said that the Colonel, rising nobly to the occasion, gasped once,
shook the hand of the consul, and that he and the other southerners gave
the official the time of his life; but when he departed they vowed that
never, never again would they trust a Democratic administration....
There are a few descendants of this group who have attained true
distinction in Brazil and genuinely work for the land of their adoption.
It was after the dwindling of the flow of German incomers about 1860
that a steady stream of Italians was directed towards Brazil. Their
wooing was in a great measure due to the systematized efforts of the
coffee-growers of S. Paulo state, and, after the establishment of the
republic in 1889, of the state authorities. Workers from North Italy
were found to be those who best suited the needs of conditions of the
coffee industry, and to this part of Europe were directed the attentions
of recruiting agents. Laborious, serious, economical, bent upon
acquiring a little fortune, the Italians came with their wives and
families, accepted their position as _colonos_ upon the great estates,
never very ardently attached to one particular piece of soil, and ready
to pick up and move on wherever advantageous conditions beckoned.
[Illustration:
_Agriculture in S. Paulo State._
Cutting sugar cane.
Rice cultivation.
Coffee gathering.
]
From the year 1820 to the end of 1919, a total of one million, three
hundred and seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six
Italians have officially entered Brazil as immigrants. With their
children born in Brazil they total well over two millions today, greatly
out-numbering any other entering race. Their colonization has been a
marked success, due not only to their personal characteristics, but to
the just treatment given them by the authorities. There was a time, soon
after the abolition of slavery, when the _colonos_ brought in to fill
labour gaps complained of the relations between themselves and the
_fazendeiros_; realizing that the existence of friction and subsequent
scandals would defeat their object, the São Paulo Government put
machinery into working order, known as the _Patronato Agricola_ which
adjusted differences, looked into social conditions, and took in hand
the work of giving medical care and schooling to immigrants. The Italian
has remained upon coffee fazendas, acquired land and coffee trees of his
own or taken up commercial work in the towns, rather than remained in
_nucleos_; he has identified himself with the modern progress of South
Brazil, taken up manufacturing, built himself some of the most splendid
and extravagant houses in São Paulo city, famed as it is for luxurious
dwellings; the Avenida Paulista, pride of São Paulo, was “built on
coffee,” and much of the wealth displayed there is Italian wealth,
created during the last twenty-five years. The year of greatest
immigration in Brazil is said to have been that of 1891 when out of a
total of nearly two hundred and seventy-six thousand, about one hundred
and sixteen thousand were Italians; their influence upon prosperity in
São Paulo may be estimated by the fact that more than one million out of
the State’s three million population are of Italian blood. No other
state has so systematized immigration, perhaps because none had the
pressing need and the immediate rewards to offer, as has São Paulo; she
no longer pays passages on steamships, but she maintains free hotels in
Santos and São Paulo city, where five meals a day are given, good airy
rooms, baths, etc., and where immigrants are lodged for a week or until
work is found.
Preponderant as are the numbers of Italians, they are by no means the
only southern settlers of the last fifty years; Poles and Russians came
in notable quantities in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, settling in
the Paraná uplands as well as in _nucleos_ in São Paulo. At the end of
the century there were two thousand Russo-Germans from the Volga,
farming land on methods of their own in the neighbourhood of Curityba;
an obstinate folk, they insisted upon tilling prairies like their own
steppes instead of choosing forestal land, shared all goods on the
Russian communistic plan, and gave the Brazilian authorities so much
trouble that there must have been sighs of relief when bodies of them
deserted the _nucleos_ and demanded to be sent back to Russia. From
those who stayed has grown up the tribe of Russian carters who do the
road-transportation work of the high Paraná plateau; there are groups of
farmers, too, both Russians and Poles, who share land in common and are
raisers of wheat, their favourite rye, and other cereals; some have
taken up the business of gathering and curing _matte_, the “tea” which
South Brazil grows and exports to the Argentine.
There is one specially thriving Russian settlement to be seen in São
Paulo state, at Nova Odessa; the wooden buildings are Russian in type,
the tall churches are like pictures from a traveller’s Russian notebook,
and the institution of the samovar and the huge family stove is clung
to. These people are great lovers of land, and its possession has
contented them; as yet there is little mingling with the social or
political life of Brazil.
The system under which land is made over to colonists demands more
explanation than space permits; São Paulo, briefly, only sanctions the
establishment of _nucleos_ near a railway line or navigable river, with
an eye to marketing, and has inserted colonization clauses in more than
one railroad concession to help develop these settlements along the
route; lots are never, originally, of more than fifty hectares, and may
be half this size if quite close to rail or river; “urban” lots are
granted to settlers with money in hand to start a business, and “rural”
lots to intending agriculturists; nobody can obtain a lot unless he has
a wife and family, but sons twenty-one years old can also obtain grants
while bachelors; payments are made on easy terms, generally at the end
of each harvest for five successive years, prices varying according to
locality from a few milreis to a couple of hundred per hectare—roughly
speaking; I have never heard of unfeeling treatment in cases where
settlers are unable to keep up payments in bad years, but encountered
many stories of help given by the authorities. When the male head of a
family dies before payments are complete, the widow and family are
handed clear titles if three-quarters of the debt has been liquidated,
and if ability to continue work is demonstrated; if not, the family is
sent back to Europe at State expense. Rebates of ten per cent are given
to settlers able to pay on taking up land.
Following this plan, it happens that for several years after the
foundation of a new centre the colony is in debt, becoming _emancipado_
as the obligations are paid off; São Paulo state is dotted with pleasant
examples of these “emancipated” colonies, today flourishing agricultural
regions well-farmed by the industrious and ambitious Europeans, adding
enormously to the productivity of the State. At the end of 1915 the
State was acting as god-mother to half a score of _nucleos_, of which
the most promising are Campos Salles, Jorge Tibirçia, Nova Europa, Nova
Veneza, Gavião Peixoto, and the Martinho Prado group. In the same year,
the President’s message states, two hundred and ninety-three colonists
completed payments on their lots and received definite titles in place
of the provisionary ones first issued: over one hundred and eighty-five
contos was paid on lots. “The total population still under State
administration is 13,793 persons, who occupy an area of 54,666 hectares;
of these over 14,000 are in cultivation, yielding produce worth 1800
contos of reis last year,” said Dr. Altino Arantes (July, 1916). Twenty
thousand people came into the state in 1915, of whom six thousand were
Portuguese, four thousand Spanish and four thousand Italian; this is but
twenty per cent of pre-war average immigration to S. Paulo.
In the course of years very many colonies have developed into regular
towns, long since “emancipated;” São Bernardo, Sabaúna and Bom Successo
are notable instances, while the capital city itself has reached out and
absorbed _nucleo_ hangers-on to her spreading petticoats.
One of the interesting recent experiments of São Paulo was the cession
of some twelve million acres of coastal land to a Japanese company with
the object of creating an agricultural colony with Oriental brains and
labour. The organizing syndicate, with the approval of the Japanese
Government, was formed in Tokio in 1913, used Japanese capital,
emigrants and ships, and has already settled several thousand people.
Studied preparations and soil experiments were made before any colonists
were carried over. Practical results so far have included a large
addition to Brazil’s production of rice, while the resurrection of the
once flourishing tea industry is also said to be in sight. This Japanese
colony is notable for its tactful introduction: wishing to avoid even
the chance of friction, the organizers stipulated its location in a spot
which, able to communicate by water with markets, does not rub shoulders
with other centres of population. Iguape is reached either by small
steamers from Santos, or by rail from Santos to a spot on the river
Iguape communicating with the colony by riverine boats, but little is
heard of the Japanese settlement in São Paulo; they live to themselves
and their chief appearance is in statistical reports. Besides the
members of this agricultural colony there are at least another eight or
ten thousand Japanese in Brazil, chiefly house servants, greatly liked
for their quick, sophisticated resource.
Apart from the serious, long-continued work of the São Paulo authorities
to win labour from abroad, there is still a remarkable amount of support
given to immigration by the Federal Government; _nucleos_ to the number
of twenty are supervised by the authorities, seven of which have been
“emancipated” while thirteen are still paying for their allotments. The
seven free centres, Tayó, Ivahy, Jesuino Marcondes, Itapará, Iraty and
Vera-Guarany, in Paraná, and Affonso Penna in Espirito Santo, contain
nearly 33,000 persons, the remaining thirteen counting 19,000 persons:
together the colonies had an agricultural yield in 1915 worth 14,223
contos of reis, and own livestock valued at 2,427 contos.
The State of Minas Geraes has made repeated efforts to encourage
immigration and spent large sums upon propaganda and the establishment
of _nucleos_. She has under supervision sixteen state colonies, with a
total population of 26,000 persons, agricultural production from the
lands under cultivation amounting in 1915 to the value of 3,155 contos
of reis. There are also within the state borders two Federal colonies,
one of which, João Pinheiro, has freed itself from indebtedness and is
on the way to become an important agricultural and stock-raising centre;
these two _nucleos_ contain over two thousand persons.
In Rio Grande do Sul colonization has been seriously checked since 1913,
but there are two important centres under State control which call for
mention: one is the Guarany _nucleo_, in existence for a quarter of a
century but counting only 25,000 inhabitants because it is off the line
of communication with state markets; its position is strikingly
contrasted with the Erechim colony, six years old, planted on the Rio
Grande-S. Paulo railway line when the latter was opened to traffic, and
which today has over 30,000 population grouped in six or seven bright
little villages.
In 1915, when entries from abroad were checked on account of the war in
Europe there were still immigrants from Portugal to the number of
15,000, 6,000 Italians, nearly as many Spanish, 600 Russians and 500
“Turco-Arabs:” also some two thousand Brazilians were moved from the
“scourged” districts of the rainless north and sent south. From 1820 to
the end of 1919 the number of immigrants entering Brazil has been as
follows:—
Italians 1,378,876
Portuguese 1,021,271
Spaniards 500,378
Germans 127,321
Russians 105,225
Austrians 79,302
Turk-Arabs 54,120
French 29,665
British 28,798
Japanese 18,402
Swiss 11,376
Swedes 5,502
Belgians 5,289
In addition, official lists give another 200,000 of “diversas”
nationalities and a margin must also be allowed for persons who did not
enter as immigrants.
Where is the future immigrant of Brazil to come from, and to what part
of the country is he to go? I have put this question frequently to
Brazilians, and have almost invariably received an answer to this
effect: “We want white immigrants, and they can settle healthily either
in the cool south of Brazil or on the high interior uplands.” The
sertões of Matto Grosso and Goyaz will not attract foreign settlers
until there is better communication; the land is there, but the markets
are not available. But there is land and to spare still in São Paulo
with its network of railways and good riverways, and there is excellent
cereal and cattle land in Paraná, Santa Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul,
for the northern-born, who cannot face a semi-tropical climate: for him
who can face it—as the Texas cotton grower should do—there are extensive
regions farther north in Pernambuco and her sister states. The extreme
north is not fitted for white, Anglo-Saxon or Latin, families, and
although single men can live healthily in such latitudes for many years,
the life of such tropic exiles is not good for the individual or for
society. Coloured or Asiatic colonists have been suggested for the
Amazonian valley, but it is at least doubtful whether the Brazilian
Government would favour such plans, or whether, in view of the fertility
of the native population, such introductions would be necessary; saving
babies by improved sanitation would solve the problem better than any
other method of populating.
The question of where white immigration is to come from is a difficult
one; after the close of the European War, there was an exodus from
Russia and the most troubled regions of Central Europe. But on the other
hand the formation of new States created an appeal to national feeling
that kept at home as creative builders many men who would otherwise have
been, probably, among the emigrants. São Paulo received in 1920 nearly
45,000 immigrants, the bulk of all entrants, and has added considerably
to the southerly Japanese colonies producing rice, silk and tea; and the
conclusion, in late 1921, of an emigration treaty between Brazil and
Italy immediately set flowing a strong tide of Italian workers.
Many ex-service men with camp experiences are still looking about them
for the country offering most to farmers and stock-raisers. To such men
there are few parts of the world which offer as much as does Brazil,
with her sincere invitation to foreigners, square dealing, stability,
and rewards for enterprise. The lack of development along certain
definite lines is Brazil’s best recommendation to the enterprising and
persistent.
No seeker after _dolce far niente_ should come here. No thought of
tropic paradises should obscure the vision of the newcomer. Brazil is a
good country for the worker, with wide southern lands where careful
cultivation will bring excellent results; it is a really free country of
tolerant views as well as of wide spaces. The foreigner who comes here
to work, to develop, will feel himself remarkably soon at home in a
friendly atmosphere, and if he cares to identify himself with
progressive movements he will be warmly welcomed; a very long list could
be made up of high-class foreigners who have attained not only to wealth
but to positions which proved the open mind and confidence of the
Brazilian authorities. Naturalized foreigners are eligible to the
legislative assemblies of Brazil, and whether naturalized or not
foreigners enjoy precisely the same rights and privileges as Brazilians
before the law.
[Illustration:
The Barra Road, Upper City, Bahia.
Resaca along the Avenida Beira Mar, Rio; Morro da Gloria in
background.
On the Upper Amazon.
]
For the mining engineer, the stock-raiser, the expert agriculturist, the
fruit-grower, there is plenty of room in Brazil; along certain special
lines his work is much wanted, and he can look forward to getting a
better return for his investment of personality and cash than in most
places in a world that has not many great untouched spaces left. The
pioneer, hardy and determined, has still a chance in Brazil.
CHAPTER III
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
One afternoon I sat in a street-car of the Copacabana line running to
and from the heart of Rio de Janeiro city. As we approached the Avenida
and paused at a sharp turn at the regulator’s signal, a small boy poorly
clad in cotton clothes got on to the front platform with a dinner pail
in his hand. He set it down, removed his cap, and bent his knee as the
motorman, with a swift smile at the child, extended his right hand. The
boy respectfully kissed it, replaced his cap, and jumped down.
The little incident was typical of the wide spread of gentle manners in
Brazil; it is here usual enough to see elderly bankers kiss the hands of
their parents, but courtesy is not confined to cultured classes. One may
in Brazil depend upon a street cleaner as much as upon a senator for
chivalrous politeness. A stranger may address any passer-by in a
Brazilian street in the most execrable Portuguese and will almost
invariably receive serious and kindly attention: it is said that the
Brazilian with his agreeably poised attitude to life “laughs at
everything except a stranger who is speaking bad Portuguese.”
I do not mean that strangers are treated with special courtesy; good
manners are habitual. Brazilian men meeting each other in the street
half a dozen times in a day, lift their hats to each other: no one,
obliged to step past another closely on a street-car, but will raise his
hat and murmur “_Com licença!_” A woman walking down the narrow streets
of the older cities or older parts of the rejuvenated cities will always
find her path cleared by men who step aside into the road with hats in
their hands. If she happens to be very pretty looks will follow her and
whispers may, but in my opinion the ordinary woman with quiet manners is
safer in Brazilian towns than in most centres of population in the
world, may break all the small rules with impunity and may always depend
upon the grave kindness of the Brazilian. People of less punctilious
societies are apt to speak with a degree of contempt of “surface
politeness,” and to say that they prefer roughness and a good heart;
generally this kind of remark is a clumsy apology for boorishness, and
as a matter of fact a good heart is quite as likely to exist under a
courteous exterior as under a discourteous one; a habit of consideration
for others in speech and small actions is without doubt good training
for any variety of heart and head. The Brazilian is in his mental
attitude an inheritor not only of Latin tradition in general but of
French ideas in particular: Paris is his Mecca, French literature and
French science and French art the inspirers of his youth; more
cosmopolitan than the Portuguese born, because he is in close touch with
all Europe as well as with the Americas, quite minus the feeling that
makes the Spaniard love bull-fights, the Brazilian has grounds for his
claim as the brightest spiritual heir of Latinity. His excellent manners
are a part of his heritage.
Apparently, the very considerable additions to the Brazilian population
by immigration during the last hundred years have made little difference
to Brazilian society; it is true that the Englishman with his tennis and
football and his rowing-clubs has introduced and popularized sport, so
that today there are thousands of young Brazilians taking part in these
pleasures and it is true that the influx of artistic French in the
reigns of the two Emperors affected and stimulated sculpture, painting
and writing in Brazil; in each case these were entries into Brazilian
society, the new element arriving with a recognized status as members of
important firms or with a semi-official position. There has been family
mingling, many English and French choosing wives from distinguished
Brazilian families, and in this way the influence of European ideas
frequently has its effect on the education of the children of such
unions. To a less noticeable extent almost every nationality is found in
Brazilian society, for this is a country which has always welcomed the
stranger of distinction, but no race has impressed itself so firmly upon
national characteristics as the Franco-Latin. Immigration, properly
speaking, the systematic colonization with which São Paulo supplied her
coffee lands with labour and Rio Grande and Paraná settled their open
spaces, and Minas tried to supplant negro workers, has affected
Brazilian social conditions scarcely at all. Generally isolated in wide
areas, often with no communication with the outside world except by
mule-trail or river until the railway came a few years ago, the
organized colonies of Russians, Poles, Basques, Bessarabian Jews,
Japanese, Swiss and Germans lived their own lives, retaining perforce
the language and customs of the lands from which they came. The
Italians, employed on great _fazendas_, were more in contact with
Brazilian life than any other race, and even they keep their own speech
together with newly-learned Portuguese, eat Italian food and read
Italian-language newspapers printed in Brazil. Not until the development
of industry brings the colonies into closer contact with each other and
with Brazilian centres of old standing will the Galician and Arab affect
any society but of his own race. No attempt has been made, probably
wisely, to force these settlers into the Brazilian national communion;
they were needed to fill spaces, to bring land into cultivation and
develop the wasted resources of an enormous land: they have done Brazil
this service, and Brazil in return respects their feelings and
traditions. One reason for this lack of interference with the colonies
was that Brazil possessed little machinery which could have brought
about a marked change: but deliberate policy also entered into the
question. It was realized that a change would come about with the
passage of years, when the second or third generations grew and mingled
in a common society, Brazilians born and bred, and that meanwhile Brazil
was too big to fear the effect of these _nucleos_ with their strong
retention of foreign loves and habits. Broadminded enough to sympathize
with such feelings, the Brazilian knows that no man worth his salt
forgets his native land; his idea was expressed by the genial writer, J.
M. de Macedo, when, speaking of the French who made fortunes in Brazil
and returned with their savings to France, he said: “If it be a sin to
love one’s own country better than any other country, then am I a sinner
too!” It is in fact because the Brazilian has so keen a devotion to his
own beautiful land that he comprehends the home-love of the immigrant.
Class distinction still reigns in Brazil to a certain degree, as may be
expected in a land where slavery existed until twenty-eight years ago,
and which twenty-seven years ago still had an Emperor and a Court with a
retinue of nobles. These nobles retain their titles still, except in
cases where formal renunciation was made, but a provision was made at
the establishment of the Republic that they should not be inherited. It
is an example of the liberal spirit in which the break was made, and the
absence of ill-feeling towards the Empire, that Brazil thinks as much of
her Commendadores, Conselheiros, Barões, Viscondes and Condes as she
does of any newly distinguished _bacharel_ of today. Dom Pedro II gave
these titles, very often, in recognition of some special service to
Brazilian development, and it is for this reason that, encountering the
Conde de Leopoldina, we find him to be an Englishman surnamed Lowndes.
When the Princess Isabel (Condessa d’Eu) celebrated her seventieth
birthday in the summer of 1916 the Brazilian newspapers printed long
notices speaking with appreciation of her regencies over Brazil, and
acclaiming her act in freeing the slaves of 1888; a few months
previously a monarchical society held meetings in the capital, their
sayings and doings were reported in the public press without any
excitement, and the trend of editorial comment was, “Well, with the
republic in such a muddle, it is no wonder.”
It is needless to say that the restoration of a monarchy in Brazil is
quite unthinkable, and that the society’s existence is more interesting
than important, but I mention it to show the amused tolerance of the
Brazilian towards other people’s opinions. He has a detached, sometimes
cynical attitude, believes in frank discussion and the airing of ideas,
and together with a markedly democratic habit of life retains a European
respect for tradition and authority. In Rio, the intellectual centre of
Brazil, the influence of the administration is very strongly felt, and
it is the focus of interest and activity: the Brazilian takes a
passionate part in politics, criticizes the Government when and where he
thinks fit, but will never do anything to undermine the power and
prestige of the administration. With but one notable exception the heads
of the Brazilian Government have been men of such ability and force of
character that they have thoroughly earned the confidence of the
thinking classes. From the cultivated caste in Brazil is chiefly drawn
the political group: there have been exceptions, as in the case of
Pinheiro Machado, but as a rule the reins are in the hands of a distinct
social element, descendants of white Portuguese families and frequently
men of great intellectual strength. The names of the Visconde de Rio
Branco, Conselheiro Rodrigues Alves, João Alfredo and Affonso Penna are
but four out of a long list of statesmen of the first rank in Brazil.
The ruling classes are almost always great landowners, _fazendeiros_,
and there was a time when sons of such families destined themselves to
politics, agriculture or one of the “professions;” today commercial
careers are sometimes chosen—perhaps partly because the planter of
coffee or sugar is often necessarily a mill owner and shipper as well—as
Brazil becomes more industrialized, but although these young men may
enter other than the traditional spheres, it is seldom that theirs is
invaded from the world of industrialists or _commerciantes_. The latter
are, indeed, largely recruited from the foreign element; shop-keepers as
well as commission agents and dealers all down the coast were once
largely British and French, but now the energetic Portuguese-born
trader, with the keen Italian and Spaniard, and the still more
insinuating Syrian, has absorbed a marked proportion of the retail
business.
Below the commercial element comes that of labour, stratum of entirely
different composition; it differs too in varying localities, from that
of the south, where slavery tailed off in São Paulo, never penetrating
the more southerly states, and where white labour of immigrant origin
performs field work, to the central section where the _mestizo_ (mixed
blood) of white and Indian or, about Bahia and Pernambuco, white and
negro, blood is the worker; in and near Bahia itself thousands of
pure-blood negroes or mulattos form the labouring class, to the almost
total exclusion of any other. Farther north the negro element fades out
and the Indian mixture predominates in a wiry strain which furnishes all
the labour of the Amazon valley.
Upon this great mass of mixed-blood labourers the educational systems of
Brazil make a certain if slow impression. Intelligent and apt, docile if
conciliated and stubborn if crossed, the _mestizo_ has some excellent
qualities; the indolence of which he is often accused is sometimes want
of direction, and sometimes the result of ill-health in certain regions,
disappearing when the enervating malaria and ankylostomiasis are
conquered, exactly as in the South of the United States where the same
troubles are common. With better sanitation in the crowded warm regions,
and persistence in good schooling, the _brasileiro_ of the labouring
classes would not need supplanting with introduced immigrants. Between
him and the legislator there is a great gulf fixed; its existence might
be dangerous were not the habit of the Brazilian gentle; it can be
bridged only by education. “We have no organization for the expression
of popular opinion,” declared a Brazilian writer recently. “The
statesman, the government official, the legislator, the administrator
has to be a kind of powerful Jehovah, capable of creating worlds out of
nothing ... unless the bachelor (_bacharel_—“doctor”) president, the
bachelor governor, the bachelor minister or the bachelor deputy should
sally forth through Brazil (_saiam por esses Brazis afóra_), over
mountains and valleys, to enquire at the window of every farm, at the
door of every store, at the entrance of each factory, in each
lacemaker’s shop and at each blacksmith’s forge, what Agriculture,
Commerce, Industry and the Proletariat wish for their practical and
effective betterment....” At least it can never be said that the faults
and lapses of Brazil are not understood and discussed by her own
educated classes; there is no country where self-criticism is more
hearty. During the early part of 1916 a party of specialists in tropical
maladies from the Rockefeller Institute passed through Brazil and made
some investigations; one of the weeklies of Rio famous for its cartoons
and skits on public affairs remarked that the visitors need not have
come to Brazil to study malaria—they would find that in a hundred
places: they should study the troubles that were really peculiar to
Brazil. It gave an illustrated list: among the items was the “national
long tongue”—we talk too much; another was _bacharelismo_—everyone in
Brazil wants to be a “Doctor” of medicine or law or philosophy. It is a
disease not altogether limited to Brazil, despite the _Malho_.
Cartoons in Brazil have a point of interest in addition to their wit, in
the presentment of a national figure, “Zé (José) Povo.” Zé Povo is “the
people,” quite distinct from the dignified figure of the _República_, a
lady in draperies crowned with the Phrygian cap. Zé is the man in the
street who stands by and makes acid comments; he has no counterpart in
North American or English journals, but speaks his mind much as
“Liborio” does in the Cuban humorous-political papers. No one can say
that the press is not free in Brazil.
Industrial expansion in Brazil will be the great amalgamator of the
grades and divisions of the population; colonists of foreign origin
cannot continue to live in separate nests, commercial fortunes will
blend society, and the expansion of agriculture will sooner or later
mean the evolution of the _sertanejo_ into a modernized, trading farmer;
as the hills are opened for metals and the forests are entered for
hardwoods and dyes and latex, the millions of Indians of the interior
must be brought into line, or, retreating, eventually die out—the worst
solution of his case and probably an unnecessary one. But at the present
day there are many distinct types among Brazilian populations, and of
them that of the _sertanejo_, the farmer of the interior, the _sertão_,
is not the least interesting. Here on the wide uplands of the plateau he
lives very much as Isaac lived, his world about him, his home, servants
and herds his chief interests; simple, philosophic, intensely hospitable
although reserved and proud, he makes little money but by his cattle,
and wants little. His bodily needs are few, his furnishings of the
simplest; his food is mainly the inevitable _farinha de mandioca_, milk
products, beans (feijão) and eggs and _carne_. He may be the owner of
great expanses of land, but he will seldom sell or divide it and there
is no other life that he will endure and live. In touch with the open
sky, the broad horizon before him, the _sertanejo_ is of a class apart;
his is a simple and a dignified figure.
Brought to town, through acquisition of money or the wishes of his
womenfolk, the farmer of the interior is a peg for many witticisms of
the townsman; he is a “caipira,” a countryman, a hayseed, and endless
amusement is obtained at his expense. One of the Rio weeklies, the
_Careta_, once ran a series of illustrated adventures of such a farmer
who is supposed to come to Rio de Janeiro on a visit with his wife and
pretty daughter, and who takes in the “sights” of the Capital from the
countryman’s angle.
A simple _camaraderie_ prevails in the upland interior, where little
money passes and barter of goods is the most common form of exchange; it
is frequently impossible to hire labour, and as a consequence farmers
and their sons invite the help of their neighbours when field work is
needed, giving their own time in turn when occasion arises. No
distinction between rich and poor occurs in a society of such friendly
simplicity.
In the cattle regions there is a special ceremony every year, for
rounding and branding cattle, known as the _feira dos bizerros_ (calf
branding) and the _apartação do gado_—separation of herds, frequently
running with those of other _fazendeiros_ over unfenced country. All the
neighbours arrive at the farm which is thus counting its stock, families
making it an occasion of friendly reunion. During the evenings of the
two or three days of _festa_ there is a continual round of coffee
drinking and eating, many a marriage is arranged and consummated; at the
close of the work there is frequently a series of competitions of skill
in horsemanship, the clever performance of the _vaquejada_ or
_derrubada_ always exciting a critical audience. Horsemen, mounted on
well-trained animals, post themselves at the gate of the corral where
bulls have been shut up for a day or two; the bars are let down and when
the cattle rush out each of the horsemen tries to seize a bull by its
tail and throw it to the ground—success largely depending on the
cleverness of the horse in avoiding the rushes and struggles of the
bull. The last night is one of continual dancing and temperate feasting,
the flute and violin sounding until dawn. It is a little curious that
these instruments, with the guitar, are the favourites of the musical
peasantry of Brazil, and that the exquisite marimba of African origin,
carried by negroes into Central America and there enthusiastically
adopted by the Quiché-Cachiquel natives, should not have also found a
home in the southern continent.
Among the other figures of the _sertão_, created by the absence of
mechanical transportation in a series of great regions, is the
_tropeiro_, the leader and frequently the owner of a troop of mules
carrying the products of the interior to market. A good _tropeiro_ is
entrusted with the marketing of the cotton crop of a fazenda or even a
district, and he will carry cash for long distances, settling accounts,
making purchases; his mules are trained performers who know their work
and make themselves understood if there is anything wrong with one of
their number. In the north of the Brazilian promontory—Bahia,
Pernambuco, interior Ceará, Maranhão and Rio Grande do Norte as well as
the hinterlands of the central states, the _tropeiro_ undertakes the
transportation of much of the interior crop of cotton, sugar and
tobacco.
He is doomed to extinction as the steel arms of the railroads push out
into the interior, but his day is not yet done.
Public lotteries are to the Brazilian what horse-racing is to the
Englishman and baseball to the North American. It is a form of
excitement, with a chance of betting something and winning a great deal,
an interest apart from the ordinary round of business. Opinion is not
popularly opposed to the system in Brazil, any more than it is in, for
instance, Italy, and in like manner it is conducted by the Federal
Government, is a recognized source of revenue, and many charities and
other worthy institutions supported by the authorities derive their main
income from it. Few people express any adverse sentiments to these
regularized lotteries, but an amusing offshoot from it, illegal,
forbidden, pounced upon now and again by the police, generally denounced
by the press, and indulged in by everyone, is the famous _bicho_. A
_bicho_ is in Brazil any kind of animal or bird or insect—everything
living is popularly a _bicho_—and in this underground lottery groups of
numbers are represented by a deer or monkey, butterfly or tiger, etc.,
something more interesting than a bald set of figures. The _bicho_ was
of independent origin, with twenty-five animals represented, but
nowadays depends upon the government results, and is really a gamble on
a gamble, but with the advantage that combinations and groups can be
played on, and very small sums staked. You can stake a few pennies on
your favourite humming-bird again and again without feeling the loss
when the _anta_ persists in coming up instead, and there would be little
harm done did not servants sent to the market get the _bicho_ habit so
badly, together with shoe-shiners and waiters and all the working class,
that in its acutest form “playing on the _bicho_” becomes an obsession
equal to drug-taking. Tickets for the _bicho_ can be bought at many
newsdealers, in scores of shops, little banks and financial houses run
it, and some daily papers print pictures of the winning animals: it is
well not to stake more than a milreis or two, because while a modest
winning will be paid your gain of a conto would probably be met by the
assurance that the ticket-seller cannot pay. In such a case there is no
redress as the whole thing is illegal.
Its chief objection in the eyes of the authorities is that it does not
yield a public revenue, and that people spend, in the aggregate, more
money on the _bicho_ than on public lotteries which are sources of
governmental income. Nevertheless, denounced, raided, and occasionally
prosecuted, the _bicheiros_ continue to exist and to furnish a mild form
of excitement and adventure. I do not think that lotteries are more
objectionable originators of a thrill than cocktails and whiskies dear
to the Anglo-Saxon; in regard to heady liquors the Latin is universally
abstemious, and the rule is not broken in Brazil.
Rarely does the Brazilian born and bred drink anything stronger than
coffee, and this he takes, in little cups in the innumerable
_cafeterias_ of every city, many times a day. Since the established
price of a little cup of hot, very strong black coffee is but a _tostão_
(two U. S. cents) there is no great extravagance about this. At family
meals a little wine, generally imported from Portugal, France or Italy,
is on the table: since Rio Grande has been trying her hand at
wine-making the bottle may contain _vinho nacional_; in any case it is
sparingly used. The younger generation has taken to a limited extent to
the whisky introduced by the Britisher, the beer of the German, now very
well brewed in the country, and the cocktail of the newcomer of North
America, but he appears to drink these exotics more with a desire to be
in the fashion or a “good sport” than because he likes them.
[Illustration:
Monroe Palacio, on the Avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro.
Municipal Theatre, São Paulo City.
]
Deliberate drinking is almost confined to the _festas_ beloved of the
_mestizo_ and mulatto populations, especially celebrated in agricultural
districts, when the Brazilian-made _cachaça_, a kind of rum made from
sugarcane, is liberally consumed. Its festive use seems to be a survival
of Indian custom, for the natives of the coasts and forests in
pre-Portuguese days made a fermented liquor (from _milho_ = maize) for
special occasions, and their descendants as well as the negro element,
also great lovers of celebrations, regard an occasional period of
revelry as a right. The influence of Christianity has succeeded in
identifying these festal occasions with, and confining them to, saints’
days and other Church celebrations, but their root is more primitive.
Religion in Brazil has never been a matter for dissension or the cause
of social upheaval: the original _donatarios_ brought chaplains with
them as a matter of course, missionary Jesuits and members of
Franciscan, Benedictine, Dominican and other Orders gradually founding
establishments in the settlements. With regard to the natives their task
was easy, since there existed no definite religion to be eradicated,
and, except when the work of the missionaries interfered with the
designs of the planters, cordial co-operation existed between the
_padres_, colonists, and authorities; many of them had a hand in
political matters, were emissaries between the mother country and
Brazil, and enjoyed marked prestige. No Inquisition was ever established
in Brazilian territory, and a bone of contention thus avoided. With the
erection of the Republic in 1889 Church was separated from State,
probably much to the betterment of conditions, for considerable
criticism of clerical ways and habits had grown up, laxity following
upon security; put upon her mettle as an independent organization, and
faced with the competition of other permitted forms of belief, the Roman
Catholic church in Brazil is said to have performed much needed
purifying.
Tolerance is a long-established habit. Protestant forms of Christianity
exist undisturbed, and although their temples are very generally
attended exclusively by the foreign congregations responsible for their
origin, and proselytizing is not encouraged, their social work is
undoubtedly useful. In the southern organized settlements each community
practises the form of faith of the home land, the Russians of the Greek
church, Germans with their Lutheran establishments, and so on; there is
not the slightest interference—religious intolerance is indeed
unimaginable in Brazil. It has been said often of the Brazilian that
this attitude arises from indifference, that the practice of religious
observances is left to women and children and that the grown men of
communities are cynical—next door to what used to be called
“agnosticism” by the professional European unbelievers of the past
generation. This is, I think, only apparently true. It has an appearance
of truth in that the churches are largely filled with women; it is
common for Brazilian men in conversation to affect an airy amusement
before the claims of religious bodies: but due allowance must be made
for French influence. Almost up to the time of the European War there
was a parade of emancipation from clerical leading strings by the
intellectual French, yet the course of the conflict has witnessed a
spiritual awakening, the resurrection of something dormant; the France
of today is probably more sincerely religious than she has been for many
a century. The cynicism of masculine Brazil may be no more deeply
rooted.
As in France, there is in Brazil no reaching out after new religions
comparable to the tendency in the United States which is so curious an
indication of emotional phases: it is impossible to conceive Brazilian
reception of Mormonism or Zionism, for instance. The only notable
example of serious adoption of a new faith is found in the extreme
South, where the principles of August Comte have taken root, and the
_riograndense_ of the educated ruling class is generally a Comtist.
In certain of the older, more northerly towns of Brazil the proportion
of Roman Catholic churches to the population is remarkably large,
particularly in Bahia, Pernambuco and its elder sister, Olinda. That
they are able to exist is largely due to the negro and mulatto element,
for here as in all other parts of the world where he has been taken the
negro is a fervent admirer of almost any kind of religion. It is the
swarming coloured people of Bahia, crowded in the cobble-paved,
half-lighted rookeries of the lower town and the tilted streets leading
to the upper town, who make it possible to keep open the doors of that
city’s four hundred churches. In these centres all the many saints’ days
are kept with fervour, but it is in the interior that tradition and a
simple faith in “white magic” survive; here that the ceremonies of All
Hallowe’en are performed by maids of the sertão, and spells invoked. St.
John’s is one of the popular days, with its legends and traditional
celebrations, when groups of boys and girls, mingling on this occasion
as youth of Latin inheritance does not often mingle, crowned with leaves
and flowers, go down to the river banks to wash, singing as they go,
because as the verse says: “Nessa noite é benta a agua. Pará tudo tem
virtudes.” Fires are lighted outside each house in homage to St. John,
and at these green corn is roasted—the traditional _milho assado na
fogueira_. Over the hot ashes of these fires the faithful walk barefoot
without being burnt....
On this night lovers make their tests of the fidelity of the sweetheart,
and girls try to discover their fate in marriage; St. John, however, is
not the only aider of candidates for matrimony—there is “São Gonçalvo,”
a great lover of lovers, and St. Anthony, famous in North Brazil for his
power in binding uncertain swains. A well-used prayer to this saint is
quoted by Pereira da Costa in his _Folklore Pernambucano_ and begins:
“Father St. Anthony of Captives, you who are a firm binder, tie him who
wishes to flee from me; with your habit and with your holy girdle hinder
the steps of Fulano as with a strong cage....”
St. Raymund is another helper of solitary maidens, and a guaranteed
prayer of noted efficiency is addressed to him; translated freely it
runs:
Miraculous Saint Raymund,
You who help everyone to marry,
Please tell Saint Anthero
That I wish to be married soon
To a very good-looking young man,
In the church of Saint Benedict.
Before the altar of Saint Rosa
I want to give my hand as a wife
To him whom I love so much,
Asking Saint German
And also Saint Henry
That I shall be happily married.
May Saint Odoric permit
That the young man be rich,
And Saint Augustine grant
That he loves me very much
And I beg Saint Robert
That he may be clever.
Also I pray Saint Vincent
That the wedding may be soon,
Begging Saint Innocencia
Not to let me lose patience,
And asking Saint Caetano
That it may happen this year.
I have already prayed Saint Inez
Not to let this month pass,
And Saint Mariana,
That it may be this week—
And I beg the Virgin Our Lady
That it may be this very hour!
From which it will be seen that the saints are expected to be useful,
and that _festas_ of the church are agreeable to these young people,
leading in the older centres a rather restricted social life.
Women in Brazil occupy a position out of which they have been forced or
have voluntarily emerged in many countries. It is for many reasons a
very happy life, for, withdrawn as she is, the Brazilian wife and mother
has complete authority over the wide sphere which tradition has so long
assigned to her. It is a moot point whether women in other lands would
seek emergence from that circle if circumstances did not send them from
it; the salary-earning women of Western Europe and North America perhaps
do not always realize that theirs is not altogether a choice between
home and independence, that they work because they must work. The
exigencies of climate, as well as modern education, send women out to
the ranks of the workers in lands where there are at least as many women
as men.
In Brazil there is no such equality of numbers. The list of men is
always much longer than that of women, chiefly because of the stream of
male immigrants who arrive in the country without families, and, earning
good wages, set about the acquisition of a home. The predominant classes
of such immigrants are Portuguese, and these men, speaking the same
language and with close affiliations to Brazil, readily seek wives among
the Brazilian families to which their status gives them entry. Little
social adjustment is needed in such unions, much less than in the case
of the marriage of Brazilian girls with foreigners of a totally
divergent origin.
The Brazilian girl is said to be precocious, and she is certainly the
possessor of tactful manners and distinct aplomb in her early teens. If
she is a member of a wealthy family she has generally spent some years
in French schools, and it is not unusual to find beautiful young women
of nineteen or so who have been educated in Germany, France, Switzerland
and England, and who speak four or five languages fluently. All educated
Brazilians speak and read French, most of them understand but will not
speak English, and nearly all those from the more southerly parts of
Brazil have learned German for commercial reasons or have been partly
educated in Germany. Educational affiliations with the United States are
new, and apply to young men more than to girls; technical training in
engineering or trading is sought increasingly in North America for
business reasons as commercial exchange develops, but the closely
guarded, often conventual training of the girls has a very different
aim. The young Brazilian girl is frequently a good horsewoman, for life
on a farm is almost sure to be included in the tale of her early years;
she is often also a good swimmer. Music is an invariable part of her
education on which stress is laid, and I have heard some brilliant
executants among Brazilian women. Dressed in the height of Parisian
fashions, chic, demure outside her family and full of gay camaraderie
with her endless lines of brothers and sisters inside the home, the
Brazilian young girl is a very charming creature. She has the loveliest
dark eyes in the world, and often possesses a very fine clear pale skin.
Married, she seems to resign herself contentedly to a purely domestic
life; one enters homes in Brazil whose handsome hostess entertains
delightfully, always exquisitely dressed, and sparkling with the big
diamonds that are considered the simple right of every woman in Brazil—
my washerwoman in Rio had a pair of brilliant earrings that cost three
contos of reis, representing her life’s savings—but this same smiling
hostess will never be seen outside her spacious home and gardens, except
upon the formal occasions when she is obliged to make an appearance in
public with her husband. She not infrequently displays a tendency to
_embonpoint_ early in life, the result of lack of exertion and the
eating of the extraordinary and delicious _doces_ (sweets and candies),
the creation of which is a special art of Brazilian women, but she does
not mind this at all, fearing a thin figure as the most terrible of
disasters in this land where the highest compliment paid to a woman is:
“How pretty and fat you are getting!” _Gorda_ and _bonita_ are indeed
interchangeable terms.
She accepts her destiny as a mother of many children, and generally
spoils them badly, at least in their infancy; the father is equally
indulgent. A harsh parent is a _rara avis_, and nothing excites popular
indignation in Brazil more than any story of hardship in which children
are concerned. Passionately devoted to her babies, the Brazilian mother
stays within her home, is the gracious sovereign of her circle, and
seems little disturbed when it expands notably. This expansion is likely
to happen if any relative either on her side or her husband’s falls upon
evil days; in that case he will come with his family and camp out until
fortune smiles again. There is no turning of the cold shoulder upon poor
relations in Brazil—they are welcome to a share of the family fare, and
to hammock space if beds are lacking in the case of poorer homes, secure
in the knowledge that they in turn will repay this good deed with
similar ones later on. The city centres have of course their more rigid
social laws, but in the less restricted life of smaller towns or
_fazendas_ there is often encountered another variation from the harsher
rules of some other lands: this is the placid acceptance into a home of
children who do not claim the mistress of the house as mother, but who
receive from her bed and board and a status little inferior to that of
her own babies, regular members of society. Lapses from social law occur
all over the world; they are punished to a greater or lesser degree
everywhere, but in some countries the innocent suffer more than the
guilty; unhappy and unwanted children bear a stigma against which they
rebel in vain. Brazilian opinion does not spare offenders, but it does
withhold any harsh hand from innocent children. Acknowledged and treated
with affection, they are given a chance in life together with the more
fortunate.
Life in the two chief cities of Brazil, Rio and São Paulo, takes its hue
from the European capitals with which they are closely in touch, and
from which they have derived mental food for many a generation. There is
little about either of these fine cities, apart from the hot summers,
the brilliant vegetation, their remarkable cleanliness and the Southern
Cross overhead, to distinguish them from European cities; the clothes,
amusements, buildings, and literature of the population is predominantly
European, and there is not much to remind the visitor that he is in
tropical South America. Rio is the “intellectual centre” of Brazil, and
here are gathered the scores of good writers and poets, the artists and
politicians, of the country; there is a profuse and characteristic
literature. If the North American writer was correct in saying that
“American literature is only a phase of English literature,” he would
have been equally justified in saying that South American literature is
a phase of French literature: yet in Brazil this would have less truth
than in most parts of Latin America, because this country has so largely
developed a series of writers who take native Brazilian life for their
theme. There are long lists of Brazilian novels and poems which really
reflect Brazil conditions in the very varied sections of the country; I
know no other South American country whose literature is so emancipated,
not from French style so much as from European subject matter. There is
for instance the excellent work of the Visconde de Taunay, whose
charming _Innocencia_ is a picture of interior conditions, and has been
translated into almost every language, not excepting Japanese. The books
of José de Alencar form another series of provincial pictures; Machado
de Assis wrote a number of historical novels of great merit and
interest; Coelho Netto, Aluisio de Azevedo, J. M. de Macedo, Xavier
Marques, are among a score of names of writers who have left records of
Brazilian life. If I were advising the study of a brief list of such
novels, this would be a preliminary dozen:—
_Innocencia_: by the Visconde de Taunay. Novel of _fazenda_ life in
the interior—a delicate and touching story.
_Os Sertões_: by Euclydes da Cunha. Powerful and vivid description of
a page of national history, with a setting in the interior
Brazilian uplands.
_O Sertão_: by Coelho Netto. Scene also laid in the interior, with its
simple customs.
_O Mulato_: Aluisio de Azevedo. Deals with the position of the negro
half-caste in Brazil.
_O Gaucho_: José de Alencar. Life of the Brazilian cowboy.
_Os Praieiros_: Xavier Marques. Life of the fisherfolk on islands near
Bahia.
_O Paroara_: Rodolpho Theophilo. Exodus of the Cearenses to the rubber
forests of the Amazon.
_Maria Dusá_: Lindolpho Rocha. Story of diamond hunters in the
interior of Bahia.
_Braz Cubas_ and _Quincas Borba_: Machado de Assis. Historical novels
dealing with colonial life.
_Esphynge_: Afranio Peixoto. Social life of Rio and Petropolis, or
_Dentro da Noite_ or _Vida Vertiginosa_, by “João do Rio,” also
social life of the Capital.
There are also the finely written novels of Brazil’s woman writer, Julia
Lopez de Almeida, whose _Fallencia_ is a very skilful piece of work; and
no study of Brazilian life would be complete without José Verissimo’s
_Scenas da Vida Amazonica_, preserving tales and legends of the Amazon,
and the kindly _Memorias da Rua do Ouvidor_, of J. M. de Macedo, telling
tales of the early days of Rio de Janeiro.
Poets are many. The “Prince of Brazilian poets,” acclaimed by public
vote, is Olavo Bilac, whose _Via Lactea_ is a beautiful work: he is one
of the most distinguished members of the Academia Brasileira, whose
President is the publicist and orator of international fame, Senator Ruy
Barbosa.
Olavo Bilac is something more than a poet; he has recently made it his
mission to sound a “call to arms,” addressed to Brazilian young men,
with the object of bringing about physical and moral improvement through
military service. His addresses in the capitals in 1915 made a great
stir: he later, in the middle of 1916, began a tour of Brazil,
penetrating into interior regions as well as visiting coast towns, to
repeat his appeal. A most admired and beloved poet, Bilac has prestige
which few other people could bring to such a self-appointed task.
After Bilac comes Alberto de Oliveira, and a long list of other
dexterous versifiers; many produce charming poems, and he who wishes to
have an acquaintance with classical Brazilian verse must read the output
of Gonçalves Dias, who took the life of the Indians for his theme, as
well as that of the lyric writer Gonzaga and the graceful Claudio da
Costa.
Brazil also has a national stage. I know of no play of first-class
importance, but there is an active supply of native Brazilian actors and
actresses, and if their work is generally that of playing in the
home-made _revistas_, and if these _revistas_ are not very high art, at
least they are genuinely Brazilian, and often extremely amusing. I
suppose that on the stage, as in the pages of the Brazilian press, there
is a limit beyond which the libel law would become active, but I cannot
imagine where it is drawn; the audience rocks with laughter when
well-known political personages are caricatured upon the stage—as they
are lampooned in the press—and no notice appears to be taken of whatever
alludes to matters of intimate family concern. Nobody in the public eye
is exempt, and the result is that Brazil possesses a lively, home-made
stage which is at least a beginning in dramatic craft.
Brazil has an exuberant press. There is a large number of dailies and
weeklies in proportion to the population, many of the smaller journals
existing to serve the purposes of some special movement, colony, or
party, and there are many technical periodicals of varying merit. Grace,
pungency and a frequently merciless frankness are the chief
characteristics of the free-lance sections of the Brazilian press,
although there are certain staid and conservative journals whose dignity
never deserts them. The first of all Brazilian newspapers was a little
sheet started in Rio, soon after the arrival of Dom João, by Frey
Tiburcio; it was practically a Court Journal. Two of its notable
antagonists later on were the _Tamoyo_ and the _Sentinella_. All of
these early periodicals died a natural death, the newspaper of longest
continual publication in Brazil being the _Diario de Pernambuco_.
The premier newspaper in Brazil, which is also perhaps the best in South
America, although it has a formidable rival in the Argentine, is “o
velho,” the famous _Jornal do Commercio_, the semi-official, powerful,
wealthy, and most excellent daily of Rio, with a circulation all over
Brazil and reaching out as well to most parts of the educated world. It
is a great paper in all senses of the word, is finely printed—this great
sheet, often with thirty-two and sometimes eighty big pages, eight
columns wide, printed in a language requiring the “til,” “cedilla,”
acute and circumflex accents, constantly employed, comes out day after
day almost without any typographical errors. Its reviews of commercial
affairs are made with authority; it is remarkable for having no
editorials, anything that needs to be said editorially appearing in the
“_Varias Noticias_;” months may pass without this column containing more
than chronicles of official acts and movements, but when the _Jornal_ is
moved to speak its voice comes in no uncertain tone. Its denunciations
and pronouncements are discussed like a Papal Edict in the Middle Ages.
Anyone who reads the _Jornal_ day by day, with its pages of European
telegrams, its excellent letters from world capitals, its fine literary
and political essays, its _Publicações a pedido_ where every kind of
public or private matter is thrashed out, often to the great
entertainment of the reader, knows everything that is going on in
Brazil, is well up in European news, but will hear only faint echoes
coming from North America and these as a rule only when some
distinguished Brazilian happens to be travelling there, and cables are
sent south dealing with his sayings and doings. When I have enquired the
reason for this lack of news from North America the reply has generally
been that the news services are responsible: that the arrangements made
with certain European agencies cannot be duplicated. It seems as if this
is a matter needing thoughtful attention, for it is obvious that the
Brazilian cannot be so deeply interested in a country about which he
hears practically nothing as about others which present even trivial
domestic news to him in long cables every day. The same lack occurs, of
course, in the United States in regard to Brazil; if accurate, frequent
information were disseminated we should not read that “in the states of
Paraná and Santa Catarina, in Brazil, the entire population subsists on
bananas as food and are famous for their strength and endurance,” or
that (an item of early October, 1916) “the Brazilian coffee crop is
estimated at 11,000,000 bags, the greatest ever harvested and three
million bags bigger than last year’s crop,” nor should we see the “Girl
from Brazil” represented upon a New York stage dressed, and comporting
herself, much like a Carmen, and speaking Spanish; or read tales
repeated in the press of the “little republic of Coanani” near the
Guiana boundary in Brazil which has “sent its army to fight on the side
of the Allies.” With the United States as Brazil’s best customer, and,
at least for the present, Brazil’s greatest supplier, there should be
better channels of interchange not only of information but ideas; there
should be room for a Brazilian journal in New York—there is one in
Paris—and for a Bureau of Information with exhibits, something on the
lines of the existing Bureau in the French capital, where Brazilian
hardwoods, cotton, precious stones, fibres, ores, etc., are on view. The
Pan-American Union, as well as other organizations and publications with
the Pan-American object in view, do sincere and arduous work which has
borne much industrial and social fruit, but their labours are
necessarily spread over a great field: nor can Consuls do everything,
however energetic. Brazilian interchange with North America is quite
important and promising enough to merit a special news service.
Other strong Brazilian newspapers published in Rio are _O Paiz_, _O
Imparcial_, _O Correio da Manhã_ issued in the morning, with a host,
including _A Platea_, _A Tarde_, _O Noite_ and the afternoon edition of
the _Jornal do Commercio_, issued any time after mid-day: the latter has
had a wonderful war-review series of articles running since 1914. Very
many papers of the Brazilian press, like the major part of the
non-German Brazilian people, are strongly pro-Ally, and particularly
pro-French, and have no hesitation in declaring their feelings, as
witness the “Liga Brasileira pelos Alliados” formed by some of the
foremost men of the country, but in the case of the war articles of the
afternoon _Jornal_ there was a serious attempt at impartiality. It was
possible thus to read first a criticism of the war-telegrams of the day
showing that a distinct advantage had accrued to the Allies, while
printed just below would be another analysis by a second contributor,
demonstrating that the news was distinctly favourable to the Teutonic
forces.
Also published in Rio are many technical papers, medical and engineering
periodicals, etc., and some of the gay illustrated weeklies of very free
speech, as _O Malho_, _A Careta_, _Fon-Fon_; also the _Revista da
Semana_, a society paper. There are French, Italian and German papers,
but the great home of a polyglot press is São Paulo, with its groups of
immigrants. Here the oldest Brazilian paper is the _Correio Paulistano_,
sixty years established, a daily morning paper; another in the same
class and perhaps the most widely read is the _Estado de São Paulo_,
while the _Commercio de São Paulo_[5] also has a high reputation. The
_Estado_ runs an afternoon edition, and there are many other evening
papers—the _Diario Popular_, _Naçao_, _Gazeta_, etc. For the Italian
population there is the daily morning _Fanfulla_, the afternoon
_Giornale degli Italiani_ and the weekly _Italiano_. Germans have the
morning _Diario Alemão_ and the weekly _Germania_. Two French weeklies
seem to do well, the _Messager de S. Paul_, and the _Courrier Français_.
There is a Spanish _Diario Español_, two Turkish papers, and in the
colonies outside the city there are said to be Russian and Japanese
sheets published. The city of S. Paulo counts eighty journals, the State
counting over two hundred dailies and weeklies.
Rio and S. Paulo are the two chief literary centres, but every town of
any size in Brazil has its newspaper. Of these perhaps the most
important are the Pernambuco papers; the _Diario de Pernambuco_, already
mentioned, bears the proud inscription of its age in conspicuous
lettering on the front of its building in a square in Recife; it is a
very good paper, and so is the _Jornal do Recife_, among several other
daily sheets. Bahia has the _Diario de Bahia_ and _Diario de Noticias_,
amongst others, and the State Press here also publishes daily an
excellent _Diario Official_.
Pará has quite a variety of papers, the _Estado de Pará_ and the _Folha
do Norte_ probably the two most powerful. Manáos also supports several
newspapers, of which the _Jornal do Commercio_ and _O Tempo_ appear to
be most widely read.
Many imported foreign periodicals have a ready sale in Brazil, as the
French _L’Illustration_, many Portuguese publications, and the _Blanco y
Negro_ of Madrid; nearly all the English serious reviews and illustrated
weeklies are sold, and there is an increasing demand for illustrated
North American periodicals of good class. Altogether Brazil has a
remarkably cosmopolitan class of readers and therefore a cosmopolitan
press.
Almost all the Brazilian authors of note have, at one time or another,
contributed to the great _Jornal do Commercio_; this is really the
cradle of much fine writing. Founded in 1827, it is today housed in a
splendid building on the corner of the famous Rua do Ouvidor and the
Avenida Rio Branco, the building and press equipment costing over half a
million dollars.
Linked with the life of the _Jornal_ for the last twenty-five years is
that of José Carlos Rodrigues, Director from 1890 until his retirement
in 1915; a great student and great organizer, possessed of international
prestige, José Carlos was the moving spirit of the newspaper for a
generation. He is one of the eminent figures in modern Brazilian life.
At seventy-two years of age he is completing his _Vida de Jesus_, fruit
of long years of research.
José Carlos Rodrigues is one of the constructive Brazilians. There have
been many others, as the great Andrada brothers, Campos Salles, the
Visconde de Rio Branco and his son, the Barão; Varnhagen (Visconde de
Porto Seguro), politician and historian; Joaquim Nabuco, writer,
ambassador, and instigator of slavery abolition—as were also several
fine men still alive, as Rodrigues Alves, the great Paulista.
Of modern Brazilians to whom the country owes a debt there are none with
more claim to gratitude than Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, who banished yellow fever
from coast towns once notorious for their unhealthiness, and Colonel
Rondon, who has devoted his life to the opening-up of the Brazilian
interior, and besides mapping, charting, and creating telegraphic
communication throughout the hinterlands of Matto Grosso, has brought
whole tribes of wild Indians into civilized ways of living.
Among the elements which comprise and influence Brazilian social
conditions, that of the Portuguese of course stands first, for as Ruy
Barbosa said the other day, “Americans are descendants not of Apaches,
but of Anglo-Saxons; not of Guaranis, but of Latins.” The Indian
admixture has left little traceable influence but that of physical
hardihood. The extreme south of Brazil, as we have already seen, has had
during the last century an enormous influx of European white blood other
than Portuguese, chiefly Italian and Germanic, while all the large coast
cities are noticeably impregnated with more or less foreign elements. In
the interior of the northern promontory a noticeable feature is the
blonde average of the population, partly an inheritance from the days of
Dutch control and partly from that of French settlement. Among the
groups of unhappy _retirantes_ from the drought districts, encountered
in the streets of Pará and Manáos, waiting for shelter and work, there
are often to be seen people with fair hair and blue eyes who might have
come direct from Amsterdam or Brittany.
On the coastal belt of the lower half of the northern promontory there
is another very strong admixture, that of the negro. Frequently the
Brazilian shakes his head over this element, but occasionally the
cudgels are taken up in its defence. The author Sylvio Romero says
frankly that the European was not, in early colonial days, “strong
enough to repel the native savage and cultivate the soil, and so
resorted to that powerful auxiliary, the negro of Africa ... the ally of
the white men.” He calls the negro “a robust civilizing element,” and
says that from the close association of slavery sprang the mixed-blood
descendants, who constitute today “the mass of our population and the
chief beauty of our race.”
“Still today,” he declares, “the most beautiful feminine types are these
agile, strong, brown-skinned girls with black eyes and hair, in whose
veins run, although well diluted, many drops of African blood.... The
coast of Africa civilized Brazil, said one of our statesmen, and he
spoke truth; the negro has influenced all our intimate life and many of
our customs are transmitted from him. It is sufficient to remember that
the only genuine Brazilian cooking, the _cozinha bahiana_, is entirely
African. Many of our dances, songs and popular music, a whole literature
of ardent outpourings, have this origin. It is unfortunate that this
energetic race should have suffered the brand of slavery; we should make
a vow to revindicate its place in our history. There are means of
utilizing the negro without degrading him.”
Sylvio Romero adds that “all the first-class people of Brazil have white
blood, either pure or mingled with that of another race,” but that the
white element should do justice to the degree to which the black has
been a mental, political, economic and social factor. He traces, in a
little book of which I found a stray copy on a bookstall in Manáos
market, the negro element in the folklore of Brazil (_Contos Populares_,
Rio de Janeiro) as well as that of the native Indian, and makes the
point that both Indian and negro are “inarticulate” in Brazilian
society, except through the medium of a language foreign to their ideas,
Portuguese, which has undoubtedly coloured their mental expression.
These Folk-tales of Sylvio Romero’s collection, as well as those
preserved by Couto de Magalhães in his _Selvagem_, are delightful tales,
many hinging upon the adventures of various wild animals, and frequently
displaying a decided streak of humour not unlike that of the “Uncle
Remus” negro tales of North America.
At least one negro poet of Brazil has a claim to fame—Cruz e Souza; the
sculptor Pinheiro was also chiefly of African blood; José de Patrocinio,
who worked hard for the abolition of slavery and stood by the chair of
Princess Isabel when she signed the decree of freedom, was an able and
eloquent negro writer. Altogether, the debt of Brazil to the strong
African races appears to be quite as important, if not much more so,
than that owed to the Tupi-Guarani and other “Indian” tribes of native
Brazil. Fleeing from before the hard hand of the white man, the Indian
as a separate social element has disappeared from those parts of Brazil
brought into touch with modern life.
This native Brazilian, the “Indian” of the coasts, inland plains, and
forest-bordered rivers who lived in the country before Portuguese
possession, has left no traces of civilization comparable with that of
the Incas or pre-Incas of the north-west of South America, or with the
culture of the Maya of Central America and their pupils and conquerors,
the Aztecs. Only in the north, along the Amazonian river highway
connecting with Peru are there remains of ceramic art, and survivals of
weaving skill, which denote marked attainments by a people with settled
homes and defined social habits.
The Museo Goldi at Pará is full of good pottery, some fairly modern, and
much dug from burial grounds on the great island of Marajó at the mouth
of the Amazon; Marajó has a lake which in turn shelters an island which
has proved a mine for the archaeologist—and none too respectfully
treated, unfortunately, by some recent excavators, who seem to have been
more occupied in acquiring loot than in making historical records. This
island in the lake appears to have served for a burial ground of tribes
with social customs of a distinct type; many of the funerary urns are
large enough to contain an entire human body, and some are of good
artistic design; there is a very noticeable resemblance between certain
of these Marajó pottery specimens, especially the smaller jars and
domestic vessels, and ceramics found in Colombia and Southern Central
America.
To the present day the Amazon Indians have preserved their skill in
weaving native fibres; hammocks made of delicate threads, fine as lace
and beautifully prepared, are ornamented with elaborate feather devices
worked in with the fibres. They are sold on the Amazon for prices
reaching several hundred milreis. Both the Museum in Pará and that in
Rio de Janeiro, begun by Dom Pedro and housed in his one-time palace,
contain beautiful specimens of Indian feather work, the exquisite pinks,
blues and greens of Brazilian birds lending themselves to the gay
effect. Allied in race, apparently, to handsome, stocky natives of
British Guiana, the Amazon Indian often has a skin of a cinnamon tint,
is physically strong so long as he is not called upon for regular and
confined labour, is a good waterman and archer, and is not inimical
while he is allowed to remain undisturbed in his forests. If it were not
necessary to enlist his help or enter his retreats, his effect upon
Brazilian modern social conditions would be nil; there was a time when
Indian blood and labour were forcibly brought into service, but that
period is past, although the effect of the former survives in the
fortifying of much Portuguese blood. The hardy mixture that resulted was
able to withstand a trying climate as a pure European race probably
could not have done.
[Illustration:
Igapó near the Rio Negro, Amazonas.
Caripuna Indians, on the Madeira River.
]
Farther south the Indian seems to have been of a different origin, whose
cradle is assigned by some scientists to Paraguay, and who are
identified with the fierce Caribs, invaders of the West Indian islands
and destroyers of the gentle aborigines of those shores before the
Spanish came. No pottery remains are found in the south as in the north;
these tribes seem to have been nomadic in tendency, cultivators of no
arts that have left traces, builders of but light and temporary
dwellings, living upon few foods and those obtained chiefly by hunting.
The chief articles cultivated were mandioca and maize, the forests
yielding wild fruits and nuts. There seems to be no doubt that the
majority, if not all, of these natives were given to cannibal feasts,
but in some cases the act was ceremonial and in others was confined to
enemies of the tribe. Apart from these propensities the native appears
to have been a gentle and even timid creature, endowed with simple good
sense, and quite a man of his word. With the Portuguese settler he was
almost always at loggerheads, but the French knew well how to make a
valuable and faithful ally of him, loyal supplier of food and shelter in
the darkest day of the French attempt at colonization both north and
south; the Jesuit priests, too, who followed the Indians into the
wilderness were able to make quiet converts out of them, and to train
them to domesticity. Since the Jesuits’ work was destroyed and the
missionaries themselves expelled from the country the Indian has been
practically let alone; withdrawn socially, his part in Brazilian life
has been a silent one. He has been still living in the Stone Age. He
never knew and has not adopted the use of metal, erected no stone or
other permanent buildings of any kind, and set up no temples to his
gods. Idea of a deity was to many tribes represented by Tupan, a being
somewhat resembling the North American’s “Great Spirit;” medicine men,
called _pagés_, performed and still perform, wonders and enchantments to
cure the sick. When Prince Adalbert of Prussia went up the Amazon in
1843 he was able to see one of these wizards at work upon a sick man,
and himself complained of a pain in his arm, asking the pagé to cure it;
the spot was rubbed with unguents, covered with leaves, exorcisms were
made, and at last the pagé blowing upon the arm freed a butterfly and
declared that this was the disappearing pain; the European onlookers
said that it was a marvel that the wizard had been able to go through
such a performance with the butterfly concealed in his mouth: evidently
these are quite good conjurers. It is not unknown for the position of
pagé to be offered to a distinguished foreigner: I heard on the Amazon
of a German doctor, whose cures had won the confidence of a remote
tribe, receiving this curious honour.
The only man of modern times who has had continued success with the
native of the interior is that great Brazilian, Colonel Candido Rondon:
in his work of constructing telegraphs and roads and mapping and
surveying in the vast sertões of Matto Grosso, Rondon has laboured for
twenty-five years to win over the timid and hostile Indians. He has so
far succeeded that not only do they now refrain from destroying his
lines and stations, but have been trained to the service of the
Commission which Rondon heads, guarding the posts and cultivating fields
in their neighbourhood for the supply of the engineers. In 1915 a series
of moving picture films were shown in Brazilian cities, made on the
route of the Commission’s work, and showing interesting pictures of
Parecís, Nhambiquaras, and other Indian tribes friendly to the invaders
of their interior regions; they are frequently fine-looking,
welldeveloped, sturdy people, very well worth saving among the world’s
races.
All over the Americas the question of the fate of the native is a
painful one. In North America, both in Canada and the United States, he
has diminished with extraordinary rapidity even when wars have ceased;
contact with the white man seems to be fatal to him. It is only of late,
since he ceased to be a physical danger, that conscience has been
aroused on his behalf and efforts made to retain the survivals. Farther
south the Aztec is still holding his own, a hardy race living its own
life yet and able to preserve customs and wide land spaces. In Central
America the only marked group of pure race is the gentle Guatemalan
Maya, almost enslaved but still living the life of the sixteenth century
in the uplands: when taken to work in the lowlands, he dies.
In Peru the natives are still a strong tough mountain people: Ecuador,
Bolivia and Chile also have incorporated the Indian into the industrial
life of the country; from the Argentine he has practically disappeared,
the face of the land occupied by restless, industrial strangers, while
he has no place in statistics or in calculations affecting the progress
of the country. He is no more a factor than the North American Indian is
a factor in the United States.
Is he to suffer a similar fate in Brazil? Not yet, for his numbers are
large and he still occupies great tracts of the vast hinterlands. There
is, too, a lively public sentiment on the subject of the Indian in
Brazil, statesmen and writers frequently calling attention to the
problem. Spaces in Brazil are so enormous that it will be many a
generation before any question arises of intrusion upon Indian retreats,
and perhaps by that time an extension of the methods of Rondon will have
divested him of fear of civilization.
It cannot, however, be imagined that the native of Brazil will supply
the labour needed to develop great interior regions; he is not willing
to work at given tasks at appointed times and to maintain such work day
by day. He is probably not physically fitted for such tasks. When,
seduced by agents during rubber booms, he has been bribed into working
at the systematic gathering of _goma_, he has failed and died in too
many instances; only when his blood is mingled with that of another
race, and the _caboclo_ produced, is the child of the _selvagem_ able to
take his place in the industrial world.
With the suggestion that the Indian should be strengthened by admixtures
of introduced Asiatics, on the score that the Oriental and the native of
Brazil are already akin, I have scant patience. A tilt of the eyelids
seen in some Central and South American natives has been the chief basis
of a number of fantastic theories generally pre-supposing the passage of
large numbers of Chinese immigrants by way of the Behring Strait;
difficulties are brushed away with an easy hand by enthusiasts of this
idea, but to ignore them is, as T. A. Joyce says, to ignore the value of
scientific evidence. It is just as reasonable to suppose that China or
Japan or both were colonized from South America as to insist on the
reverse movement, but as a matter of fact the division is so extreme on
the very points where resemblances should exist—in language roots,
social customs, arts and food, and religion—that discussion of the
question appears futile. It may be taken for granted that oriental
immigration and mixing will not be accepted by Brazilians as the
solution to the Indian problem; like many another Brazilian problem, it
will be solved from within.
Education in Brazil for the masses of the people has been the subject of
serious consideration and effort for the last fifty years. Government
schools in the care of the separate States differ widely in varying
latitudes, both in quantity and quality, and problems depend largely
upon the origin of the population. The Italian immigrants of São Paulo
are obviously not in the same class as pupils as the negroes of Bahia
State or the three-quarter Indians of Amazonas, nor can States with few
exports and small revenues spend a corresponding amount on education
with rich and expanding regions.
São Paulo is in the matter of public schools, as in commerce, the leader
State; she is a wealthy State, and she has not hesitated to spend
enormous sums on all kinds of public works, whether roads, water-supply,
railways, drainage—or school buildings and service. The Director of
Public Instruction, Dr. João Chrisostomo, in speeches and writings shows
that he has a very clear idea of the object of modern schooling, to
train a healthy mind in a healthy body. Medical and dental attendance
upon the children is regularly carried out in the Paulista schools,
teachers are trained in an excellently equipped and managed Normal
School, and buildings have been multiplied until there is today a school
for every fourteen hundred of the inhabitants of São Paulo state. The
task of educating the children of the working population is a more
difficult one in the agricultural districts, but every good coffee
fazenda has its school. São Paulo has made special efforts to bring new
immigrants into touch with Brazilian conditions by establishing a series
of night schools where Portuguese is taught, together with Brazilian
history and geography; the writer once visited a school of this kind and
saw Italians, Syrians, Greeks and a Japanese, all adults, learning
earnestly in the same room.
Not all of the Brazilian States have as much money to spare as São
Paulo, but the framework, and much of the real building and equipment,
of a satisfactory public school system exists in every section of the
country. Feminine professional education has made a certain start, and
the writer has rarely seen a more promising, and handsome, group of
young women than the students of a normal school in Pará. Many Brazilian
cities take pride in their professional and technical colleges, some of
very old foundation, as that of the School of Law of Pernambuco, the
School of Medicine of Bahia, the Polytechnic School of Rio de Janeiro,
and the School of Law of São Paulo.
Religious scholastic institutions are many, several of the great Orders,
such as the Benedictines, Franciscans, and of course the Jesuits,
maintaining splendid, large, and wealthy colleges. Convents for girls
are also of first-class importance in the Brazilian educational field,
the Sacred Heart institutions taking thousands of girls, and apparently
giving them a good training. In São Paulo there are several schools of
Italian origin; there is a popular French Lycée in Rio; the American
Mackenzie College in São Paulo, founded by Dr. Horace Lane, is a fine
institution doing good work—possessing a kindergarten branch for young
children as well as upper grade classes and technical courses; and there
is a series of excellent and popular schools known as the Gymnasio
Anglo-Brazileiro. The first of these was started in 1899 by an
Englishman, Mr. Charles W. Armstrong, in São Paulo, for boys;
subsequently a beautiful property was acquired among the woods on the
lower slopes of the Dois Irmãos mountain just outside Rio, and a second
school opened there, followed in 1913 by the foundation of a school for
girls on the slopes of the Gavea. Sixty-two per cent of the pupils are
Brazilians, who seem to take to the healthy open-air games of the
Anglo-Saxon with a great deal of appreciation.
[Illustration:
_Agricultural School at Piracicaba, S. Paulo State._
Maintained by the State Government; teaches scientific agriculture,
conducts chemical experiments and maintains a splendid demonstration
farm. Director, Dr. Emilio Castello.
_The Butantan Institute, S. Paulo City._
The _Instituto Serumtherapico do Estado de São Paulo_ is maintained by
the State Government. Several thousand poisonous snakes are kept
here in the _Serpentario_ and from them venom is extracted and
injected into horses; the resulting serum is prepared as an antidote
for snakebite, and is distributed all over Brazil. The Director is
Dr. Vital Brasil.
]
The more southerly colonies have their own schools, generally taught in
their own languages; the only criticism of this retention of the
immigrants’ tongue and ideas that I have ever heard in Brazil made
itself known at the time when rumours were freely repeated of plots in
the German settlements of Rio Grande do Sul, soon after the outbreak of
war in Europe, and which were strengthened by von Tannenberg’s book on
German expansion, which discussed the annexation of South Brazil,
Uruguay and Argentina. Brazilian newspapers ran stories dealing with the
possibility of German naval victories being followed by the occupation
of Rio Grande and the use of the Lagôa dos Patos as a base for vessels,
and while the defeat of Admiral von Spee off the Falkland Islands
disposed of such a plan if it ever existed, the suggestion drew the
attention of many formerly indifferent people to the self-centred life
of some of the German colonies. It was complained that nothing but the
German language was taught in the schools, that public notices and
records were issued in German, and the German ideal held before the
people to the exclusion of any other. The matter was very warmly argued,
the colonists scouting, and with a show of reason, any evil intention;
it is hardly to be supposed that any sane person could plan the
deliverance of a piece of South American territory to a foreign power,
with the surrounding republics, not to speak of Brazil herself, looking
quietly on. But so much feeling was expressed that the Governor of Rio
Grande thought it well to announce new introductions of the Portuguese
language into schools. As a matter of fact the Italians in Rio Grande
out-number the inhabitants of German blood, few of whom are German born;
emigration to Brazil was forbidden by the German Government in the year
1859, after some eighty thousand people had settled: the survivors with
their descendants are said today to number two hundred and fifty
thousand. Living as they have chiefly done, in isolated towns, it would
be strange if they had acquired any habits and customs other than those
of their European fathers; they speak German for the same reasons that
they sleep on feather beds, brew beer, plant gardens and build
comfortable houses.
The sweeping charge that South America is a land of revolutions is made
so often and so lightly that few people stop to consider the record of
the vastly different countries comprising the area below Panama. When
the writer has remarked—outside Brazil—that Brazil has never as a whole
had any blood-stained revolution, the statement has been received with
looks of polite incredulity, and yet it is true. Prior to separation
from Portugal a few local, factional feuds occurred, as in Pernambuco
when the natives quarrelled with the petty merchant Portuguese, and in
Minas when the Paulistas fought the men of other states for claims to
the gold mines, but there was no more serious internal disturbance.
Independence from Portugal was achieved almost without bloodshed, by
force of a proclamation: the end of the monarchy and establishment of a
republic was attained peacefully.
After the republican régime began there was occasional trouble, a mere
candle flicker compared to the republican bonfires in neighbour states,
the insurgents of Rio Grande giving trouble for some years; there were
two revolts by the navy, of a not too creditable kind. In none of these
were the Brazilian people deeply concerned, nor did they affect the
government of the country. No Viceroy of Brazil, no King and no
President, has been assassinated in the history of the country.
External troubles, excluding the fights for twenty-four years to expel
the Dutch from Pernambuco, are limited to two, with neighbours in the
south; the first of these was as much the fault of Brazil as that of
Argentina, and she was forced to give up the Cisplatine Province
(Uruguay) forcibly annexed: but in the second, the Paraguayan war,
Brazil acted only after years of aggression obliged her to take up arms.
The fact is that the Brazilian is a peace lover, that Brazil has had few
wars in the past and has no cause for quarrel as far as can be foreseen.
Wars between South American states have frequently hinged upon questions
of boundaries, the result of vague delimitation in colonial days when
much of the interior was still a sealed book. Brazil took steps early in
her history as a republic to avoid such differences: that good diplomat
the Barão de Rio Branco worked for years on the subject of Brazilian
boundaries, and succeeded in making definite settlements with the
Argentine, Bolivia and French Guiana.
Another big step for the preservation of Brazilian peace was made when
in 1915 a pact was arranged between Argentina, Brazil and Chile which
binds the three greatest South American states in a closer alliance than
has yet been possible between North American countries. The terms
include “rules for proceeding to facilitate the friendly solution of
questions that were formerly excluded from arbitration” in virtue of the
treaty of 1899 between Brazil and Chile, of 1902 between Chile and
Argentina, and of 1905 between Argentina and Brazil. The articles of the
new agreement arrange for the submission of disputes to a permanent
Commission, the signatories agreeing not to commit hostile acts while
the Commission’s report is pending or until one year has elapsed: the
constitution of the Commission is provided for, and it is agreed that
any one of the three contracting parties has power to convoke it; the
seat of the Commission was fixed in the neighbouring (and presumably
neutral) Republic of Uruguay—at Montevideo—and after it had presented
its report upon matters in dispute the contracting parties, it was
agreed, would recover liberty of action “to proceed as best consults
their interest in the matter under investigation.”
The A. B. C. Treaty, as it is known, was signed at Buenos Aires on May
25, 1915, by representatives of the three Governments; its strength has
not been tested, but there is little reason to doubt that the formal
acceptance of the arbitration principle by these three powerful states
in the agreement is a big step forward in American history. “Brazil has
always been an advocate of arbitration, and has accepted the fiats of
arbitrators even when against her interests,” says J. P. Wileman, adding
that the actual treaty is but a development of Brazil’s historic policy,
though in the particular form it has taken the formula adopted by the
United States has been followed; it is also significant because it
“diminishes, although it does not eliminate, chances of war between the
three leading South American countries,” and “leaves no excuse for the
ruinous competition in armaments that has contributed so powerfully to
the actual financial crises in all three countries.” With burdensome
purchases of fighting vessels, rifles and cannon eliminated from their
budgets the Argentine, Brazil and Chile can therefore “in future devote
all their energies and resources to the moral and material advancement
of their peoples.”
The proof of arbitration puddings is in the eating. If the contributed
ingredients do not emerge from well-kept cupboards, they are apt to sour
whatever the label upon the cooked product. North of Panama the five
Central American Republics agreed upon the erection of the Court of
Cartago some years ago where all disputes between these neighbours
should be thrashed out. Approval smiled upon the project from the United
States, deeply interested in the peace of Central America; Mr. Carnegie
spent a large number of dollars upon the building of a beautiful palace,
and the first meetings were held with mutual kindliness and the applause
of the world. The writer saw the Peace Palace in May, 1910. A few days
previously an earthquake had visited the lovely mountain-surrounded
valley of Cartago and nothing remained of a charming city but a heap of
broken bricks and stone. The Peace Palace was a dust-heap, with twisted
iron girders thrusting up against the serene sky from a medley of
disaster. The sight was symbolical of the spiritual fate of the Court.
At the shake of an earthquake of opinions it is in ruins.
When Nicaragua signed a treaty which Costa Rica, Salvador and Honduras
declare an encroachment upon their territorial rights, recourse was had
to the Court, re-erected in San José. The Court found for the three
appellants—and Nicaragua refuses to accept its decision.
Let us hope the A. B. C. treaty is made of better material.
CHAPTER IV
TRANSPORTATION
_I. River and Road_
All the great railway systems of Brazil are pioneers, lines of
penetration, driving into new country like hopeful explorers, and
starting from one of the old centres of population on the sea-border.
Within the last few years links have been completed between some of the
cities where the lines originate, so that there are now long strips of
line running parallel to the coast, and thus Central and South Brazil
are benefited by this junction so far as it exists: but for several
neighbour states the only means of communication with each other is the
sea.
The Brazilian, descendant of the seafaring Portuguese, is a good
waterman by instinct; thousands of little sailboats navigate the sea
margin of Brazil, homebuilt, doing an active petty traffic in raw
materials and fruit and merchandise. This traffic figures in Brazilian
statistics as _cabotagem_. Passengers of a humble class are carried in
addition to freight and there is also a fishing fleet attached to every
sea town, so that the total of Brazilian vessels of this useful little
class is large.
When the first hardy Portuguese and their descendants the _mamelucos_
began, very early after the acquisition of a few strips of coast by the
first captains, to penetrate the interior of the Land of the True Cross
they used the rivers as highways. The settlers of São Paulo sailed their
canoes on the Tieté, the “sacred river of São Paulo,” and it was a
facile system of exploration because this river flows inland from the
heights of the mountain barrier where it takes its rise; running
north-west for four hundred miles it joins the great Paraná and thence
continues southward, finding its way to the sea as part of the Rio de la
Plata. The water systems of the east coast of South America are so
enormous and so closely linked that it is possible, with but a few miles
of portage, to traverse a river path all the way from Buenos Aires in
the Argentine to Pará in North Brazil, a journey of some four thousand
miles.
What the Tieté was to the pioneer Paulistas, the slave-hunting
indomitable _bandeirantes_, the São Francisco was to the early colonists
of Bahia, no less energetic, fearless and predatory. This noble river
rises in the mountains of Minas Geraes, flowing north and eventually
turning east towards the sea and forming the renowned Paulo Affonso
Falls. When the mineral riches of the “General Mines” were discovered
this river became a busy highway of travel, the Bahianos flocking to the
regions of gold and precious stones in such numbers that the coast
settlement was almost deserted.
It was during this period of gold fever that two of the very few good
roads in Brazil were constructed: one ran between Rio de Janeiro and the
first capital of Minas, the mining town of Ouro Preto (“Black Gold”),
and along it caravans travelled weekly, bringing out ore and hides and
taking in slaves and merchandise. Villages which sprang up along the
line of this old highway still exist although the road itself has long
fallen out of repair, and one, Juiz da Fora, has grown into an important
well-built town, the centre of a mining and agricultural section now
served by a railroad.
The other road which owed its construction to the exciting tales from
the gold camps ran between São Paulo city and the mines; its existence
was limited by the days of prosperity of the gold-seekers, and when the
rich deposits of alluvial gold were exhausted and the _batea_ had
perforce to be exchanged for the spade, the road was abandoned. The ill
luck which attended the pitched battles of the Paulistas with other
claimants to the General Mines caused the withdrawal of many fortune
seekers back to the plantations of S. Paulo and hastened the decay of
the highway.
Another of the few much-travelled roads of the colonial or indeed any
period of Brazilian history, until the opening of the flat lands of the
extreme south by imported European colonists, was one built by the
Jesuits from the coastal colony of São Vicente to their own mission
settlement at São Paulo; this highway negotiated the mangrove swamps of
the flat belt edging the sea and then climbed the rocky barrier of the
Serra do Mar to the cool interior plateau. Before the construction of
this _Caminho do Padre José_ the ascent must have taxed even the stout
spirits of those indomitable priests. The good Padre Vasconcellos wrote,
three hundred years ago, of the journey:—
“The greater part of the way one cannot really travel, but must make
one’s way with hands and feet, clinging to the roots of trees, and this
amongst such crags and precipices that I confess I trembled whenever I
looked downwards. The depth of the valleys is tremendous and the number
of mountains rising one above another appear to leave no hope of
reaching the climax.... It is true that the labour of the ascent has its
compensations now and again, for when I rested upon one of the rocks and
looked below it seemed as if I were gazing from the heaven of the moon
and that the whole round universe lay spread beneath my feet.”
When Fletcher (_Brazil and the Brazilians_) visited São Paulo in 1855,
he made the trip from Santos on horseback over a Serra road, remarking
on the excellence of the section on the flat to Cubitão; he was two days
on the journey and says that the road “which traverses this range of
mountains is probably the finest in Brazil, with the exception of the
Imperial highway to Petropolis.”
This was not the first road constructed to bridge the barrier range, for
in 1790 the Portuguese Governor superseded the Jesuit highway by a new
one which included four miles of solid pavement and had more than one
hundred and eighty angles before it reached the plateau. It was still
too steep for wheeled traffic and the troops of mules which traversed it
in thousands, bringing coffee from the interior after this product
became a commercial factor and before the railway was built, often slid
down the steep slopes on their haunches. It is said that both this and
the first road were lined with the bones of mules that died by the way.
Similar stories are told of the Imperial road, built by that genuinely
progressive ruler, Dom Pedro _segundo_, from Rio de Janeiro to his pet
colony and residence Petropolis, a lovely nook in the heart of the Serra
behind Guanabara Bay. This road, too, traversed flat, marshy ground
before it began to climb the terrible Serra, and the latter section
remained in use for some years after a railroad was constructed over the
flats to the foot of the mountains: engineering difficulties were
considered too great for a railroad until eventually Swiss engineers
applied the same methods as had solved the problem in their own mountain
country.
Many people in Brazil talk of the old coaching days in Petropolis, when
stout mules toiled up the sharp gradients with their loads of passengers
and freight. The team was changed in Petropolis and the route pursued on
into Minas Geraes. This road is still in good condition—Petropolis the
flower-decked and spotless is a centre of fine valley roads leading in
seven different directions—and is a panorama of charming scenes. Like
its sister mountain road in São Paulo and the “Graciosa” road from
Curityba in Paraná, it has entered upon a new lease of life with the
coming of the automobile.
Will the entry of the cheap automobile develop road-making in Brazil as
it has assisted in that good work in the United States? It is possible.
Before the War, the chief importation of motor-cars was from Europe, the
class was high grade, beautiful and extremely powerful. It is said that
no city in the world can show more expensive high-power cars than Rio de
Janeiro, where every hired machine is called upon to climb the steep
grades of Tijuca or some neighbouring mountain. There are large numbers
of such cars also to be seen in wealthy S. Paulo, but they do not go far
from the Avenida Paulista for lack of good roads; the luxurious European
car does its chief duty within city bounds.
But with the introduction of the inexpensive car of North American
build, the _fazendeiro_ is acquiring a car for country use. It seems
certain that what may be called the agricultural use of such cars will
help to bring about improvement in interior highways that was not
necessarily called for when a trusty horse or mule could negotiate any
kind of a boggy track. At the same time it is not to be expected that
Brazil will soon be extensively traversed by great high roads such as
France possesses or such as the Romans left in Britain. The climate of
half the country opposes itself to road permanence with all the force of
the tropics. Burned and disintegrated by fierce sun, deluged and beaten
by even fiercer rains, choked by the lush growth of a soil so fertile
that a tangled green maze springs up almost overnight in any cleared
space, a road has poor chance of surviving in many parts of Brazil
unless unceasing labour and unending money is spent upon it. In the very
regions where roads are most wanted on account of lack of other
transportation means, there is usually the least chance of money being
raised for their upkeep. In thinking of possible Brazilian highways, it
is necessary to eliminate from present consideration much of the great
teeming forestal belt of the north, and the precipitous Serra regions of
the south sea-border; the areas where automobile roads could be built
with a chance of permanence without exhausting expenses in upkeep are
the flat lands of the north, where some excellent plans and beginnings
have been made in Bahia and Pernambuco; part of Minas, where the
Triangulo already has a public automobile highway service, connecting
Uberabinha with the railway; the wide uplands of S. Paulo, Paraná, Santa
Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul; and the interior plateau of Goyaz and
Matto Grosso.
The proof that permanent, and not too costly roads, can be made in
Brazil lies in the fact that they have been made: the Russian carters of
Paraná take their teams over rough but serviceable trails on prairie
lands, and across the high sertão of Matto Grosso that great and gallant
explorer, Rondon, has built roads over which services of automobile
trucks are maintained for the convenience of the telegraph building,
geological and charting work of the Commission. The tale of the
magnificent work in the interior done by the Rondon Commission is an
epic of the Brazilian interior, and one of its great merits has been the
proof that this unknown country is no terrible jungle, but an open,
honest country awaiting the plough.
_II. Rail_
Initiative in railway construction in Brazil is credited to a clever
priest who acted as Regent during part of the minority of Pedro II. In
October, 1835, Padre Feijó presented a bill to the Legislative Assembly
in Rio de Janeiro advocating the creation of a railway system; amongst
other suggestions his scheme included a limitation of rates for freight
and passengers—the former to a maximum of twenty reis for each arroba
carried a league, and ninety reis for each passenger carried a like
distance. Nothing was done for seventeen years, and then in June, 1852,
the Brazilian Government sanctioned a concession for a railroad to link
the port of Pernambuco to a point upon the river S. Francisco, above the
falls which blocked the way of boats traversing the busy interior river
highway. This road was never built. In 1853, another concession was
granted for a line to reach the river from the more southerly port of
Bahia: this plan was carried out and the road opened to traffic (Bahia
to Joazeiro) in the year 1860, but before that day three other railways
had been built and brought into operation.
The first of all railways to operate in Brazil was the Emperor’s road
running from the outskirts of Rio city across level ground to the foot
of the Serra: it was opened in 1854. This, and the subsequent mountain
climbing section extending from the _Raiz da Serra_ to the _Alto da
Serra_, are part of the important system of lines owned and operated by
one of the big English companies, the Leopoldina: I refer in detail to
this series and its development work on another page. A short strip, now
part of the (English) Great Western of Brazil Railway, running on level
country from the city of Pernambuco was opened in 1857, and a line from
Rio de Janeiro to Queimados, a distance of sixty kilometers, was opened
to traffic by Dom Pedro in the year 1858: it forms part of the valuable
series of penetrating lines owned and operated by the Federal Government
today.
Before 1870 the most important producing states, the seaboard
territories with surplus sugar, coffee, tobacco, cacao and cotton had
been furnished with strips of line penetrating limited areas of the
interior. In the north engineering problems were easier, for the
frowning wall of the Serra do Mar melts away in South Bahia, but it was
in the temperate zones of the more southerly regions that transportation
was urgently demanded to serve the needs of the rapidly expanding coffee
regions; São Paulo was feverishly planting all over her best red lands,
and the only outlet for the crop was the steep mountain road to Santos.
An English company took up the work of building a railroad, completed it
after surmounting a series of difficulties and opened it to traffic in
1867. It is a triumph of engineering, and has never had a competitor;
from S. Paulo city itself a fan of railway lines branches out in every
direction except seawards, and while other great centres of rail
networks in Brazil originate at the sea edge, here in S. Paulo the point
of departure is from the plateau above the hill barrier. The São
Paulo-to-Santos line is world famous: it is the channel through which
the bulk of the coffee of the whole world is carried, and is for its
length one of the notable money earners of the railroad world. The road
crosses the coastal swamps following the old Jesuit road as far as
Cubatão, and thence climbs the granite wall of the Serra on one of the
steepest grades known in railway construction, rising two thousand five
hundred feet within a distance of ten kilometers. It is a joy to ride
over this line, with its magnificent equipment, minute neatness,
drainage system of the mountain sides involving a remarkable series of
cemented channels—the very rocks beside the track are tarred to preserve
them from decay, and the sides of the hills are built up with elaborate
care unparalleled in railway work; the company’s power-houses, cottages
for employees, and stations along the route, with the fine terminal in
Santos and the beautiful “Estação da Luz” in S. Paulo, are models. Once
upon a time, it is said, an American railroad man was shown over this
line and asked if he could suggest any improvements. “Not unless the
ends of the ties could be carved or the rails set with diamonds,”
replied the visitor.
Upkeep of the line is costly, soil and climate working against
durability of any human effort; the climb up the steep Serra,
electrically operated by rope haulage on the “endless rope” system,
requires incessant watchfulness, as does the condition of the several
tunnels blasted through the heart of the mountains. There is no better
way to appreciate both the engineering problems and the superb beauty of
the green Serra with its abrupt peaks and deep valleys than to ride on
the brake of a train making the descent to Santos.
The distance between Santos and S. Paulo is about seventy-nine
kilometers, but the company owns branches, and there is a duplication of
the track, the result of reconstruction and the choice of a new route
for the Serra ascent in 1901, which brings the total length of line
owned to one hundred and fifty-three kilometers; the old track may be
seen below the new one on the hillside, and is being electrified with a
view to renewed activity as a freight carrier. The enormous volume of
Paulista coffee seeking an outlet by the line—17 million bags in
1915–16—is a strain upon capacity in the busy season; the exports of S.
Paulo are also developing in a new direction with the entry of Brazil
into world markets with chilled beef, and refrigerator cars are monthly
increasing in traffic over the road.
The capital of the company, whose headquarters are in London, is six
million pounds sterling, and up to the year of war in Europe a dividend
of fourteen per cent was regularly paid: in 1914 twelve per cent was
paid, and in 1915 there was another drop to ten per cent, chiefly
consequent upon the fall in Brazilian currency which caused heavy losses
when earnings counted in milreis were turned into sterling for
remittance to Europe. Lowered exchange has caused serious embarrassment
to most companies operating in Latin America with foreign capital,
especially the transportation companies whose rates are fixed, and it
was loss on this account rather than reduced business which brought
gloom into railway and street-car circles in 1915.
[Illustration:
_The São Paulo Railway._
Operates between São Paulo City and the port of Santos, and is the
great coffee-carrying line. Above, Estação da Luz, S. Paulo City.
Below, part of track traversing the steep Serra do Mar, showing
tunnels blasted through granite.
]
There are three railways which climb the mountain wall of South Brazil:
the first was the São Paulo line, and the second the Petropolis link,
built on the rack system; some wonderful views are passed on the
two-hour journey. The third mountain climbing line connects the port of
Paranaguá to Curityba, in the State of Paraná, some three hundred miles
south of Santos. The construction of this line was as remarkable a feat
as that of the São Paulo railway, and is even more spectacular; it was
only completed after the first daring attempt had failed, and today the
line hangs breathlessly on the sides of mountain precipices, traverses
canyons on apparently frail bridges, and plunges into tunnels blasted
through granite. The Serra is extremely steep in the region traversed by
the railroad and the scenery is quite the most wild and beautiful of the
Brazilian mountain barrier. The line is the outlet for the products of
the mills of industrious Curityba, and from here the _herva matte_ of
the interior woods of Paraná is sent to Paranaguá and thence by boat to
its chief destination, Argentina. Paraná and the neighbouring forests
comprise almost the sole source of supply of _matte_ leaves, and thus
the mountain line has a practical monopoly in the transportation of this
wild product; if recent Argentine plans for planting the shrub are
successful a heavy blow would probably be dealt to this industry.
Brazil built her first railway three years before the Argentine brought
her first line into operation—a modest strip of thirteen miles running
west from Buenos Aires—although British Guiana has the credit of
possessing the earliest railroad of South America; during the Empire
construction proceeded steadily but with a certain caution, and it was
not until after the formation of the Republic in 1889 that floods of
concessions for railway construction invaded Brazil. The years 1890–91
show the highwater mark of such plans, and while many of these dried up
without leaving a trace there remained sufficient impetus for much
genuine and useful construction.
Lines began to go farther afield, to form networks and connected links;
they were part of general improvement plans which presently included
harbours and wharves, waterworks and sanitation schemes, city paving and
draining and beautifying. It is true that from the time of the Republic
is dated Brazil’s plunge into debt upon a great scale, but since the new
American countries could not wait until they had sufficient money in the
national pockets to pay for railway, harbour and sanitation, and Europe
stood ready to lend her surplus gold in aid of the work, Brazil is
scarcely to blame for borrowing as did her sisters, north and south. Her
very extravagance helped to advertise and advance Brazil, the
royal-spending world customer with rich products for sale to justify
her; she attracted immigrants, merchants, capitalists, technical men and
scholars as she never would have done without her renown as a land of
careless magnificence.
Borrowing and building went on without any serious check until 1912,
when the first Balkan War cast long shadows into the financial world;
less than two hundred miles of new railway line have come into operation
since that year in Brazil. But the previous fat years, many more than
seven, had by that time not only brought about rail access to many
fertile interior belts, but also the linking of the more important
systems by lines reaching up and down the coast. The brilliant French
author, Pierre Denis, was able to say ten or twelve years ago that there
was “no general railway system in Brazil; there are small independent
systems, covering with their meshes the regions of long-established
colonization, but without inter-communicating lines.” He found
connection between two groups only, remarking that “the line from S.
Paulo to Rio is today the only means of transit between two groups of
states, excepting the ocean highway.”
At the end of 1922 the situation is greatly changed. Not only have many
states been linked up but three sister Republics are in direct
communication with Brazil by rail. São Paulo city communicates by
systems under allied control with Uruguay; Argentina is in touch at the
western edge of Rio Grande do Sul, where the town of Uruguayana stands
on the river boundary between the two countries opposite to the
Argentine port of Libres; Bolivia is reached at the frontier town of
Corumbá, on the border of south-western Matto Grosso, as well as at the
Madeira-Mamoré Falls in the north. Linking up with south-eastern Bolivia
is the result of the penetration of south Matto Grosso by the
North-Western of Brazil Railway; this line, which has direct
communication with the city of S. Paulo, reached Itapura on the river
Paraná a few years ago, and pushed on energetically from that western
edge of S. Paulo State across the narrow southerly neck of the huge
neighbour, arriving early in 1916 at Porto Esperanza on the river
Paraguay, only a few miles from the objective of the road, Corumbá town
on the frontier of Bolivia. This transportation service gives Bolivia an
outlet of which the interior republic has stood in need since she was
deprived of a seaport of her own on the Pacific; perforce sending her
products out through other republics, Bolivia has been already aided in
the north with the opening of the Madeira-Mamoré line, giving better
access to the river highway of the Amazon.
The North-Western line has pushed farther afield from the seacoast than
any other in Brazil: the constructing company is Belgian, with
headquarters in Brussels, and the Federal Government in this as in many
other instances guarantees interest on the capital expended, a loan
having been raised for this purpose in Paris in 1909. An able Brazilian
engineer, Dr. Firma Dutra, directs the work; all the rolling stock,
including dormitories and restaurant cars, has been built in Brazilian
workshops with Brazilian hardwoods. Another approach, parallel to and
south of the north-western, to the great stock-raising lands of Matto
Grosso is offered now that the extension of the Sorocabana line from
Salto Grande to the port of Tibiriça on the Paraná river is completed;
Tibiriça is a famous cattle crossing where thousands of head of the
stocky beasts reared on luscious interior pastures are brought into the
State of S. Paulo. Their numbers have been greatly augmented since the
opening of two packing-houses in S. Paulo at the end of 1914, and
excellent service has been rendered by the Paulista enterprise, the
Companhia de Viação São Paulo-Matto Grosso, which owns the port of
Tibiriça, operates ferries, runs a steamboat service up the Paraná river
to Jupiá (Itapura) where the North-Western brings merchandise from S.
Paulo city, as well as service on three or four tributaries of the
Paraná; the company has constructed a highway, now bordered with coffee
plantations, rest-pastures for the passing cattle, and embryo villages
along the route, all the way to the city of S. Paulo.
There are three chief fans of radiating railroad lines in Brazil,
starting from the coastal border from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and
Pernambuco. The first two form networks of lines of much greater extent
than the third, and besides these systems there are several points along
the littoral where a railway penetrating inland is already the handle of
a new fan. The southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, is well
served, lines running through the middle of her territory from north to
south (the Auxiliaire, now part of the Brazil Railways group) and east
to west, so that the state is in touch with Argentina, with Uruguay,
with the States of S. Paulo, and Santa Catharina and with the seat at
each end of the Lagôa dos Patos, a busy lagoon with the town of Rio
Grande at the entrance and Porto Alegre at the northern end: the
railroad splits into two at Cacequy in order to serve both the rival
ports. Superior docking at Porto Alegre sent practically all visiting
vessels to the upper end of the lagoon until the end of 1915, when the
new harbour of Rio Grande was formally opened. The work, a long and
expensive series of tasks, was performed by a French company, and
includes the deepening and maintenance of the channel to permit the
entry of deep-draught vessels, docks and wharves; Rio Grande is a fine
state with a cool climate, an industrious population, and thriving
business. It has been carefully colonized with white European settlers,
has space for a million more, and with its easy access to other centres
of population by sea and rail has much to attract newcomers. Increasing
exchange is carried on with the Argentine, chiefly by water.
Santa Catharina’s rail service consists of the north-and-south link of
the São Paulo-Rio Grande line, a short local line between the colonies
of Blumenau and Hansa, and two short strips running inland from the sea,
one from Imbatuba to Laguna and thence inland to Lauro Muller, serving
the coalfields of that region; the other from the excellent little
island port of São Francisco, across to the mainland at Paraty, and
thence inland to Joinville, Rio Negro and Tres Barras, where the lumber
yards of a company controlled by the Brazil Railway Company feed it with
freight. The Tres Barras yards operate with the Paraná pine for which
the southern States of Brazil are famous, ship it to many other parts of
the Brazilian Union, and in 1915 arranged to supply Argentina alone with
forty million feet a year.
S. Francisco port has entered upon a new life since the lumber business
has been flourishing; a double row of settlements has sprung up beside
the track of the railroad and agriculture is showing development in a
region that has been steadily if slowly settled by the descendants of
the early colony of Joinville.
The State of Paraná is better off for connections; in addition to the
north and south link with the sister states of São Paulo and Santa
Catharina, she has a railroad running off from it at the station of
Ponta Grossa due east to Serrinha (whence a branch connects with Rio
Negro directly to the south), on to the pleasant capital town, Curityba,
and down the wonderful mountain road already referred to until the port
of Paranaguá is reached, one of the lively younger shipping points of
the southern littoral.
São Paulo, the next state northwards, is the possessor of the best
system of penetrating railroads in Brazil: she has more mileage than any
other single state in the Union, counting over four thousand miles. In
his Message read before the S. Paulo Congress on July 14, 1916, the
President of the State, Dr. Altino Arantes, remarked:
“During the past year we had an addition of one hundred and forty-two
kilometers to the railroad mileage of the State, bringing the figures of
the total system to six thousand two hundred and seventy-nine kilometers
on December 31. Of this total four thousand three hundred and fifty-five
kilometers belong to private enterprises; one thousand five hundred and
sixty-nine to the State and the remaining three hundred and fifty-five
to the Union.”
The most important of the lines belonging to the State referred to by
Dr. Altino Arantes is the Sorocabana, with over eleven hundred
kilometers of track, which is leased to the Brazil Railways: the other
two state properties are the Funilense Railway and the Cantareira
Tramway, running from S. Paulo city up a green, well-settled valley to
picturesque waterworks among woods.
The Sorocabana with its general westerly direction is one of the lines
which are pushing ahead towards the Matto Grosso boundary; building on
from Salto Grande on the Paranápanema river, the line reached Caramarú
in 1916. As we saw when on the subject of the line from Santos to S.
Paulo, railroads in the State of São Paulo only began forming a network
at the top of the plateau after the Serra had been conquered[6]; the
next to be constructed was the Paulista, which has its northern terminal
at Barretos, in the heart of good cattle lands: a flourishing packing
house owned by the Companhia Frigorifica e Pastoril of S. Paulo is
situated near Barretos, and has as its president the same energetic
Paulista who heads the railway, Conselheiro Antonio da Silva Prado. Both
packing house and railway are purely Brazilian enterprises financed with
Brazilian money, but the construction of the road was headed by an
American named Hammond, and was in consequence known for a long time as
“Hammond’s road” to distinguish it from “Fox’s road” as the pioneer line
to Santos was called after the English engineer. The Paulista both
served and created coffee plantations, following the lines of richest
deposit of the red diabasic soils that have made S. Paulo the great
coffee country of the world; the same may be said of the Mogyana, almost
parallel to the Paulista but farther north, also a Brazilian owned and
operated company, and the Northwestern.
Today these paralleled lines are linked with branches and possess steel
arms reaching out into rich developing districts so that there is a
genuine “rede ferroviario” over Paulista territory. The great coffee
centre of Campinas is the point of departure for a star of lines, and so
is the more northerly Riberão Preto, in the heart of the dark blood-red
lands.
In a particularly fortunate position with regard to communication with
other States as well as interior service, S. Paulo is linked directly to
Rio by the line owned and operated by the Federal Government, the
Central system, and onward from Rio due north to the port of Espirito
Santo State; to the interior of Minas Geraes by way of Uberaba, Araguary
and over the border into Goyaz to Catalão and Roncador; by following the
Central’s lines the capital of Minas, the new town of Bello Horizonte,
is reached; southward, the series of lines controlled by the Brazil
Railways take the traveller from S. Paulo all through the States of
Paraná, Santa Catharina and Rio Grande to the Republic of Uruguay, with
connection at the border town of Santa Anna do Livramento with a line
running south to Montevideo.
The writer followed this route in December, 1915. The journey took six
days and nights, three of the latter being spent in the train and three
at points en route while waiting for connections, certain trains running
but twice a week. My path was smooth by official courtesy and the trip
was pleasant as well as interesting; the sparsely occupied country, with
colonies set down here and there near the track, has a delightful
freshness born of bright empty spaces, woods and a multitude of shallow
rapid streams.
The pine forests of Paraná and Santa Catharina with their flowery
carpets were a series of fine pictures, while the wide-spread sunny
pastures of southern Rio Grande, a perfect cattle country with a cool
climate, are waiting for more white immigrants. Herds stray on the sides
of gentle grassy slopes and in the valleys where a cluster of green
marks the bed of a little river, fields are marked out and a red-tiled
house nestles—but these are all too few.
The Brazil Railway Company was formed in 1906 through the initiative of
Percival Farquhar with the object of unifying railway lines in South
Brazil, then in several different hands as a result of the concessionary
system which was the only way of inviting foreign capital in earlier
days: the project also included the control of accessory ports and large
industrial development along the line of the roads. About the same time
the syndicate formed by Farquhar obtained interests in railways in
Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile; a huge unification plan was
foreshadowed.
Some of these plans have fallen through—the narrow-gauge Argentine lines
leased have, for instance, returned to their former control, and Chilean
interests have been dropped—partly because disturbed conditions in
Europe since the first Balkan war in 1912 ended opportunities for
obtaining more metal props.
Registered in the United States, the Brazil Railway Company is really a
monument to French confidence in Brazil, in that the capital employed,
as well as the properties acquired, is Gallic in origin to a large
extent. The capital of the company is fifteen hundred million francs,
and of this huge sum nine hundred million francs were subscribed in
Paris, the rest of the money coming from Brussels and London. The
company is interested in thirty-eight subsidiary companies, including
several railroads which were bought or leased (and, in the case of the
Madeira-Mamoré, constructed), a frigorifico recently completed on Rio
docks, a flourishing cattle company, a land and colonization company,
lumber business, interest in ports, as at Pará, Rio Grande City and Rio
de Janeiro (leased out to another company), a steamship service on the
Amazon river, et cetera. Land owned by the cattle company totals to over
eight million acres, in the States of Matto Grosso, S. Paulo, Paraná and
Rio Grande do Sul, and serious efforts are being made to improve the
stock of the two or three hundred thousand head of cattle kept in
various regions by the introduction of first-class breeding stock.
Animals are sold to the second of S. Paulo’s packing-houses, the
frigorifico at Osasco, just outside S. Paulo city, an American owned and
operated enterprise[7] dating also from 1914, which has friendly
connection with the Brazil Railways.
A few of the interests of the Brazil Railways are in a prosperous state,
as the lumber and cattle businesses, but the position of the company as
a whole suffers from the weaker elements of the group, perhaps
particularly the Amazonian, which were injected into the earlier South
Brazilian plans; many of the development companies not only do not pay
but need money to carry them along. The affairs of the company are now
in the hands of an American receiver, and the latest report presented to
long-suffering shareholders at a London meeting was optimistic in tone.
It is the most ambitious group of enterprises under one control in
Brazil, and perhaps this is one reason why its plan of line, land and
port management has not been always looked upon with a favourable eye by
Brazilian authorities. Objection seems also to be made to the
introduction of foreign capital not for the purpose of development work
of a new kind, but when employed in acquiring properties already
existing.[8]
In South Brazil the company operates over three thousand miles of line,
including the State-owned Sorocabana, the São Paulo-Rio Grande, the
Paraná line, the Auxiliaire traversing Rio Grande do Sul, and the little
Thereza Christina in Santa Catharina.
São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are linked by the line owned by the Federal
Government, the Central do Brasil, a series running off from a point on
the S. Paulo line into the State of Minas Geraes; the writer followed
this road when visiting Bello Horizonte, the new capital of Minas, a
beautifully placed city with mountains rising behind it and terraced
plains and valleys sweeping away in front. The line into Minas traverses
a hilly country, green, fertile, well-watered with turbulent rivers
whose valleys are sedulously followed. From near Bello Horizonte a long
arm of steel reaches out past Sete Lagôas, Curvello and Curralinho,
where a branch runs to the famous diamond fields of Diamantina, and to
Pirapora on the river São Francisco: from this point steamboats meeting
the trains take their goods and passengers down the waterway to Joazeiro
in Bahia State. It Is from this river port of Pirapora that an extremely
bold railway has been planned, to run almost due north to the city of
Pará, the latter part of the route following the valley of the Tocantins
river: the line would be some two thousand miles in length, traversing
country never properly explored or charted. Authorization to contract
for the work was given in 1911 to the brilliant Brazilian engineer,
Frontin, to whose genius the beautifying of Rio de Janeiro is due, and a
beginning was made between Pirapora and Formosa, but the universal lack
of money has given a check to operations. The headquarters and main
station of the _Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil_ are situated in Rio
de Janeiro. Three trains are run daily each way between Rio and São
Paulo, those starting in the early morning landing passengers about six
in the evening; they are equipped with a satisfactory and inexpensive
restaurant service. The two night trains leave each city at intervals of
an hour and a half every evening; the first leaves about seven o’clock,
and is modestly furnished with beds on the North American Pullman plan,
while the famous “luxo,” on which newspaper reporters always attend to
take down the names of the illustrious, starts at nine o’clock; each
camarote is a separate apartment with an individual toilette, fans,
electric light, bells, and very prompt attendants always at hand, in the
style of the best European trains. Leaving Rio the track runs through a
pretty green valley, intersected with palm decked little ravines and
numbers of round hills, until the uplands of São Paulo are approached.
The line has never paid its way under Government control, although
deficits have been recently much reduced by stern elimination of free
passes for politicians and their friends. Expenses of operation were in
1915–16 abnormally inflated by the cost of coal which at one time
reached one hundred and twelve milreis a ton (over twenty-eight dollars)
and alterations were made in many of the locomotives to permit the use
of oil as fuel. Coal used in Brazil is practically all imported,
development of national southerly fields not being yet sufficient for a
tithe of the needs, and while Welsh hard coal soared high when the
British Government checked exports, North American was offered at prices
little inferior on account of the making-hay methods of United States
shipowners. Oil, too, is imported, but the Federal Government procured a
large stock before changing the fuel methods of the Central, and is able
to buy supplies from three different firms. Several railroads of Brazil,
in these days of stress, burn wood.
From Rio de Janeiro city is an exceedingly important “rede” of lines,
for in addition to the excellent system of the Central is the series
belonging to the Leopoldina company, an admirable constructor, operator
and developer company. The Leopoldina owns about one thousand eight
hundred and fifty miles of track, serves an area of two hundred thousand
square miles, and penetrates the three States of Rio de Janeiro, Minas
Geraes and Espirito Santo, linking the port of Victoria to Rio by a
lateral line with little branches joining up small ports by the way, and
passing through the rich sugar country of Campos and the active town of
Itapemirim (Cachoeiras) where several industries obtain power from the
falls; other lines run off from Itapemirim, Campos, Macahé and several
points penetrating fertile interior country with good transportation
service. This coastwise series, and another running to Nova Friburgo and
on in a general northerly direction, start from Nictheroy, across the
bay from Rio city: the bay is traversed by a thoroughly up to date
system of ferries, of the Cantareira Company, which originally belonged
to a Brazilian firm but was purchased and is now operated by the
Leopoldina.
The fine line to Petropolis starts from the Praia Formosa in Rio, the
ascent taking two hours, apparently never grudged by the scores of
business men whose homes are in the mountain city during the summer and
who travel daily to Rio; from Petropolis it runs on into the Minas
interior, serving a coffee and dairy country.
The Leopoldina Railway Company was formed in London in 1897, and with
the capital subscribed existing lines were acquired which have since
been improved and largely extended; the series was bankrupt when taken
over but with unification of the lines and the encouragement of
agriculture along the course there has been a respectable
dividend-earning for the last ten years. The company maintains
demonstration farms at Nova Friburgo and Bem Fica in the interior of Rio
State, where irrigation is applied to the rich little valleys that
intersect a multitude of hills; on the hilltops coffee has been grown
for half a century, and while this process has been one of gradual but
certain exhaustion the valleys have been neglected. It is interesting to
see, all along the Leopoldina’s lines, efforts made by the Brazilian
small farmer to imitate the methods of Bem Fica. Another demonstration
farm at the station of Campos, on the way to Victoria, was changed in a
few months from a piece of waste land to a lusty field of cotton as an
example; all this coastal belt is an old sugar country which should also
be a great producer of cotton and fibres and fruit. Running on to the
capital and port of the State of Espirito Santo, Victoria, the line
serves at the latter end a hilly coffee country with one of the most
wonderful winding panoramas of scenery in South America; a dormitory and
restaurant service of high-class type operates between Rio and Victoria,
and from this exquisitely framed little port, “_O Rio em miniatura_,” go
out four million bags of Brazil’s coffee crop. The city lies at the end
of a bay entrance of great beauty, green, broken by fantastic hills
reflected in pellucid water; port works of the best modern design have
been begun by the Leopoldina engineers, but when the writer visited the
port in late 1915 work had practically ceased as a result of financial
stringency. The hopes of Victoria to become one of the busiest centres
of activity are high, for in addition to her coffee export trade she may
serve as a great doorway for outgoing minerals from Minas Geraes:
enormous iron deposits for which Victoria is probably the most logical
outlet have been acquired by a British company and with the war over,
are awaiting loosened purse-strings, for development.
In addition to the coastwise link with Rio, the State of Espirito Santo
is traversed in a north-westerly direction by a line which enters the
valley of the Rio Doce and passes on into Minas Geraes; about four
hundred and fifty kilometers are in traffic of this system, which,
linking up with other lines in the south of Minas, will serve a fine
region and add to the prestige of Victoria.
Looking up the coast from Victoria there is observable a gap between
that pretty port and the cacao centre, Bahia, as regards railroad
connections parallel to the sea coast. The greatest networks of lines
have ceased in Espirito Santo, and above this region there is only one
linking series of lines, the system of the Great Western of Brazil,
serving the whole of the great north-east promontory of Brazil. The
lines of Bahia do not form a coherent system, important as they are as
regards local needs.
Below the port of Bahia (properly the city of São Salvador, but as
little popularly known by that name as Rio is recognized by her official
title of São Sebastião) there are two lines penetrating from coast towns
inwards to cacao-producing country: the most ambitious runs from Ponta
da Areia, close to the port of Caravellas, westwards across the narrow
southern neck of Bahia State, into Minas Geraes to the town of Theophilo
Ottoni, a distance of three hundred and seventy-six kilometers. The
second penetrating line runs from the port of Ilhéos to Conquista, a
distance of eighty-two kilometers. During the war and post-war booms
this was a notable freight carrier and profit maker, for the cacao
plantations tributary to the line have yielded unprecedentedly large
crops at a time when every ounce of cocoa in the world has been called
for at high prices. The isolated little Ilhéos rolled in unexpected
money in 1915–16, and prospered again in 1919.
Bahia’s great port farther northward stands on a peninsula at the north
of a large, deeply indented, island-studded bay. There is no river delta
here to assist transportation problems, and connection between the lines
originating at different parts of the bay is rendered difficult by the
depth of sea inlets and the marshy character of the intervening land. It
is for these reasons that a line runs south from Nazareth, itself south
of the bay, west from São Felix, north-westerly from Cachoeira, with the
most important line of all running from Bahia city across country until
junction with the legendary river S. Francisco is effected at Joazeiro:
this latter line branches off at Alagoinhas (“Little Lakes”) to Aracajú,
the port of the little-known State of Sergipe, and forms the only
linking railroad of the series serving Bahia. The cacao crop of the
State is all marketed in and shipped from Bahia city: it reaches that
distributing point from the producing centres of the more southerly
lands by sea, a state-owned service of small steamboats, the “Navigação
Bahiana,” helping in this transportation work, besides operating on the
S. Francisco river and running to and from certain productive islands
off the Bahia coast. In 1915 Bahia exported 41,546 tons of cacao with an
official value of 37,000 contos of reis, or about nine and a quarter
million dollars, yielding in taxes to the State 6,388 contos, in
addition to large sums contributed by the tobacco and coffee export. As
far as rail connection is concerned Bahia is practically out of touch
with active regions of Brazil, but since her one city of first-class
importance is situated on the sea margin, and she is very well served
both by _cabotagem_ and by ocean-going vessels, national and foreign, no
complaint is heard in Bahia concerning the deficiency. The line from S.
Felix, a town reached by boat across the bay from Bahia which has
achieved fame for cigar manufacture, penetrates richly producing tobacco
country: Nazareth is the headquarters of a district exporting manganese
ores.
[Illustration:
Rua Barão da Victoria, Pernambuco.
Inauguration of Avenida 7 de Setembro, Upper Town, Bahia.
]
Proceeding northward past the mouth of the São Francisco river no
railway is encountered between Aracajú and the coconut-embowered port of
Maceió (Jaraguá), capital of the State of Alagôas: construction of such
a link would involve engineering difficulties in crossing the wide river
delta and, north of it, negotiating the chain of picturesque lagoons
(“lagôas”) which give the State its name. Alagôas, wedged under the
shoulder of Pernambuco, is a fine sugar country: the lower, business
section of Maceió literally runs and drips with sugar; the warehouses
along the waterfront are piled with bags from which cane juice leaks,
and the heady smell of it permeates the streets. From this busy, hot
little city the most southerly arm of the Great Western’s series of
linked lines reaches, a branch penetrating sugar lands by way of Atalaia
and Viçosa, while a more northerly track connects with Garanhuns, runs
thence north-east, and, with a sea-ward branch to Barreiros, connects
with the fan-handle of the system at Recife (Pernambuco).
The Great Western of Brazil Railway was formed in London in 1872; the
first work done was the construction of one hundred and eighteen
kilometers from the port of Recife to the town of Timbauba with an
extension to Limoeiro; in 1901 connection was carried on to the Conde
d’Eu line in Parahyba, and in the same year the company leased seven
other disconnected lines of the north-east promontory, with the object
since attained of forming a linked system. Of the seven thus controlled
three had been built by, and still belong to, the Government, while four
were English built.[9] As operated today the Great Western line includes
more than eleven hundred miles of track, links and penetrates the four
States of Alagôas, Pernambuco, Parahyba and Rio Grande do Norte, and
serves the ports of Maceió, Recife, Parahyba, Cabedello and Natal, an
independent line extending north of this point to the town of Pedra
Preta. The system has done excellent work in developing sugar, tobacco
and cotton country, but it has suffered from the financial difficulties
of the last three years, droughts reducing the agricultural product of
northerly regions and adding to troubles consequent upon fallen
exchange: the company has asked the Federal Government for relief from
the onerous financial obligations of the original contract, and, with
this revision accomplished, will be in a better position.
North from Natal, with the land sloping sharply east towards the Amazon
delta, no more railroads are encountered until almost midway along the
shore-line of the State of Ceará the port of Fortaleza is reached. From
this point a line runs south-west into the interior to the town of
Iguatú, the track with a couple of little branches including four
hundred and twenty-three kilometers. Ceará is unenviably famous for the
terrible droughts which from time to time scourge and depopulate it, but
when rains visit this territory it is extraordinarily fertile, crops are
abundant, the fecund Cearenses return and cattle-raising is resumed. A
second strip of line runs inland, almost due south, from sea-margin
Camocim to Granja at the head of the bay and thence to Cratheus, three
hundred and thirty-five kilometers distant. Exports of carnauba wax, of
a special class of rubber (_maniçoba_ = _manihot_), and of hides, go out
from the ports of Ceará, and since the last drought of 1914–15 broke in
abundant rainfall there has been unprecedented planting of fine cotton
which is said to promise well. The next state northward is Piauhy, with
but a span of coast and no railroad as yet, although one is projected to
connect with Ceará. Maranhão has two lines: one, planned from São Luis
to Caxias, of which some separate sections are already in operation, and
the other running from Caxias to Cajazeiras, serving interior country.
An important branch, to penetrate the sertão, is projected from a point
along the first-named line to Barra do Córdoba.
The last strip of railway which serves the north Brazilian coast extends
from Pará city (Belem), which is situated inside the mouth of the Amazon
about one hundred and sixty miles from the sea, to the seacoast town
Braganza, three hundred kilometers away. The country traversed produces
Brazil nuts, tobacco, cotton and sugar, and free grants of land have
been given beside the track to settlers.
For the extreme north of Brazil the great fluvial network with the
Amazon as the great main channel serves as the only means of
communication: it will probably remain the sole highway for a long time
to come. There is a total of over forty thousand miles of navigable
waterways in the Amazon valley, with service by steamers and small
_embarcações_ which suffice for the present needs of this immense but
sparsely populated territory. The waterways of Brazil are of such extent
and size that it is not possible as yet to foresee the time when they
will be superseded either by rail or road.
There are in the Brazilian interior several strips of railroad which
serve no other purpose but that of supplementing riverine ways; the most
spectacular and important of these is the renowned Madeira-Mamoré, one
of the most costly railroads in the world and the imposer of the highest
tariffs. Planned for the purpose of passing the dangerous falls blocking
the Madeira-Mamoré river, outlet for rubber districts of Peru and
Bolivia as well as of the Brazilian State of Matto Grosso, the line was
completed in 1912 by the engineers of the Brazil Railways Company. Work
was originally started more than forty years ago by the initiative of
Colonel Church, two or three attempts ending in failure; when the last
relay of American engineers took up the task in 1908 many relics were
found of previous effort, one a locomotive imported by the Collins
expedition of 1878: it was cleaned up and put into use. The line as
completed has a length of two hundred and ninety-two kilometers; the
chief enemy to construction was the deadly climate which took a terrible
toll of lives both of engineers and labourers until sanitation measures
similar to those enforced in Panama were taken.
The line is said to be paying its way, but its success depends very
largely upon the fate of Amazonian rubber in world markets. With the
price of “hard fine” reduced by the competition of the rubber of Eastern
plantations, it is difficult to see how freight rates over the railroad
can be maintained at the present very high scale, necessary in order to
give a return on cost; and, rich as the tributary country is in drugs,
dyes and hardwoods there would have to be a great deal of development in
production before the place of rubber could be filled. It will be
extremely regrettable if this remarkable line, a band of steel in the
middle of a country of deep wild forests cannot succeed financially: it
is one of the world lines which are life as well as time savers, for
before its inauguration the annual loss in the falls of both freight and
men was twenty-six per cent.[10]
[Illustration:
Porto Velho, Madeira River, in construction period of Madeira-Mamoré
Railway.
Igarapé of S. Vicente, Manáos.
]
Another line whose _raison d’être_ is the necessity for avoiding falls
on a river is the Estrada de Ferro Paulo Affonso, on the S. Francisco
river, extending from the port of Piranhas in Alagôas State to Jatobá,
in Pernambuco territory; the line is one hundred and fifteen kilometers
long, runs on the left bank of the river, and serves as a carrier for
the raw material and output of the big cotton-spinning mill (_Fabrica da
Pedra_) recently established. The factory obtains power from the
tremendous Paulo Affonso Falls, about thirty miles distant, and several
plans have been made to convey force to Bahia city, dependent upon
imported fuels for generating motive power.
The third interior, river-serving little strip of railroad is in the
State of Maranhão, running from Therezina on the Parnahyba river,
boundary with Piauhy State, to Caxias; the fourth is a line in the
interior of Pará, and is still under construction although about fifty
kilometers are in operation. It runs from Alcobaça on the Tocantins
river past a series of troublesome runs and cascades to the Praia da
Rainha, near the junction of the Tocantins with the greater Araguaya.
Railways in Brazil have thus chiefly served the settled sea ports,
penetrating the producing agricultural areas behind them; coastwise
linking from town to town has been an afterthought, and has not been
greatly needed with the maintenance of good shipping service. The
Brazilian lines have been criticized for lack of coherence, but the
fact is that no other plan could have been followed at the time when
Brazilian building began; mileage may appear small in relation to the
republic’s 3,300,000 square miles of territory, but it is not poor in
regard to the great centres of population, all of which are grouped
upon sea or river borders and possess ample shipping facilities. At
the beginning of 1922, according to the calculations of
_Brazil-Ferro-Carril_, there were twenty-one thousand miles of
railways in operation in Brazil, with three thousand under
construction and twenty thousand miles projected; as we have seen,
today a great deal of interstate linking has been accomplished, as
well as junction with sister republics.
Lack of coherence in operation is perhaps more open to criticism than
any other point in connection with Brazilian railroads. Certain lines
are owned and operated by States; others are owned by States but leased
to private foreign or Brazilian companies; again there are groups of
lines built, owned and operated by private foreign or Brazilian
companies, and there are lines owned by the Federal Government some of
which are leased to private operating companies and some operated by the
Government itself. The building of the lines was extremely cosmopolitan,
lines having been built preponderantly by the British but also by
French, Belgian, German and, in the case of the Madeira-Mamoré,
American, companies: this entailed remarkable variety in equipment—for
instance, when taken over by the Great Western in 1901 the little São
Francisco line had a gauge of five feet three inches. As some other
strips then acquired were narrow gauge much work had to be done before a
uniform width of one meter was created.
At the beginning of the present century the Federal Government
determined upon a plan of ownership of lines which has been followed as
far as finances would permit; a large sum of money, of which £12,935,480
is outstanding, was borrowed in London at four per cent interest and
with the proceeds many railroads were bought up. In most cases the
Government decided not to operate the lines acquired, and leased them to
foreign companies. As a result of the concession system Brazilian
Federal accounts show the curious financial anomaly of the Government
paying out sums to railroads because interest had been guaranteed on the
foreign capital invested, while the same road is paying rent to the
Government.
The lines owned and operated by strong British companies are quite the
most prosperous in the country: many of them were fortunate in their
choice of locality, each of three climbers of the Serra do Mar for
example remaining the only negotiable link of the coast with interior
regions: the Brazilian Government, in common with certain of the other
countries where Federal control of transportation has been tried, has
reaped small financial reward from lines officially operated.
In an exposition of Brazilian railway conditions made before the Rio
Legislature in October, 1915, Elpidio de Salles declared that better
supervision was badly needed: “deficits constitute the normal state of
the Federal services” and it is only from privately owned companies that
profits are obtained, he declared, proceeding to show that from systems
leased to other companies by the Union an average income of five
thousand contos of reis is paid to Brazil, these contributions coming
regularly from the Great Western, the Ceará-Piauhy, the Viação Bahiana,
Sul-Mineira, Central of Rio Grande do Norte, Madeira-Mamoré, the
Auxiliaire and the Santa Catharina lines. On the other hand, Cardoso de
Almeida has shown that the Brazilian Government has spent 1,100,000
contos of reis (at normal exchange, about £75,000,000 or $375,000,000)
on construction and “rescision” of railroads, bearing the burden of
forty thousand contos due annually as interest. Railroad debts are,
however, those which a sturdy developing young land can bear better than
older countries can hope to do, and Brazil certainly is not
over-railroaded: Argentina, next door, with a quarter of Brazil’s
population and one-third of her territory, has thirty-five thousand
kilometers of line.
Brazilian “estradas de ferro” have nearly all one promising feature in
common: they are pioneer paths, with new towns camped beside their
tracks, and new industries growing up about them: with the exception of
the old mining settlements in the interior of Minas and Bahia, scarcely
any development existed in the Brazilian hinterlands until the railroads
drove a way; nearly all give access, and as they move farther across
sertão and through forest, will give greater access, to virgin lands
uncharted and unknown. In the southern states many of the concessions
given to railway companies carried colonization clauses as a
continuation of the deliberate, thoroughly worked out plan of the
authorities by which during the nineteenth century settlements were made
of Poles, Russians, Swiss, Germans and other European races, with the
object of feeding the lines and stimulating agriculture. The European
War has checked these plans: settlers from Europe will in all
probability be scarce for many years to come, engaged as the racked
countries will be in their own rehabilitation. But to other nations
where populations are crowded or conditions no longer offer wide land
spaces and large agricultural rewards, the railroads of Brazil open a
country of unsurpassed beauty and fertility.
What railway construction is waiting in Brazil for capital, good
engineering, and—an urgent necessity in dealing with huge empty spaces—
imagination? The great heart of Brazil, which is also the great heart of
South America, is only newly entered by little pioneer tracks. What bold
projects could open up the interior sertões to the planter?
Frontin’s daring scheme to build a line from Pirapora (due west from
Caravellas in Bahia) along the valley of the Tocantins to Pará has
already been mentioned: the scheme lags for want of money. Another
conception is that of a railroad which would run almost parallel with
the Pirapora-Pará line: it would extend from Cuyabá in the middle of the
diamond district of Matto Grosso almost due north along the valley of
the Tapajoz river to the town of Santarem, a pretty trading point at the
junction of the black river with the yellow Amazon. A third ambitious
project is a railroad to run from Manáos northwards, along the valleys
of the Negro and the Branco into British Guiana.
None of these schemes is less justified than the Transandine line
farther south, the transcontinental lines across the United States and
Canada or that conception of Cecil Rhodes, the Cape-to-Cairo road of
Africa. In no case were those pioneer tracks built to serve an existing
population—they brought population and consequent production along their
trail over the prairie and the veldt, and these new Brazilian lines
would bring people and agriculture into the sertão. The climate is
unhealthy only in the swamp regions, and railroad construction with
accompanying drainage accomplishment would be the best means of
sanitizing the country; it is no worse than many parts of India, East
and West Africa, and the low-lying borders of the Caribbean where
successful railroads have brought malarial jungle into such a condition
that white men dwell there with safety, and a hardy native race can
cultivate the rich soil.
Engineering difficulties are probably least in the Cuyabá-Santarem plan.
There is less _matto_ (thick woodland) country, no important system of
_serras_ to climb; much of the track would run on the high level land of
the Matto Grosso interior. The regions served could be expected to
produce meat and hides from the enormous pastures of the State; minerals
from the mountains of Goyaz; hardwoods from the northerly forests;
rubber from the same forestal lands, together with dyes and drugs; the
line would greatly encourage cattle-raising and cereal planting. The
packing industry is yet in its infancy in Brazil, for the first
_frigorificos_ were only opened in the latter part of 1914, and the
world has not yet realized the extent to which it may attain. Brazil has
more head of cattle than has the Argentine, and almost illimitable space
for scientific breeding; she has areas for cereals which could make her
a rival granary of the world. She has room and to spare for one hundred
million population.
But her two great interior states, Matto Grosso and Goyaz, the heart of
Brazil, with their two million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand
square kilometers of land, are traversed by less than five hundred
kilometers of railroad. Small wonder that their combined population is
only about half a million.
A new influx of bandeirantes is needed. They need the same big
imagination of their antecessors, the same grit and indomitable will:
they should carry gold in their pockets, surveying instruments in their
hands, and behind them they should bring an army of workmen, in lieu of
the earlier bandeirante’s sword and slaves. Some day the task will be
accomplished: it rests with the capitalist of today to say whether he or
his successors will take it up.
_III. Shipping_
The rivers of Brazil, highways of necessity, and a wonderful penetrating
system in themselves, are quite well served; the Amazon river with its
tributaries comprises a fluvial network of over forty thousand miles,
and the producing areas are served partly by steamers and also by small
launches and native embarcações which fearlessly traverse narrow water
lanes almost closed by verdure, darkened from the sun by walls of tropic
green, and negotiate the runs and cascades of the more distant reaches.
The excellent steamers of the Amazon Steam Navigation Company are now
part of the interests of the Farquhar syndicate, but formerly belonged
to a British firm which acquired the rights of the early Brazilian
operators. To force the sale of the Amazon company, a few years ago, a
number of new steamers were brought from the United States and put into
use; when rubber boomed there was freight for most of them. But today,
with the object of their introduction attained and at the same time a
shrinkage of commerce upon the Amazon, many are idle. In lines outside
the Port of Pará these vessels are lying, empty, motionless, just so
much good money thrown away for lack of foresight.
Besides the ships of the “Amazon Steam” serving the route between Pará,
and intervening ports (Santarem, Itacoatiara, Obidos, etc.) to Manáos,
ships run up another thousand miles to Iquitos, and also up the Madeira
to the hither side of the Falls, where the railroad ends. The English
Booth line and the Lloyd Brasileiro also run up from Pará to Manáos, and
there is a service on the Tapajoz and Tocantins by small steamers. The
Amazon has all the riverine service that is called for, and chiefly
feels the need of more ocean-going steamships.
The São Francisco river is served by a line belonging to the State of
Bahia, the Navigação Bahiana, which runs up and down the navigable
stretch between the headwaters and the Paulo Affonso Falls, touching one
railhead at Pirapora in Minas Geraes and another at Joazeiro in Bahia.
The Paraná river is served by the ships of a Paulista company, running
up and down from Itapura to the Tibiriça ferry, and up various
affluents, while every coastal town traverses its nearby rivers with
small steamboats privately owned. One of the most actively traversed
water regions of Brazil is the Lagôa dos Patos in southern Rio Grande,
where communication between the towns at each end of the lagoon is
carried on entirely by boat. The Brazilian has been in the forefront of
enterprises helping in the water communication between port and port in
Brazil, and, as the thriving condition of the Lloyd Brasileiro
demonstrates, is able to go abroad and compete with foreign companies.
[Illustration:
Water-front of São Salvador (Bahia).
Floating docks at Manáos, Amazonas.
]
The Lloyd had a marked advantage after the War started in being able to
offer neutral transportation for passengers and freight, and while as a
matter in which all Brazil was interested the charges for coffee
carrying were long kept at a low level, there has been during the last
year a natural tendency to raise general rates under tempting
conditions. When the British Government’s Statutory List went into force
in Brazil, about March, 1916, the British boats serving the Amazon were
unable to carry rubber shipped by firms of Teutonic ownership; the Lloyd
thenceforth remained the sole carrier of German-shipped rubber, and it
appears reasonable to suppose that this fact had something to do with
the Lloyd’s price of transportation to New York rising to fifty-four
cents per cubic foot while Booth’s were charging their British and their
neutral customers but thirty-four cents. All South American services
made big money while these rates held, and for the Lloyd palmy days were
especially opportune after a long season of poor returns. In common with
the Central Railroad, it has been in the past an instance of a
non-paying governmental company, but with drastic reforms and present
good management it is in an enviable position.
Sea communication between Brazil and the rest of the world is carried on
mainly by European steamship companies: good work is also done by the
fleet of the Lloyd Brasileiro, which in addition to serving most ports
of the country maintains a busy tri-monthly passenger and freight
service to New York. Japanese vessels call at south Brazilian ports, as
also do ships of the Australasian trade; the most conspicuous laggard in
the shipping world was formerly the United States. In sailing-ship days
American shipping was busy in these waters, but the lines were gradually
displaced by more enterprising service from Europe; before the war the
harbours of Brazil sheltered fine ships of the Royal Mail, Lamport and
Holt, Booth, Harrison, Hamburg-American, Compagnie Générale
Transatlantique, Transportes Maritimes, the Sud-Atlantique, of Italian
and Austrian lines, Scandinavian, Belgian, Dutch—every flag was common
but that of the United States, and when this entered it was at the stern
of an oil tanker or a sailing vessel bringing lumber. The lines
connecting with Europe were many; sailings to New York were few; service
from New York direct to Brazil was still rarer, for the European lines
created a dexterous commercial triangle by which merchandise of European
origin came across the Atlantic to Brazil in ships which discharged
their hardware and textiles, took on a load of coffee and hides for New
York, there discharged the Brazilian goods and re-loaded with North
American grain or cotton and with this steamed across the Atlantic home
again.
The war stimulated direct service between the United States and Brazil,
several lines now competing for business formerly held by Europeans;
fast steamers offer quick passenger and freight service, following the
hasty war revival of the wood-built sailing-ship: during 1915 there was
a remarkable increase of activity in these vessels, and the writer has
seen ten or more at the same time lying in some bright Brazilian port,
their long graceful lines of the schooner taking one back to the days of
Midshipman Easy or Tom Cringle of the famous Log. Many shipowners of
these sailing craft must have made fortunes, for whereas in normal times
they would have gladly carried freight for three dollars a ton, they
were able to get four to four dollars and a half and so on in an ever
ascending scale until over fourteen dollars was taken, and with a
somewhat haughty sniff at that in late 1916.
In 1916 the only steamers under the United States flag operating in
Brazilian waters were oil tankers, the coal-carriers of the Berwind
company, and the vessels of the United States & Brazil S. S. line,
carrying the products of the United States Steel corporation and taking
back manganese ores and general cargo. Later, with the creation of a big
American mercantile marine by the U. S. Shipping Board, and the
allocation of a large number of ex-German steamers to the service of the
United States, strongly sustained direct lines between North American
and Brazilian ports were created which carry immense quantities of
coffee in exchange for manufactured goods. Chilean, Cuban, Peruvian,
Argentine and Uruguayan vessels now visit Brazil from sister Republics,
and her own mercantile marine has undergone a remarkable development.
Not only did the Cia. Nacional de Navegação Costeira and the Cia.
Commercio e Navegação add in a most enterprising manner to their fleets,
but the Lage firm created important repairing and ship-building yards
upon an island in Rio Bay, which performed great service to the Allies
during the war; and the Government-supported Lloyd Brasileiro began to
send its steamers far afield to North American and European waters.
The list of the Lloyd’s vessels presently received notable additions. At
the outbreak of war a large number of German and Austrian steamers took
refuge in Brazilian ports, and there lay for two and a half years, idle
and rusting. After Brazil’s entry into the conflict many of these ships
were brought into use, seventeen being added to the national fleets,
while twenty-eight were chartered to France. By the middle of 1922
France had returned these vessels in first-class condition, and the bulk
of them were permanently added to the Brazilian mercantile marine, the
Lloyd counting forty ex-German steamers out of her total fleet of one
hundred and two. Brazil’s claim for the price of the coffee seized by
Germany at the beginning of the war, for the four Brazilian vessels
torpedoed, and the maintenance of about seven thousand German sailors,
is offset by the value of these merchants ships.
Smaller Brazilian lines are the Amazon River Steam Navigation Co.; the
Cia. de Navegação de Maranhão; the Cia. de Navegação Bahiana; the
Empreza Brasileira de Navegação; the Lloyd Nacional; and the Lloyd
Transatlantico Brasileiro. The service to Brazil performed by the
home-registered lines is proved by statistics: for out of 24,736 vessels
calling at Brazilian ports during 1920, 19,542 were under the flag of
Brazil. It is true that the size of the ships was comparatively small,
the tonnage of nearly 25,000,000 being divided between 15,000,000
“Foreign” and 10,000,000 Brazilian, but the low average is due to the
small boats employed in various riverine services. The Brazilian
merchant service is the largest in South America and performs invaluable
interstate transport work.
CHAPTER V
INDUSTRIES
THE COFFEE INDUSTRY OF BRAZIL
The huge coffee industry in Brazil will not receive a great deal of
space in this book for two reasons: the first is that the subject needs
a special monograph to deal with it thoroughly, and there is an entire
literature on the subject, especially excellent in French, Portuguese
and Italian; the second reason is that coffee culture and marketing is
so highly organized that there is little room for outside enterprise.
Existing plantations are probably quite capable of taking care of what
new planting may be required—and this likely to be in the immediate
future: the drastic checks given to planting by the authorities after
the terrible fright of the great over-production of 1906, that led to
the much-discussed Valorization, have done their work so thoroughly that
at the present, with the elimination of many thousands of trees owing to
exhaustion, there is room for extended planting on São Paulo and Minas
fazendas. Brazilians, to whom life on a fazenda is always pleasant, are
large owners of coffee-producing lands, and are quite aware of economic
conditions, as well as being experienced growers and exporters of
coffee. I do not, therefore, advise any tyro to enter upon the business
of a coffee fazenda; such plantations offer good opportunities for
investment, but apart from that angle do not call for outside activity.
There are many foreigners in the coffee-producing business in Brazil, of
course. Italians, besides supplying a very large percentage of the
labour on the S. Paulo estates, are considerable owners of plantations;
the Dumont Estates, English owned and operated, are world famous; and
the greatest single owner of coffee trees in the world, possessor of
thirteen million shrubs, is Francisco Schmidt, who began life in Brazil
as a poor German immigrant.
The first coffee plants brought to Brazil were of the _liberica_ variety
and were planted in Pará at sea-level, a situation to which this kind is
not averse. This was in 1727 and when in 1761 the Mother Country
remitted taxes on coffee from her American possessions, cultivation was
encouraged and spread south to Maranhão, Ceará, Espirito Santo, Minas
and Rio, eventually reaching the red diabasic soils of São Paulo. The
variety grown here is chiefly _café arabica_, preferring an upland
habitat, but in the course of years Brazil has developed hardy hybrid
varieties of her own.
A couple of sacks of coffee are said to have been sent out from the
south early in the nineteenth century, but real business did not develop
until after Dom João arrived and promulgated laws freeing Brazilian
trade from its swaddling clothes. Between 1835 and 1840 export began in
large quantities, the latter year recording 1,383,000 sacks sent abroad
for sale; slave labour was used, and the interior was searched for the
deepest blood-red lands, found in their richest belts in São Paulo
State.
By the year 1870 Brazil was exporting three million sacks annually (of
sixty kilos, or about one hundred and thirty pounds, each); before the
end of the century the output was ten million sacks, but meanwhile
Brazil passed through a severe labour crisis. Abolition of slavery in
1888 left the plantations without an adequate supply of workers: it was
necessary to supplement the free negro element remaining at work with
more “braços”—the eternal need of Brazil. Experiments had already been
made in colonization by Dom Pedro, and these proved the excellence of
the Italian labourer; prompt measures were taken by the State as well as
by private _fazendeiros_ to bring agricultural workers from North Italy,
the breach was filled, and so successfully that today out of a
population of three million people in S. Paulo State, one million are
Italians. Disputes occurred in early years owing to the disparity of
race, and partly the lack of experience of the planter in dealing with
white labour, but the State Government took up the cudgels on the part
of the immigrant, saw to it that he was paid justly and that his
condition was economically sound—to the great advantage of coffee
cultivation in Brazil. This was the work of the _Patronato Agricola_, a
Brazilian invention which owes much to Dr. Sampaio Vidal; its successful
operation was instrumental in contenting the immigrant who came to work
on coffee plantations, and while it was at first regarded with suspicion
by some _fazendeiros_, eventually received their cordial co-operation as
a source of mutual benefit.
Not only São Paulo but the coffee-growing regions of interior Rio,
Minas, and Espirito Santo, sought immigrants officially: in spite of
efforts there was no section of Brazil so successful as the southern
State. _Colonos_ who were brought to Minas melted away to São Paulo,
perhaps chiefly on account of the “sympathy of numbers.” São Paulo
eventually remained the only State with an organized, active immigration
system.
At the end of the nineteenth century big prices were paid for coffee: on
a few occasions a sack fetched one hundred and thirty-five francs, and
large quantities were sold at ninety-five and ninety-seven francs. Cost
of production was about fifty francs, and sixty-six was considered a
fair return on investment; the industry was greatly stimulated by these
profits and planting began feverishly all along the lines of deposit of
the richest red soils. These new plantations came into bearing four or
five years later, and in the crop season of 1906–07 a staggering yield
was ready for an overwhelmed market. The bounty of nature brought Brazil
face to face with ruin.
São Paulo State harvested 15,392,000 bags; Rio de Janeiro State offered
4,245,000 bags; Espirito Santo and Bahia together had another half
million. Altogether Brazil had over 20,000,000 bags of coffee for sale,
to a world whose annual consumption was then not much more than
17,000,000 bags; and in addition to the new Brazilian crop there was a
harvest from Mexico and Central America of 1,500,000 bags, from Colombia
of 1,000,000, with another half million from the East and 400,000 from
the West Indies—and the not to be ignored contribution of real Mocha
coffee of 115,000 bags.
Nor was that all. There had been a big Brazilian crop in 1901–02,
reaching the then unprecedented figure of 15,000,000 sacks, and with a
world consumption at that time of only 13,000,000 there was a large
surplus of this coffee left in hand, as well as stocks of other
varieties. Prices went down, and the planter was only saved by the
imminence of a fall in exchange which meant that although his coffee
sold for less gold than normally, yet this gold brought so much more
Brazilian paper when exchanged that he was able to pay operating
expenses and still count a profit in national currency.
From a gloomy level of thirty francs a bag, coffee rose in 1904–05 to
about forty and fifty francs; but the threatening feature of the
situation was retention in world warehouses of a stock averaging
11,000,000 bags. When Brazil was confronted with 20,000,000 bags of the
new 1906 crop she thus had to consider a market which already held
seven-tenths of the coffee needed annually by the world, apart from
other sources of new supply.
To throw her coffee upon Europe and the United States meant the ruin of
the premier industry of Brazil. After a series of hotly debated
discussions, which had begun with the menace of the big crop of 1902,
the State of São Paulo, with the support of the Federal Government and
in agreement with the States of Rio and Minas, decided upon the famous,
greatly abused and passionately defended Valorization Plan. The methods
adopted may be open to criticism, but some remedy had to be sought, and
the plan had the merit of boldness as well as the sanction given by
success; the fact that this success was partly adventitious would
probably prevent recourse to like measures at future times. The “Taubaté
Agreement” forming the base of the plan obliged the contracting states
to sell their coffee at not less than a given price,[11] to prevent
exportation of grades below Type Seven; to commence propaganda work
abroad to increase coffee sales; to collect a surtax of three francs per
bag on all exports; and to limit new planting of coffee. It was farther
suggested that the surtax proceeds should be held by the Federal
Government and used for the amortization of the loan to be made,
creating a Caixa de Emissão e Conversão to deal with financial aspects
of the Plan and to regulate exchange—an excellent measure which was
eventually carried out.
Difficulties checked the original agreement and in the end São Paulo
faced the situation alone—meanwhile the harvest was coming in, and the
price of coffee dropped below thirty francs a bag—obtaining a
preliminary loan of £1,000,000 on August 1, 1906, from the
Brasilianische Bank für Deutschland, for a one-year term; in December
£2,000,000 was obtained through J. Henry Schroeder & Company of London,
and subsequently the National City Bank of New York negotiated another
million sterling. The money was used to buy and store the coffee of the
Brazilian plantations, and was rendered sufficient only by the
co-operation of fazendeiros and exporting houses.
In June, 1907, São Paulo held 8,000,000 bags of coffee, buying only high
types and through the sole agency of Theodore Wille and Company, a
strong coffee exporting firm of Brazil. When Minas and Rio protested
against the exclusion of their eight and nine type coffees from the
stores, the Federal Government at last actively assisted, lending the
State of São Paulo ten million francs for the purchase of the lower
types. In July, 1907, S. Paulo stopped buying. She had acquired over
8,000,000 bags, one-third of the total purchase price of 400,000,000
francs coming from foreign loans and the remainder from advances by
commission houses in Brazil on coffee consigned to their keeping.
Subsequent sums for the redemption of this coffee were obtained: two
million pounds sterling came from Rothschild’s through the Federal
Government, and a similar sum was obtained by the lease of the (State)
Sorocabana railway to the Farquhar syndicate.
With the exception of a few hundred thousand sacks all this coffee was
sent to different world markets for storage until opportune sales could
be made; for a whole year not one ounce of it was sold, and then, when
the next Paulista harvest turned out to fill only five million bags, the
preciously guarded coffee was dealt out warily to a firm market at an
average price of sixty francs a bag. Without this action Brazilians say
that the price must have fallen to twenty francs.
At the end of 1908 financial adjustments were made; older debts were
covered by a new loan of £15,000,000 arranged with an international
syndicate headed by Schroeder of London and the Société Générale of
Paris. These houses took £5,000,000 each, and the remainder was
distributed between Germany, Belgium and New York. The loan was
guaranteed by the coffee surtax, raised to five francs a bag, and by the
seven million bags remaining in international warehouses. Havre, with
nearly two million bags, was the greatest holder of the valorized
coffee, and it continued to be sold during the next five years only when
the price offered profits.
When the European War broke out stocks of this coffee amounting to three
million sacks still lay in the countries suddenly rendered belligerent—
it should be mentioned here that coffee improves by careful keeping. The
combined stocks in Hamburg, Bremen and Trieste totalling 1,200,000 bags
were at once taken over by the Teutonic governments, and the price
(about £4,500,000) paid to a Berlin bank; it got no farther because
proceeds of the coffee sales being mortgaged to London bankers, transfer
would “benefit the enemy.” Germany was in this case only following the
same financial rules as other belligerents, but Brazil was placed in the
invidious position of innocent bystander, and in 1922 was still trying a
way out of the difficulty. Adding the value of the Antwerp stock also
under German control (718,000 sacks) São Paulo was owed nearly seven
million pounds sterling, and this sum together with the price of the
Havre stock, 1,216,000 bags, was about equal to the foreign debt of S.
Paulo.
Although payment for the seized coffee stocks was necessarily delayed,
São Paulo was by this suddenly opened market for her coffee relieved of
the anxious time that might otherwise have been hers after the 1914–15
crop was harvested. A large crop was once more the result of perfect
climatic conditions following small _colheitas_ (harvests) of one or two
previous years.
Early in 1915 the Federal Government prepared to lend São Paulo one
hundred and fifty thousand contos of reis with which advances were to be
made to planters, enabling the retention of surplus coffee—a variant of
the valorization plan which was more generally approved. But by good
fortune sales of Brazilian coffee far exceeded expectation; the
Scandinavian countries enormously increased their purchases and although
a general idea prevailed that it was largely passed on to Germany, no
objection was for a long time raised by the Allies.
_Country_ _1913_ _1915_ _1920_
United States 4,914,730 7,061,319 6,248,000 bags of 60 kilos.
Germany 1,865,632 545,000 „ „ „ „
France 1,846,944 2,449,223 1,540,000 „ „ „ „
Netherlands 1,483,097 1,486,994 376,000 „ „ „ „
Austria 1,016,824 80,000 „ „ „ „
Belgium 444,988 320,000 „ „ „ „
Argentina 249,045 269,987 285,000 „ „ „ „
Great Britain 246,161 413,786 73,000 „ „ „ „
Italy 237,126 710,800 1,002,000 „ „ „ „
Sweden 212,034 2,333,386 386,000 „ „ „ „
Spain 108,928 106,329 145,000 „ „ „ „
Total exports 13,267,449 17,061,319 11,525,000 „ „ „ „
Prices, 1921—down to 7 m. bag; 1922 15816 m. In 1921 shipments were
checked by the slump, and the Brazilian Government bought and held
4,500,000 bags. Prices, fallen to 7 milreis in 1921, recovered to over
15 milreis per 10 kilos in early 1922.
Agricultural maps of Brazil, freely and courteously handed to any
visitor at the Escriptorio do Informações do Brasil in the rue St.
Honoré in Paris, show a huge patch of green in the middle of S. Paulo
State and extending to a point very near the frontier of Minas Geraes.
This patch represents some seven hundred and twenty-two million coffee
trees, covering a total space of over two million acres.
At least one hundred million pounds sterling is invested in coffee
plantations, and, with an output of an average twelve million bags,
income from crops is not less than twenty-five million pounds sterling a
year.
Advancing into the interior when the advent of railroads made
cultivation of the sertão a commercial possibility, the culture of
coffee in Brazil and especially in São Paulo is carried on upon a large
scale: the plantations are great businesses, scientifically operated.
The number of trees on a good estate is likely to run up into millions,
although no other single grower rivals Colonel Schmidt’s production of
eleven or twelve thousand tons of coffee. Visiting a fine _fazenda_ one
is aware of seeing the inside of a commercial undertaking of striking
magnitude, where activity is regularized, the whole life of the
_fazendeiro_ and the _colonos_ subordinated to the supreme interest—at
least during the rush season of the _colheita_. Looking from the windows
of the _fazendeiro’s_ residence, which is generally upon a little
eminence, one sees an ocean of dark green shrubs, planted in perfectly
even lines, stretching away in unbroken symmetry as far as the eye can
see. The São Paulo land chosen for coffee very often lies in long gentle
slopes, its deep purple-carmine tint in sharp contrast to the glossy
emerald coffee leaves, and down and up over the undulations run the
rows, often extending for eight or ten kilometers. The storehouses,
pulping machinery, and great cement drying grounds where the coffee is
laid in the sun, are frequently in the hollow where the indispensable
river runs; rows of neat little houses of labourers, the Italian
_colonos_ who plant, cultivate and gather the coffee, stand within
sight. In the background is the area of wild woodland, for “no fazenda
can prosper unless it has a certain amount of _matto_,” say the
Brazilians. In the flowering season a coffee estate is a lovely sight,
the sturdy shrubs strewn so thickly with waxy white blossoms that it
seems as if snow had fallen on them; the air is clean, cool and sunny,
and bees hum over the sweet-scented flowers. The trees are larger than
those seen in Central America, are unshaded, and generally three or four
roots stand together to make the bush. The ground beneath the shrub is
kept carefully weeded.
[Illustration:
_The S. Paulo Coffee Industry._
Labourers’ houses; the coffee harvest; drying grounds; view of coffee
plantation.
]
When the round berries turn red harvesting begins. Men, women and
children turn out, trained to strip the berries from the slender little
branches without injuring the tree; the whole _fazenda_ is in a bustle,
the water-channels are racing with scarlet berries carried along in the
stream, and the machinery house is noisy. When the berries are pulped
and the twin beans freed and cleaned, the business of packing begins;
day by day wagon loads of sacks leave the _fazenda_ for São Paulo city,
consigned to Santos, and thence to some country overseas. Brazilians
appear to love _fazenda_ life; the wife of a coffee _fazendeiro_ will
often take as keen and business-like an interest in the work as her
husband does, discusses theories of planting with spirit, and will show
you all the details of the new imported machinery. There is a true
hospitality and geniality permeating the _fazenda_ in Brazil; very large
sums are often made, and while quantities of coffee money have been
royally wasted on extravagances, there is a class of strong business men
in plantation work who put profits into improvements, follow new ideas,
and build up their estates from year to year in an admirable manner.
It is in São Paulo, and especially about Riberão Preto, Campinas, São
Simão, S. Carlos, Dous Corregos, Botacatú,—all along the lines of the
fans of railroad—that the great coffee estates are found. The original
_Coffea Arabica_ has some naturalized children in Brazil of great merit
and hardihood; the _Nacional_ or _Commun_, the delicate _Bourbon_,
yellow _Botacatú_, the big aromatic _Maragogype_, all have their
defenders. From these plantations come the hundreds of thousands of tons
of coffee that have made Brazil the premier coffee country of the world,
and brought her to this eminence in a remarkably short space of time.
The development of coffee culture in Brazil, and the simultaneous
development of public taste for its essence, is one of the great
industrial stories of the nineteenth century.
The interior of Rio State, with its endless series of little round hills
crowned with coffee shrubs, is an assiduous producer; farther inland
Minas Geraes substituted cotton with coffee when the United States began
to sweep world markets with her product, but is now going back to cotton
here and there as the demand of her own factories brings unheard-of
prices for native fibres; she is however a regular supplier of coffee,
in common with her neighbour Espirito Santo, and the more northerly
state of Bahia. North of Bahia commercial production ceases, but, as in
the case of cotton, shrubs may be seen all along the Brazilian littoral,
up to Maranhão and Pará—of an African variety which does not need hilly
country.
The world is steadily drinking more coffee. Consumption was only able to
take ten million bags in 1885: the estimate for 1922 is 22 million bags.
It is this reflection which preserves the _fazendeiro_ from having
nightmare whenever he sees a fine _colheita_ promising. Increased sales
of coffee seem to be partly the result of greater world demand for
non-alcoholic drinks, but have been undoubtedly developed wherever a
systematic propaganda has been carried out. São Paulo State went
deliberately and level-headedly into the advertising and demonstration
business; the campaign was first started in Great Britain, by the São
Paulo Pure Coffee Company, which roasts, packs and sells good grades of
beans. Numbers of cafeterias were established in which strong, hot,
sweet Brazilian coffee was perfectly served. Later on the plan was
carried to other European countries—notably France, Germany and Austria,
all good customers of Brazil—to North America and even to Japan.
Recently the São Paulo Pure Coffee Company was acquired by the Brazilian
Warrant Company, an enterprising house established in Brazil, with
branches in São Paulo city, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro, and headquarters
in London: a specialty is made by this company of advances against
coffee, as well as sugar, cereals and general merchandise, while they
are also commission and consignment agents. Exporters of Brazilian
coffee are legion, but it is instructive to note how large a proportion
of the names listed are Brazilian; coffee is not one of the businesses
which the South American leaves to the foreigner.
Coffee accounts for forty per cent of all the Brazilian export. As far
as S. Paulo is concerned, coffee represents over ninety-seven per cent
of her exports. In 1915 the state’s total exports were worth a little
over 465,000 contos, and of this coffee was worth 453,000 contos. In S.
Paulo city itself if one is not in business circles the predominance of
coffee might escape the visitor but not so in Santos; here, in the
coffee port, the apparatus of shipping has largely been constructed with
coffee-loading as the aim: special mechanisms serve the ceaseless stream
of laden coffee bags that arrive at the lines upon lines of _armazens_
(warehouses) on the dock front. In the stony streets the scent of coffee
prevails; at every doorway burly negroes are hauling out sacks of the
aromatic bean; the cluster of banks down the main business street, some
Brazilian and many branches of foreign houses, all live upon coffee. The
dealers, commission men, shippers, roasters of coffee represent the
commercial existence of the port.
The coffee industry is one which is a satisfaction to contemplate
because it is a clean, wholesome business, from first to last; the
conditions under which it is carried on are not only ably organized and
in a prospering state, but the workers as well as the estate owners and
shippers have a chance to make money and lead pleasant lives.
THE RUBBER INDUSTRY ON THE AMAZON
Rubber, the elastic gum bled from certain trees and shrubs, has been so
long associated in thought with the sweltering, shadowy forests of the
great Amazon river, that it is not a matter for wonder that for many
years after Wickham made his famous experiments with rubber seeds, first
in Kew and then in the East, both Brazilians and the general public paid
little heed to the possibility of plantation rubber as a commercial
rival of the Amazonian product. It was not until 1910 that manufacturers
began to take plantation rubber seriously and to use it freely, and not
until 1912–13 that production from these sedulously cared-for trees drew
level with and surpassed the output from Brazil. Today, with plantation
rubber offering something like one hundred and fifty thousand tons of
crude rubber, and Brazil maintaining her average output of about
thirty-seven thousand tons, the race would be a very uneven one if it
were not for one factor, the wonderful resiliency of “hard fine Pará”
which renders it unequalled in quality.
The two industries, that of Brazil and of Malaysia, are strikingly at
variance in almost everything except the fact that they deal with
extraction of the latex of _hevea brasiliensis_. In Brazil we have
enormous areas of dim, sultry, water-bordered forest, where wild rubber
trees are sought for amongst eighty or so other varieties of trees:
where the labourer is, or at least imagines himself to be, a free agent,
bound only by his debt to the central store, working when he thinks fit,
living in a solitary hut without society, and making a little balance of
profit at the end of the season if he is lucky; he buys all his
necessities of food and tools in the dearest market in the world, and
sells at the price forced upon the Amazon by the rival industry half the
world distant. In the East is an organized industry operated by wealthy
companies, where land was cleared, rubber planted methodically, hired
labourers working under control, paid by the day, where the latex is
coagulated in factories, milled into fine sheets, and goes to market in
a form that does not bear outwardly any relation to the big black balls,
smoke-cured in the seringueiro’s hut, sent out from the Amazon.
Nevertheless it is the unorganized, unscientific industry which yields
the product with the highest price on international markets, and, huge
as is the deluge of plantation rubber today, there is no good reason why
the Eastern and Amazonian industries should not continue side by side.
Arabian coffee has not been commercially ruined on account of Brazilian
production of _coffea arabica_.
There are in the world very many plants and trees yielding rubber of
differing qualities. Three kinds of elastic gum are exported from Brazil
in addition to the latex of the _heveas_: they are known as mangabeira
rubber, from _mangabeira hancornia speciosa_; maniçoba, from the
_manihot_ plants of several kinds (euphorbias, and first cousins of
mandioca); and caucho, drawn from the _castilloa elastica_ tree. All
these have their places in world markets, but, as also in the case of
balata from the Guianas, and the gum of the guayule shrub in Mexico, it
is not upon these rubbers that the great manufacturing industries of the
world are based. That distinction belongs to the _heveas_, native
dwellers of the deep, hot Amazonian valleys.
The elastic, resilient, waterproof properties of rubber were first
discovered by the native children of the Americas, both in South and
Central America and Mexico. When Hernan Cortés took his handful of
conquering Spaniards into Mexico he found the Aztecs playing a game with
bouncing balls made from _castilloa_, but during three centuries the
Europeans visiting the New World did not dream of turning the gum to any
utilitarian purpose. The first traveller who took recorded note of
native use of rubber for water-proofing was the French scientist, de la
Condamine, who came to Peru and travelled down the Amazon in 1743. He
took specimens of what he spelled as “caoutchouc” back to Paris. In 1779
Priestly noticed that the gum would erase pencil marks on paper; small
pieces were sold for this purpose, and as the chief supplies came from
the East Indies (from the _ficus elastica_) the name India-rubber clung
to the product. In 1823 Charles Macintosh found that rubber was soluble
in benzine, and so led the way to its commercial adaptation—thinned out,
spread into sheets, rendered amenable; the idea applied to waterproof
coats immortalized his name.
In 1832 the Chaffee & Hoskins firm, founded in the United States, began
manufacturing water-resisting objects, and thus laid the foundation of
the present great rubber business in North America; their company, the
Roxbury India Rubber Co., had in its employ a young man named Goodwin,
and when this experimenter discovered that the gum would resist great
extremes of heat and cold when sulphur was mixed with the solution, the
process of “vulcanization” was the result, and rubber was made
applicable to a score of new uses. Its great commercial employment dates
from this time.
The Amazon valley began to send coagulated gum abroad: before this
occurred, objects, chiefly high boots, were sent all the way to Pará to
be water-proofed with a series of layers of the fresh latex. The
industry was still in existence in the 1850’s, but died a natural death
when rubber manufacturing got into its stride. It did not make this
movement until large quantities of crude rubber began to reach world
markets, and such amounts were not shipped until the Amazon received a
great addition to its labour supplies. In 1877–79 one of the terrible
droughts that scourge the State of Ceará drove the populace out of the
foodless region; hardy, daring, the Cearenses swarmed up the Amazon,
into the reaches of the upper tributaries, into the Acre, searched the
forests for _seringueiras_, and gathered a great harvest of latex. A
little later the bicycle was invented and popularized, rubber tyres were
called for in addition to the established demand from the boot and shoe
trade, and rubber export became one of the big businesses of the
industrial world.
The Amazon had shipped 31 tons in 1827; 156 tons in 1830; 388 tons in
1840. In another ten years she was shipping 1,467 tons; in 1860, 2,673
tons; 1870, 6,591 tons; 1880, 8,680 tons. Three years later she was
sending over 11,000 tons, year by year adding about 1,000 tons until by
1890 the supply and demand came to 19,000 tons. It may be said here that
up to the present demand has invariably taken the year’s supply; with
great volumes coming from the Eastern plantations a surplus may occur,
but with the present greatly stimulated demand such a condition is not
yet in sight.
Steady rises in Amazonian production went on at the end of the century,
and 1903 registered the receipt of over thirty thousand tons; when in
1906–07 the crop attained thirty-eight thousand tons output it had about
reached its maximum with the quantity of labour available upon the
Amazon. Production has fluctuated about this figure for the last ten
years. It could be increased, if the estimate of 300,000,000 untapped
trees in the deep interior forests is anywhere near the mark, to almost
any amount; but the present production is the work of some one hundred
and twenty thousand _seringueiros_, chiefly Brazilians, with some
Bolivians and Peruvians, and there is no immediate prospect of labour
supplies being largely augmented.
The sensational leaps in prices that have occurred in world markets
since rubber became commercialized have brought great quantities of
money to the Amazon; many fortunes rocketed to the skies, and there was
a period when a golden flood flowed up the river as well as down, when
Manáos, the rubber city of the riverine interior, displayed more luxury
for its size than Paris, and the best diamond market in the world was in
this remote spot. Anything sufficiently extravagant could be sold; a
stream of jewels, silks, fine wines and foods, furniture, carriages,
adventuring people and solid cash went up the Amazon, passing for a
thousand miles nothing but the green matted walls edging the huge yellow
river and an occasional palm leaf shack perched half in the water, and
one or two trading points, to find their objective in the brilliant
little mushroom town on the Rio Negro. There was one year when the yield
of taxes from rubber to the public revenue of Amazonas was twenty-three
thousand contos of reis, and this at an exchange of over £66 to the
conto, means £1,520,000 or nearly $8,000,000. Practically the whole of
this money was collected and spent in Manáos, then (1899–1900) a city of
fifty or sixty thousand population—much of it “floating,” as its present
reduction to about forty thousand demonstrates. It was in the golden
period of Amazonian rubber exports that both Manáos and Pará clothed
themselves in all modern civic graces; fine public buildings, well-paved
streets, street-cars, good sanitation, water-supplies of unimpeachable
source, electric light, and numbers of splendid private dwellings remain
as a return for some of the floods of money earned by the gum of the
deep forests. There was at the same time tremendous waste and an
enthusiastic “graft” era, which has left a heavy burden of debt upon the
Amazon. Numbers of unfinished buildings, some begun at great cost, still
stand in Manáos, eloquent witnesses to the headlong gambling spirit that
informed this city a few years ago. The Amazon refused to believe that
any but temporary shadows could fall upon the rubber industry: there had
been several periods of depression from various causes before plantation
rubber loomed into view, but always “something happened to help the
Amazon,” whether quickened demand or a fall in exchange which reduced
local costs; now the European War is operating to stimulate American
demands for Brazilian rubber, and to that extent faith in good luck is
again justified, but the rubber-producing centres will need good works
as well as faith if the present rewards, comparatively modest as they
are, are to be maintained.
In 1874, and for some years afterwards, Amazonian rubber prices ranged
between fifty-two and seventy-five cents (U. S. currency) a pound;
between 1879 and 1880 there was a quick climb, due to the bull
operations of a Brazilian syndicate which bought and held rubber. It was
temporarily successful, prices during the last year of the ring’s
existence touching one dollar and twenty cents and never falling below
ninety-five cents, but in 1884 the bottom fell out, and rubber took a
hasty dive to forty-eight cents—recovering, however, in the course of
the next year, in response to demand for rubber tyres, to ninety-eight
cents. For the next ten years rubber fluctuated about sixty, seventy and
eighty cents, with new industrial uses developing in Europe and North
America and demand always keeping pace with supply; by this time the
total yield offered to the markets was about fifty thousand tons yearly,
the Amazon supplying half and the rest coming from West Africa, Mexico
and Central America. In 1896 the price rose, ranging between ninety
cents and one dollar and twelve cents, and the Amazon boomed again as it
had done twelve years before; Manáos, the terminus of ocean
transportation and the central collecting point for the rubber of the
upper rivers, bedecked herself in these rosy days. Five years later the
failure of the American Crude Rubber Company, a distributing firm
domiciled in New York, threw large stocks of the goma upon unready
markets, and the price slumped. Rubber merchants upon the Amazon would
have suffered more than they actually did had not the factor of exchange
come to their aid; between 1899 and 1906 the value of the milreis
oscillated all the way from sixpence to fifteenpence, and while to some
Brazilian operations a low rate of exchange meant embarrassment if not
ruin, it spelt salvation to the dealer in raw products. In 1906 exchange
was fixed by the establishment of the Conversion Office in Rio, but by
this time rubber was fetching such good prices that the Amazon was again
basking in prosperity. The prices paid for Amazonian rubber during the
period from 1903 to 1915 show the rise of the third great crest of
rubber waves to the dazzling height of 1910, when the merchants who
would have sold at seventy-five cents and made a profit found themselves
with a dollar and a half, two dollars, two and a half and then three,
without knowing why; money came like dew from heaven. In many instances
it also melted as readily:
1903 78 to 1.13 cents
1904 94 to 1.30
1905 1.18 to 1.35
1906 1.22 to 1.37
1907 82 to 1.21
1908 67 to 1.24
1909 1.20 to 2.15
1910 1.50 to 3.00
1911 93 to 1.75
1912 93 to 1.30
1913 59 to 1.10
1914 49 to 1.15
1915 75 to 1.00
While the feverish drama of the Amazon was going through scenes typical
of a gold-mining rush, the curtain was slowly rising upon another rubber
scenario away over on the islands and peninsulas of Malaysia. Its
movement passed almost unnoticed and unheeded by the very people who had
most cause to watch it with alarm.
In 1871 an Englishman named Henry Alexander Wickham sailed from Trinidad
up the Orinoco river, there studied latex-yielding trees and eventually
made his way to the Amazon through the interior forests by way of the
river Negro. His book of notes was published in London in 1872—_Rough
Notes of a Journey Through the Wilderness_, with his own excellent
drawings to illustrate his story of actual labour in the “ciringa”
districts. In 1876 he was back again on the Amazon, with the _idée fixe_
of rubber so firmly in his head that, going up the Tapajoz from
Santarem, he filled his cases with seventy thousand seeds of _hevea
brasiliensis_ and carried them over to Kew Gardens in London. Here in
carefully graduated hot houses the oval, mottled seeds were germinated,
and in June of the same historic year Wickham was carrying his baby
seedlings to Ceylon, believing that this island offered the climate most
similar to that of the Amazon to be found under the British flag.
Two thousand nurslings were thus transplanted to the Spice Isle, lesser
quantities going to Java, British Burma, Singapore and other points
which appeared to offer the needed conditions for healthy growth. It was
in Ceylon that the first young rubbers flowered in the year 1881; there
is no earlier record of the blossoming of _heveas_ outside their habitat
in the Amazonian valleys. The resulting seeds were used to create new
plantations, but the whole thing was still in a purely experimental
stage; time proved that many saplings were planted under incorrect
conditions, but the planters had nothing but theory as their guide; they
cleared land—at great expense—kept it clean while the young plants grew,
and waited; they did not know if the _heveas_ would live, or that,
living, they would produce latex coagulating into commercial rubber. Nor
did the Amazon rubber dealers know it or believe it. When tales of
Wickham’s enterprise came to Brazil a law was passed forbidding the
export of rubber seeds, but this locking of the stable door after the
loss of the steed was of no more avail than the subsequent measures
promulgated to prevent export of the uricury nuts used for smoking the
latex.
That the Amazonian industry could be duplicated in the East was not
seriously credited. The thing was impossible! The plants would die; or
if they did not die they would not yield latex; if they yielded latex it
would coagulate into such wretched rubber that no market would accept
it. Disease, blight, drought, would ruin the presumptuous plantations—
something, in fact, must happen to prevent such an incredible, absurd
event as rivalry between the famous and unique “black gold” of the
Amazon and a plantation stepchild. The few people who spoke out about
the danger were ignored.
While unbelievers still protested the deluge of plantation rubber began.
In 1900, 4 tons of crude rubber were exported from the East; in 1905,
145 tons; in 1910, over 8,000 tons; in 1912, over 28,000 tons; in 1914,
well over 71,000 tons; in 1915, nearly 107,000 tons. The output for 1916
is variously reckoned at 140,000 and 160,000 tons, from an area
totalling about 1,350,000 acres in Ceylon, Malaysia, Dutch East Indies,
India and Borneo.
When plantation rubber was first offered to manufacturers they were not
greatly interested; it was taken rather grudgingly and at prices well
below those paid for the black _pelles_ of the Amazon to whose
perfections and imperfections the industry was thoroughly accustomed. It
was the artificial forcing up of prices in 1910 that sent manufacturers
into the arms of the planters, for, while plantation rubber profited by
the golden rain of that year, it did not attain the value of “fine hard
Pará.” Today plantation rubber sent to the markets in sheets of creamy
“crêpe” or clear brown gum is used for almost every manufacture
demanding rubber; there are still some complaints that it is
over-milled, that the treatment it undergoes takes the “nerve” out of
it, and for this reason Amazonian rubber remains triumphant in certain
lines requiring the highest resiliency—as, for instance, rubber thread.
In spite of the preponderance of quantity of the plantation product
since 1913 there has nearly always been a margin of price in favour of
Brazil; during September and October, 1916, “fine hard Pará” fetched
about seventy-five cents a pound in the New York markets while
Plantation only brought sixty-five (due to shortage of Amazonian
supplies through shipping difficulties as well as droughts upon the
upper rivers which, impeding navigation, prevented normal supplies from
finding exit); the difference in price is larger than is apparent, for
reasons resulting from differences of preparation of the two products.
Plantation rubber, product of an organized modern industry, is placed
upon markets in such a form that the manufacturer can send it direct to
his mills; the average amount of impurities contained in the sheets is
less than one per cent. Amazonian rubber on the other hand contains
anything from fifteen to forty per cent of impurities, which may include
leaves, sticks and dirt due to sheer carelessness, or gums other than
that of _hevea_, old nails, lumps of wood and axe-heads, deliberately
introduced by the _seringueiro_ to add weight to his _pelle_. Add to
these considerations the cost of cleaning Amazonian rubber and the loss
in time while this operation is performed, and it is plain that the
manufacturer really pays a great deal more than the few cents’
difference of the market price for the Brazilian product; this money
advantage might be largely retained by the Amazon if methods, not
necessarily those of the East, but more careful and cleanly, were
employed in coagulation.
The entire series of processes of Amazon rubber production, from the day
when the _matteiro_ clears a path in the forest from rubber tree to
rubber tree, until the shipper boxes the split halves of the _pelles_ in
the _armazem_ in Manáos or Pará, is in remarkable contrast not only to
plantation methods, but to the system under which that other great
Brazilian export staple, coffee, is prepared for market. It is the
contrast between an industry that has evolved itself from methods first
discovered by Indians of the forest interior, and another whose
processes are mapped out on a preconceived plan. To this day the rubber
dealers on the Amazon will tell you that they do not know the cost of
production of a kilo of rubber; all that they or the collectors know
with certainty is that it must necessarily cost less than the price at
which the rubber is marketed—a smaller amount must be paid, and
adjustment has to be made in the _seringal_, not in New York or London;
with the inflated prices paid for every simplest necessity of life upon
the Amazon, nearly all imported because the craze for rubber-collecting
some years ago led to the abandonment of even such prolific crops as
beans and mandioca, a time of stress falls most severely upon the people
who are least able to bear it. Remedies for the ills of the Brazilian
rubber industry have been suggested and demanded for many a year by the
more far-seeing Brazilians; there is perhaps no better presentment of
the subject than the _paracer_ read to the Brazilian Congress in
December, 1913, by Eloy de Souza, afterwards published in Rio under the
title _A Crise da Borracha_ (The Rubber Crisis); he speaks of the
condition of “economic paradox” by which Amazonas “gave millions upon
millions of gold without any part of this being used for the prosperity
of the immense region where so much wealth was produced” and tells that
when plantation rubber was looming in competition with the Brazilian
product the authorities were entreated to arm themselves against the
danger, but “the echo of these voices was lost in the wide desert of
national indifference.” When the truth could be no longer avoided steps
were at last taken, with nothing but the waste of enormous sums in the
tragi-comedy of the “Defesa da Borracha” as the result: its failure was
no fault of the men who constantly spoke out about conditions, such as
Miguel Calmon, the Deputy, the journalist Alcindo Guanabara, Dr. Passos
de Miranda, and the “genial and devoted Apostle of the Amazon,” Euclydes
da Cunha.
Almost all of the people engaged or interested in the rubber business of
the Amazon are agreed upon certain measures which should be taken to put
it upon a sounder footing; they are, briefly:—
1. Increased production of cleaner rubber, whether obtained from
Amazonian plantations or by opening out new forestal wild
regions.
2. Reduction of living expenses of the rubber-collector, by increased
Amazonian cultivation of cereals, beans, mandioca, fruit,
vegetables, etc.
3. Creation of a sturdier and larger labour supply, by rendering
rubber regions healthy, improving living conditions, and thus
inviting and retaining permanent dwellers.
4. Reduction of export taxes imposed by the State authorities of the
rubber regions.
The question of Amazon plantations is hotly debated. A few exist, and
are living proofs of the fact that planted rubber kept clean of other
growth yields latex at four or five years, at which time it is as large
as a wild rubber twelve years old; but opponents of the system ask why
they should plant “_when Nature has already planted_?” and declare that
the best thing to do is to tap the latex of more of the reserves of the
interior, calculated at three hundred million trees. Arguments in favour
of this system include insistence upon the superiority of the latex from
matured trees slowly developed in their native habitat, the chief reason
of the high resilient quality of the Amazonian product; it is along the
upper rivers of the Amazonian fluvial network that the “black” _hevea_
is found most abundantly, yielding latex of the best variety, tough,
elastic, resilient, and always fetching a better price than the _fraca_
(weak) rubber from the latex of the “white” _hevea_, or the product of
the “red,” which coagulates badly, and is listed as “entre fina” instead
of “fina.” It is partly because the seeds which Wickham took from the
Tapajoz in 1876 were of the “white” _hevea brasiliensis_ variety, common
in these lower regions, that the product of the plantations is more or
less of the “fraca” quality; only a few hundred acres of the entire
Eastern area under cultivation is planted with the fine “black” rubbers.
Can the untouched rubber regions of the upper rivers be opened up? The
districts richest in _seringueiras_ are frequently on the margins of
these rivers, accessible by boat, but there are other areas thickly sown
with the trees which, as in the Acre Territory, could be served best by
a railroad line, such as has been projected to run across this region.
Other plans deal with drainage of forestal areas, now rendered
exceedingly unhealthy by their swampy, mosquito-breeding condition, and
the introduction of immigrants accustomed to torrid climates. At present
the working capacity of the collector is reduced from a possible two
hundred and ten days, during the seven months of tapping, to an average
of one hundred and twenty, chiefly as the result of sickness: he
produces thus only about four hundred and fifty kilos of dry rubber,
when under better conditions he could be expected to market about seven
hundred kilos.
A few years ago Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, a Brazilian authority on tropical
diseases, made a report upon the health conditions of certain Amazonian
regions and those traversed by the Madeira-Mamoré railway: he said of
Santo Antonio that there are “no natives of this place; all children
born there die,” and that here (its ill-fame is not unique) “the region
is infected in such a manner that its population has no conception of
what good health means; for them the normal condition is sickness.”
Brazilians born are as much subject to disease, it appears, as
strangers, for among the workmen employed in the construction of the
Madeira-Mamoré line ninety per cent of the natives of Brazil and
seventy-five per cent of the foreigners were weakened by hookworm. Sharp
changes of temperature in some districts, producing a devastating
pneumonia; dysentery; beri-beri, and the worst and constant scourge,
malarial fever, haunt certain of the interior regions: until a better
medical service is established, and measures taken to render the country
more healthy through engineering work, and through field cultivation, an
increase of permanent dwellers in the deep rubber regions cannot be
expected. Until then Amazonia can scarcely be other than what Eloy de
Souza calls an “invaded region” which has been subjected to a “social
phase of pure conquest.”
Cheapening of living expenses can be done just as soon as the fertile
Amazon valley again supplies enough food for its population: there was a
time, between 1886 and 1891 when the cereals grown sufficed for needs;
today, with the threat of falling prices for the precious _goma_,
cultivation has been resumed to an extent which is encouraging, but only
a year or two ago Pará, Amazonas and the Acre were together importing
beans, rice, and sugar to the value of 11,346 contos (over three million
dollars); dried meat (xarque) to the value of 7,400 contos; bacalhau
(dried cod), 846 contos; live cattle, 2,000 contos; tobacco, 1,000
contos, and conserves costing 2,600 contos, among other importations.
Almost all the above list could be filled from Amazonia if the
rubber-collecting fever, relaxing, permitted the development of other
industries.
The price paid for many articles of prime necessity upon the Amazon is
fantastic. While such rates are maintained it is a matter for admiration
that Amazonian rubber can be placed upon the markets at all, in
competition with the plantation product; it can only be done by the
reduction of the _seringueiro’s_ earnings to a minimum, and this will
eventually lead to his extinction if conditions are not remedied. The
following is a list of what are considered the chief articles needed by
the collector for his lonely sojourn in the forests during the gathering
season, with prices in milreis:—
_Price _In _In the _Price to
in Rio_ Pará_ Acre_ Rubber-collector_
5 alqueires of farinha[12] 20 27$500 100 175
40 kilos of sugar 14 26 45 80
25 kilos of coffee 24 25 34 100
128 kilos of lard 16 20 36 100
50 kilos dried meat 40 40 77 150
50 kilos of feijão (beans) 12.500 15 51 100
16 pounds of tobacco 11 22 53 120
5 gallons of kerosene 4 4 11 30
Half-sack of salt 1 1$500 8 15
40 kilos of rice 20 20 36 100
Half-case of soap 3 4 11.500 20
30 litres cachaça (rum) 15 15 46 105
3 boxes cartridges 24 30 33 45
Medicines, clothes, etc. 120 130 180 250
——————— ———— ——————— ——————
Total 324$500 380$ 721$500 1.390$
The price of an outfit for the season thus varies from about 324 milreis
in Rio to 1390 milreis in the forest, or between, say, 80 and nearly 350
dollars.
If the collector in the course of his season’s work produces four
hundred and fifty kilos of rubber, worth, at a good price of about five
milreis, 2:250$000 (two and a quarter contos, or about five hundred and
sixty U. S. dollars at 1916 exchange), he has left only seven hundred
and fifty milreis to carry him through the rest of the year, and to
support his family back in Ceará: but even this modest sum is reduced by
the river freight of the rubber before it is marketed at Manáos or Pará,
three hundred reis per kilo; rent of the _seringal_, commission to the
aviador, and frequently freight of the _pelles_ from the interior of the
forest to the water, which items are likely to add up to another four or
five hundred milreis.
Denunciations of the “truck” system, and the prices charged to the
rubber collector are common; but the supplier of foodstuffs, etc. (the
_aviador_) himself takes long risks and is bound to insure himself
against them. His customer (_aviado_) may become ill and unable to work;
he may die; he may, if he can elude the river guards and traverse the
steaming interior forests, run away, although in these regions where the
river is the only highway, this does not often happen. Also the price of
rubber may drop—rubber has been a business so speculative that it has
become a gamble in which the _aviador_, himself caught in a
deeply-rooted system, takes long odds. He makes money nearly always, and
the ownership of much of the great areas of Amazonian rubber forest has
passed into his hands, but he is scarcely to be blamed for securing his
profits in the manner decreed by the system; to change the industrial
routine would be to effect a revolution upon the Amazon.
The approach of the dry season upon the Amazon heralds the incoming from
other northern regions, generally Ceará, of a host of workers. Anyone
who has travelled on the steamers going up the river at the beginning of
the rubber season has looked down upon the deck where throngs of people
are herded together, their hammocks slung in tiers one above the other;
at times of drought whole families come out from the “_distritos
flagellados_,” and men, women and children are crowded in an intimacy
which would be more trying than it is were it not for the apparently
unfailing good-nature and mutual courtesy of these northern peasants.
Much of their simple cooking, washing, and toilet changes are perforce
unsheltered; gentle, easily amused, they never seem to complain, but,
playing their inevitable guitars and singing their _modinhas_, they
watch the yellow flood of the great river, bordered with the line of
distant forest, so vast that ideas of size are lost in its sweeping
monotony. Arrived at Manáos the collector goes to the store of the
_aviador_, gets his outfit of tools—cups for collecting latex, big knife
(machado), little axe, bucket, and metal cone for smoke-regulation in
the coagulating process—as well as food and such clothes as he may need,
possibly adding a gun, and when the cost of his lodging has been added
to the bill, he may set out in one of the _gaiolas_ that ascend the
upper rivers, en route to the _seringal_ where he has arranged to work.
An average _seringal_ contains fifty _estradas_; to each _seringueiro_
(collector), two _estradas_ are allotted, tapped on alternate days and
each _estrada_ (literally road or walk) contains, in a good _seringal_,
an average of seventy to one hundred and twenty trees. Before the
_seringueiro_ does a stroke of work there has been a heavy outlay by the
owner (_patrão_) of the estate for its preparation. Forestal opening is
done by the _matteiro_, the expert forester whose work is probably
better paid than any other manual labour of the Amazon; it is he who
enters the wild forest, locates the rubber trees within a given area,
and makes paths from each _seringueira_ (rubber tree) to the next in the
central part of each estrada, always ending by cutting an encircling
road which runs all about the _estrada_. On this outer road the rubber
collector usually builds his little hut—“more of an oven than a home,”
says Eloy de Souza—of palm thatch, and the tiny smoking room
(_defumador_) where each day’s supply of latex is coagulated.
The work of the _matteiro_ is paid according to the number of rubber
trees found and prepared for tapping; he gets about the equivalent of
one dollar for each tree; Woodroffe reckons that in the cases when the
patrão of an estate has advanced money for the steamship fares of his
imported labourers, advanced food and equipment, and paid for
preparation of the _seringal_, each man represents an outlay of “quite
£100 by the time he stands up under the trees to tap them.” It must not
be supposed, therefore, that because rubber is wild upon the Amazon that
it costs nothing to collect it; on the contrary in spite of the lavish
hand of Nature expenses in the wild regions of South America are far
higher than they are in the East, where land has been cleared and each
sapling patiently planted and tended.
[Illustration:
_Rubber on the Amazon._
Hevea brasiliensis tree, scarred by tapping.
Smoking the day’s collection of latex.
Hut of the Seringueiro.
]
The _seringueiro_ has no easy life. He gets out of his hammock before
dawn, and with his lantern fixed to his head makes his way through the
forest, laden with his little _machadinho_, the universally used and
abused axe with which the trees are gashed, with the big knife, the
_machado_ or _machete_ inseparable from the Central or South American,
and perhaps a gun in case any edible animal of the woods is encountered.
As each tree is reached it is hastily gashed, a little metal cup
(_tigelinha_) fixed below each wound to receive the milk which
immediately runs out; when he returns at last by way of the outer path
to his hut it is past six o’clock and quite light. If he has a family
with him, his _senhora_ has prepared his coffee, but if as is usual he
is alone he will now light a fire, drip his coffee, prepare a little
food, and smoke a _cigarro_. Later in the morning he must make a second
round, if the milk is not to coagulate in the cups; he takes his bucket
(the _balde_), tips the contents of each little cup into it, carefully
inverting these on sticks at the foot of the tree, to prevent the
clotting of drippings and the invasion of insects. When he returns he
may have four or more litres of milk which must now be coagulated in the
_defumador_; the process may take half an hour or over two hours,
according to the amount brought in and the quality of the latex. A fire
is made with nuts of one of the _attalea_ palms, generally “uricury,”
which give off a remarkably acrid smoke with properties for rendering
the rubber just what it should be that are the despair of chemists: no
substitute has been found that equals it. A metal cone a couple of feet
high is placed over the well-started fire, to bring the smoke into a
narrow channel at the top; the _seringueiro_ takes a prepared piece of
wood, dips it into the bucket of milk, or pours milk over it with the
_cuia_ (little bowl made of a half-gourd) and holds it over the smoke.
The milk coagulates instantly, turning pale brown on the outside; layer
after layer is added, a skin at a time, until all the latex in the
bucket is coagulated. It may be late at night before the _seringueiro_
has finished his work, for in the course of the day he has walked
anything from six to ten miles, and every part of the operations has
been performed by him alone. It is fortunate that his housekeeping work
is limited to the preparation of his food: practically the only
furnishing of his hut is his hammock.
To produce a _pelle_, the big black ball which may be seen in Pará and
Manáos on the wharves, in warehouses, on the pavements, whole or sliced
in halves with their creamy hearts displayed, or floating down the
tributary rivers on rafts, the _seringueiro_ has to work for about a
month. Each day’s collection of latex is coagulated on top of the
previous rubber until the ball is made to what the _seringueiro_ thinks
is a convenient size. Day after day, only interrupted by sickness, he
labours in the sweltering forest at this toil, eating food of very
limited variety, without exchanging a word, perhaps, with another human
being for weeks at a time; each _seringal_ is supposed to be under
inspection, to avoid maltreatment of the trees, but as a rule this
supervision is a fiction. Small wonder that when the collector at last
leaves the _seringal_, and takes his rubber to Manáos, he spends a few
riotous days, limited by the amount of his money balance remaining after
the debt has been paid to the _aviador_. The aviador it is who also buys
the pelles and in the busy season when rubber begins to come in, these
stores present a curious sight. Sometimes the _seringueiro_, in good
years, saves money; he may buy a seringal or a little store of his own;
a few fortunes have thus been made from the collector class, but they
are rather the exceptions that prove the rule.
These conditions, under which a nominally independent collector works in
a rented _estrada_ and sells his rubber to the store-keeper to whom he
is in debt—and who is often also the owner of the _seringal_—are general
as regards the collection of the latex of the “black” rubber trees of
the upper Amazon. This is the origin of the _fina_ class of rubber, with
_sernamby_ or scrap as a kind of by-product, result of carelessness; the
_fina_, however, is usually at least eighty per cent of a good workman’s
product, and this is the rubber which, with _caucho_, has made Manáos.
_Caucho_ is rubber produced from the milk of _castilloa elastica_,
growing in profusion along the banks of the Rio Branco, tributary of the
Negro, in North Amazonia and on many streams of Peruvian origin; the
industry connected with this tree is really independent, the result of
individual searchings for trees. Parties go up these rivers, hunt in the
bordering woods for the _castilloa_, straightway cut it down and bleed
it for the last drop of latex, and go on their way.
Down near the mouth of the Amazon, where the “white” rubber trees are
most commonly found, it is not unusual for collectors to own sections of
forest with their little homes at its edge; they, too, are almost
independent—of everything except the industrial conditions upon the
Amazon, and the rubber prices fixed far away in London or New York.
Nearly all South American States depend upon export and import taxes for
their main revenues, and it is a fairly general rule that native
products leaving the country pay heavily for that privilege. In Brazil
all import dues are imposed and collected by the Federal Government, and
are similar throughout the country without respect to the special
conditions of separate states; the export taxes are imposed by the State
Governments, without restraint. In some regions the “pauta” or export
tax is changed every week or so in conformity with prices in world
markets, a board sitting specially for the purpose of making these
constant adjustments. Some Brazilian products are taxed to what may be
called a reasonable extent, but in others exports have been bled out of
existence, while still others are barely able to enter world markets,
staggering under their load. How many exporting countries would put upon
a product facing competition abroad a tax equal to one-third of its
value? This is the weight with which Amazonian rubber went to market for
many years: the combined charges of the State, municipalities, and other
smaller items added up to over thirty per cent of the “official value”
of the product.
In response to appeals, export taxes were reduced after the outbreak of
the European War, and during the year 1916 State taxes, together with
dues put on by cities, amounted to about twenty per cent of the value of
the rubber—a sufficiently heavy burden, but which Amazonas proposes to
increase again; at the same time the product of Matto Grosso pays only
twelve per cent, an equal amount is imposed upon rubber originating in
the Acre Territory, while that exported from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia,
but finding its exit by the water highways of the Amazon, pays only five
per cent. As a result of these lesser dues collected by sister
countries, there is a certain amount of smuggling done: rubber
originating near the boundaries is passed across, and exported as if
coming from one of the three Republics named; that such evasion of taxes
is limited is due to the lack of roads or of any communication means
besides those of the rivers, all of which are watched by Government
agents. At the same time that the Amazon imposes this burden upon her
rubber, the Eastern (Plantation) product pays nothing at all when the
market price is below 18 pence—say thirty-six cents—a pound, and when it
stands above two shillings a tax of two and a half per cent of the value
is paid.
Consumption of the entire supply of marketed rubber was, immediately
prior to the European War, almost evenly divided between North America
and Europe: one of the industrial adjustments made after hostilities
began was the shifting of a larger share of rubber, and rubber
manufacturing, to the United States, so that in 1914 she took fifty per
cent of the marketed total, one hundred and twenty thousand tons, and in
1915 increased these purchases to nearly sixty-two per cent of the total
marketed, or ninety-seven thousand tons out of about one hundred and
fifty-eight thousand.
Distribution of the world’s crop in 1915:—
United States 61.5 97,000
Great Britain 9.6 15,072
Russia 7.6 12,000
France 7.2 11,500
Italy 4.8 7,500
Germany, Austria 3.8 6,000
Canada 2.5 4,000
Japan and Australia 1.6 2,500
Scandinavia 1.4 2,252
The course of the next few years may see Brazil herself on the lists as
a rubber-consuming country. For fifty years she has exported rubber,
crude, and such manufactures of rubber as she has used have been
imported from the United States or Europe; she imported in 1915 about
six hundred and eighty-three tons of rubber manufactures, chiefly tyres,
worth a million dollars, which was less than the imports of 1913, and
which might show greater diminution if the unfortunately conceived law
intended to protect “fine hard Pará,” but which resulted in paralyzing
rubber imports, were sustained. This alteration in the tariff, operating
early in 1915, changed the old import tax of five per cent ad valorem to
a scale with violent differences; rubber manufactures made with the
Brazilian product were charged one hundred reis a kilo (a fraction over
two cents U. S.) while articles made with foreign rubber were taxed ten
milreis (say two dollars and sixty cents) a kilo.
An excellent idea, warmly applauded; but when the time came to apply the
law it was found impossible to discover the real origin of the rubber,
and in order to avoid any chance of letting in foreign material
practically scot free the official valuers charged all entering articles
at the high rate.
Thus a consignment of two hundred pneumatic tyres which under the old
law would have paid about 2:200 milreis in duties for entry were under
the new tariff charged 22:000—or let us say about $5,500 instead of the
former $550, for import taxes alone. Needless to say, importing houses
left rubber goods in the customs-houses while they appealed to the
authorities for relief from this too paternal measure. Some of the
Amazonian rubber merchants have defended the idea, which is good enough
in theory, but in practice it seems to have been as little useful as
that extraordinary commission charged with the _Defesa da Borracha_,
which in the years 1912–14 spent about twenty-eight thousand contos of
reis (over $7,000,000) in salaries, investigations, recommendations,
experiments and printed matter, and has today not an iota of improvement
of Amazonian conditions to show for the money.
Brazil has a few rubber factories of her own, generally small, but doing
a satisfactory and increasing business; the Brazilian Government has
also concluded an arrangement with the Goodyear Tire Company for the
erection of a factory which should greatly increase national rubber
manufactures. The first modern rubber factory in Brazil was established
in São Paulo State, in 1913, by Theodore Putz and Company, where solid
tyres, tubes, stamps, valves, and other articles are made; it has a
capital of two hundred contos and an annual turnover of three hundred
contos, paying twenty-five contos a month for labour. Five hundred kilos
of Pará, and one thousand kilos of _mangabeira_ rubber are used monthly.
Another firm of recent origin is that of Berrogain & Cia. in Rio,
turning out a variety of manufactures and prospering.
The future of rubber production is a question frequently discussed. It
is not immediately probable that the Brazilian output will greatly
increase from its average of twenty to thirty thousand tons, not only
because more labour is not as yet available, but also because the
untapped resources away from the easily reached river banks can scarcely
be reached without large outlays on roads, drainage, and other expenses
connected with opening-up, which are not more than planned for the time
being. Plantation rubber has not yet reached its expected maximum, but
no very great areas have been added since 1911, and it is reckoned that
with an average yield of four hundred pounds an acre the world’s output
will in a few years place from three hundred thousand to three hundred
and thirty thousand tons of dry rubber on the markets. Demand by the
year 1930, if it kept up at the same ratio as the last five or six
years, would require a great deal more than this, no less than three
hundred and seventy-three thousand tons of rubber. This will not occur
unless automobile sales in the United States keep up also at the same
rate (tyres for this industry already take over 100 thousand tons of
rubber) but even with a diminution in the increase there appear to be
good prospects ahead for the rubber industry: Germany, for instance,
will be demanding crude rubber in great quantities when the European War
comes to an end, for in spite of the ingenuity of German chemists it is
plain that synthetic rubber is not a success. If it were anything like a
substitute for the real thing the Central Powers would not have made
such constant efforts to obtain even small quantities of the precious
gum through the blockade of the Allies. The war has definitely disposed
of that spectre. Synthetic rubber requiring a base of a special
turpentine is said to be produced at a cost four times that of the gum
of the _hevea_, and that figure alone would dispose of it as a
commercial possibility, apart from the limitation of turpentine
supplies, the need for mixing the solution with real rubber, and the
practical demonstration of its unsatisfactory quality.
PACKING-HOUSES, MEAT EXPORT, AND CATTLE RAISING
The meat business is not a new one in Brazil, for her cattle raising
states have had a surplus of beef animals ever since the first
_donatarios_ sailed out to take possession of their strips of coast, and
brought seeds, saplings, ducks and chickens, goats, horses and cattle
along with them: the cattle throve, soon ran wild in the interior, and
becoming modified by natural selection developed national types which
are today quite distinctive although their European origin is
recognizable. The first cattle were shipped to Brazil to the Capitania
of S. Vicente in 1534 by Dona Anna Pimentel, consort of the first
captain, and manager of the interests of the colony during his absence
in India.
Brazil has thirty million head of cattle. That is to say, two or three
million more than the Argentine possesses. But her herds are only worth
a fraction of the Argentine value because the stock is poor, some of it
thin and scrubby, with but one steadily developed type of first-class
quality. The scientific breeders of Brazil—and there is quite a list of
them—have lacked a reason for developing their work until recently. In
the absence of the packing-house there was no demand for beef beyond
that of the _matadouros_ (town slaughter-houses) and the _xarque_
factories. For the _xarque_ makers any class of animal would serve: a
Hereford of pure blood would bring no more than a _zebu_ unless he
happened to weigh more.
_Xarque_ making is the ancient meat-drying industry, invented by who
knows what hunter in bygone ages; it is the _biltong_ of Africa, the
_tasajo_ of the Argentine, the jerked beef of the North. Well salted and
dried, it is good food enough, and France did not disdain to buy it from
Brazil for the use of her troops in 1915–18. The southerly states of
Brazil are the great supporters of cattle stocks, and there are the
extensive beef-drying factories; Rio Grande slaughters over half a
million head of cattle for this purpose every year, the number rising to
its maximum in 1912 with nine hundred thousand head, and chiefly ships
the _xarque_ produced to other Brazilian regions; it is the _carne
secca_ of that beloved Brazilian dish, the _feijoada_, eaten all over
the Union. The coastal and northern regions of Brazil, comparatively
poor cattle regions, are so much dependent upon dried beef imports that
the _xarque_ industry should have a ready market in the future as in the
past: but since 1914 a rival has risen up seriously threatening the old
industry in prestige.
Almost simultaneously two packing-houses, both in S. Paulo State, began
demanding cold storage space in vessels calling at Santos, and
refrigerator cars on railways leading to the port. Brazil, to the
astonishment of the markets, was offering chilled and frozen beef. At
any other time she might have received a welcome less enthusiastic, but
her offer came at a time when Europe needed every pound of meat for army
use; the Brazilian product was tested by Smithfield standards, found
good, and today has its place in overseas meat markets. It is a modest
place, but today beef is taking its stand among the “principaes artigos
da exportação”—hides have long stood in the list of thirteen favoured
names—although the end of the war diminished overseas demands.
During 1915 shipments were made in increasing amounts month by month,
the total for the year reaching about 8,514 tons, with a value of 6,122
contos. In 1916 shipments rose to nearly 34,000 tons; in 1917 to over
66,000; but sales decreased after the close of the war, when contracts
for supplying troops in the field ceased, and markets closed in the
slump of 1921.
The first _frigorifico_ of Brazil was built by Paulista enterprise with
Paulista capital, in the far north-west of São Paulo where the best
pastures extend. The Companhia Frigorifica e Pastoril built its plant
near the terminus of the Paulista Railway, at Barretos, and is headed by
Dr. Antonio da Silva Prado, an energetic builder-up of his State and a
man with many honours and interests. Opened in 1913, the _frigorifico_
first supplied chilled meat to the city of S. Paulo; export was not
seriously considered until the war in Europe began with its demands upon
world food supplies. The first Brazilian shipment of exported meat was
sent to England in November, 1914, an experimental ton and a half.
During the ensuing year that country took four thousand, three hundred
and sixty tons, Italy over two thousand tons, and the United States
nearly the same quantity.
The figures displayed a steady rise all through 1915, January’s ten tons
being quickly outclassed by April’s two hundred and ten and June’s over
five hundred and seventy tons; by November Brazil was shipping two
thousand tons a month. The standard was more than maintained as time
went on cattle raisers improving animals for sale to meet demands, and
proving the fattening quality of Brazilian pastures. But until after the
close of 1918 little blood stock could be imported, and in 1922 an
expert calculation gave 12% as the proportion of fat cattle in Brazil.
The output of Barretos was speedily rivalled. In May, 1915, another
packing-house started operations, at Osasco on the outskirts of S. Paulo
city. It is the property of the Continental Products Company, capital
and personnel originating in the Sulzberger house at Chicago, and it is
independent of, but has friendly relations with, the Farquhar group of
interests, which include large railway control and a thriving land and
cattle company.
The Osasco plant is, like Barretos, an excellent specimen of its class,
operating with fine up-to-date machinery and all modern packing-house
devices; on the edge of S. Paulo city, separated from the railway only
by a strip of open grassy country, this establishment has the advantage
of a short haul for its meat. The São Paulo Railway has to carry the
product but fifty miles to Santos port. On the other hand, the Barretos
plant’s position has the advantages of being in the heart of the best
cattle country, and of getting both animals and labour at low prices;
the journey from Barretos to S. Paulo, by the Paulista line, takes about
fourteen hours. Brazilian employees are used at both packing-houses, the
industry occupying about a thousand workmen. During 1916 a third
_frigorifico_ was opened, on the docks of Rio de Janeiro, but this
chiefly performs cold storage functions, and before the close of 1919
ten packing-houses were in operation or building. General world
depression in 1921 was responsible for the closure of most of these
establishments for more than local demands. Few complaints have been
registered in regard to quality so far; the Brazilian beef is on the
whole smaller than that to which the meat markets are accustomed, and it
was found that the quarters did not fill the space allowed for similar
Argentine and Uruguayan meat when shipping first began. Dr. Prado says
that the average weight of beeves slaughtered for export during the
first year of operation at Barretos was only two hundred and eighty
kilos. But this small, fat-less meat has a superior flavour—as anyone
who travels in South America knows well.
[Illustration:
_The Cattle Industry._
The two _frigorificos_ (packing-houses) in operation, at Barretos,
top; at Osasco, below. Also humped “zebu” cattle of Indian descent,
and, lower, a calf of native Caracú stock.
]
It is generally reckoned that ten per cent of a cattle herd is fit for
the slaughterhouse: but Brazil cannot offer three million of her
existing stock to the yards. She has too many varieties, probably too
much of the humped breed derived from Indian ancestry, although it has
warm defenders, and there is a conspicuous lack of young fat cattle. As
an example of the speed with which poor stock may be improved by good,
unified methods, there is Brazil’s neighbour Argentina, a country which
thirty-five years ago had less than nine million head of cattle, and
these of a breed inferior to the Brazilian average today. Setting about
her task methodically, Argentina created a complete transformation in
the character of her herds, and while exporting great quantities of meat
at the same time increased her stock so largely that by the year 1910
she had thirty million head. Sums spent on breeding stock were enormous
during this period: in 1906, the banner year of importation, Argentina
purchased (almost exclusively from Great Britain) 2,450 pure-bred
cattle, 7,500 thoroughbred sheep, and one thousand blood horses. As a
result she has animals today which take prizes side by side with pure
Herefords and Durhams; the average _abattoir_ price for steers is about
two hundred Argentine pesos, or say eighty American dollars; she is able
to record the sale of thousands of splendid creatures, amongst them a
champion bull bred on her pastures which brought the price of thirty-two
thousand dollars in United States currency. Today Argentina has more
herds of thoroughly pure stock cattle than any other country in the
world; _estancias_ full of animals of fine blood, so much alike that to
see them in endless lines, with white star on breast and head, is like
looking at a concrete arithmetical calculation, are handed down as
inheritances. Yet when the Argentine began her work she had no such
advantages of modern invention as lie to the hand of Brazil; cold
storage was not commercially developed, packing-houses were immature.
She had to face the competition of the United States, and world markets
were not educated to the reception of South American meat. Now cold
storage is an art, steamers are fitted with refrigerator space as a
matter of course, South American meat is welcome on world markets, and
the United States is no longer taken into consideration as a rival meat
exporter.
In 1901 the United States exported 352,000,000 pounds of beef; in 1910,
76,000,000; in 1914, only a little more than 6,000,000 pounds. Argentina
had caught up with her North American sister in 1905, passed and
out-distanced her until she was able last year to say that her only
serious competitor was Australasia. It is true that the European War has
caused a revival of meat export from the United States, but home demands
are today so acute that no more than a temporary reaping of high prices
is at the bottom of the movement. Argentina may look for a more
formidable, because a younger, rival, nearer to her northern border.
The qualifications of Brazil as a future land of fine cattle are three
in the main: first, her possession of an existing _rebanho_ of
30,000,000 head; next her natural pastures and good climate which permit
stock to remain in the open during the winter; third, tremendous
expanses of suitable lands at moderate prices. Argentina has no natural
pastures; she sows alfalfa, needs five acres of it to fatten one animal
for six months and is thus at an expense of $7.50 for this purpose
against Brazil’s outlay of rather less than three and one-half dollars,
counting the value of the five acres of alfalfa land at three hundred
dollars, the cost of twelve acres of Brazilian _capim gordura_ at one
hundred and thirty-three dollars, and interest on the two investments at
five per cent. In regard to available territory there is no comparison;
Brazil’s one state of Matto Grosso could swallow the whole
cattle-raising country of the Argentine, without taking into
consideration Goyaz, Minas Geraes, S. Paulo, Paraná or Rio Grande do
Sul.
Space and climate, however, are not all that goes to make a cattle
country fattening fine stock, and it need scarcely be said that much
must be done before the cattle lands of Brazil can seriously compete
with those of the Argentine: the time is not yet ripe for the wild
pastures of Goyaz and Matto Grosso to fatten cattle in the same
proportion as Rio Grande State. This state, with an area of two hundred
and thirty-seven thousand square kilometers feeds about nine million
head of cattle, a remarkably good showing in comparison with the premier
cattle province of Argentina, Buenos Aires, which, with a superficial
area of not much more than 305,000 square kilometers, feeds seven and a
half million head.
Pastures are not—except by careful fazendeiros—planted in Brazil because
there happens to be a gift of nature in the way of natural grasses, the
_capins_ of the sertão. Some of these are good, and some would feed
nothing but a goat. Brazilian stock-raisers who combine earnestness with
capital plant their own best grasses and appear to get satisfactory
results, while I have also seen some interesting experiments made with
“Soudan” or other of the wonderful varieties of grasses with which
Africa is endowed. For lack of interior pastures the cattle of Brazil
are periodically brought on foot for distances which may vary from a
hundred to six hundred miles; many die by the way, and the unfortunate
beasts are mere skin and bone when they arrive in the good grass
country. On the São Paulo side of the Paraná river are some of the
finest natural pastures of Brazil, but in many parts of the São Paulo
uplands, interior Rio, Paraná, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande,
admirable cattle lands are to be seen. Rio Grande, especially towards
the Uruguay boundary, is one of the most delightful grazing regions
imaginable; Minas, too, shows some fine lush green grass lands, with the
special advantage that cattle need never be put under shelter in the
mild winter which visits this region. The good grass lands of Minas and
interior São Paulo are frequently at an elevation of 1,400 feet, on the
sloping plateau which is densely wooded near its dips to the rivers, and
which is on the wide uplands covered with light _matto_ alternating with
sturdy native grass. It is not unlike the high veldt of the Western
Transvaal in appearance, with the same exhilarating freshness, light and
space, and the same miracle of nature performed immediately after the
rains, when every inch of ground is covered with little dancing flowers
and every bush is transformed into a nosegay.
Brazil possesses half a dozen technical breeding “posts” maintained by
State or Federal Governments, but their number is insufficient to attack
the work needed, and needed quickly; private enterprise must and does
supplement government labours, but there is room in Brazil for scores of
expert cattlemen with knowledge of semi-tropical conditions.
Three-fourths of the State of Paraná, all Santa Catharina and all Rio
Grande do Sul are below the Tropic of Capricorn, but although the great
sertões of Brazil are inside the tropical belt, the effect of this
latitude is partly nullified by the height of the plateau to which the
largest area of the country attains.
One of the best breeding stations in Brazil is situated at the good,
modern, actively-managed School of Agriculture at Piracicaba, in S.
Paulo State, reached by the Sorocabana line; good imported bulls are
stationed here, as well as some fine specimens of types developed in
Brazil, notably the Caracú, a well-formed animal with a pale buff hide
that is well fitted to form the base of standardized herds. The Caracú
already has its official herd-book. Some attempts made to introduce pure
blood foreign animals have ended in the death of the importations,
perhaps chiefly because their accustomed food was lacking; for this
reason the opinion of many stock-raisers in Brazil is against efforts to
create pure herds of, say, Herefords, as Argentina has done, preferring
the selection of a sound national type, acclimated, hardy, which can be
improved by careful breeding. Controversy rages about this question in
Brazil, and without trying to enter into it I will quote the opinion of
Dr. Cincinato Braga, one of Brazil’s authorities on the subject of
cattle, who says that at least six thousand pure-race bulls should be
imported annually to improve the existing stock, while as a matter of
fact only a few hundred enter yearly, and these chiefly as a result of
private enterprise. The vexed question as to whether the introduction of
Indian cattle, with its resultant inheritance of a hump in the zebu type
(the hump has the disadvantage of not “packing,” say some of the buyers
for frigorificos), is good or bad may be safely left to those ardent
cattle-breeders Drs. Pereira Barretto, Eduardo Cotrim, Assis Brasil,
Fernand Ruffier, and many others; it is undoubted that in the Triangle
of Minas Geraes, with its centre Uberaba, fortunes have been made from
prolific Indian cattle, but public opinion remains perplexed. Writing
from Minas in early 1916, J. Nogueira Itagyba told the tale of his
experiences as a cattle-breeder—how he imported a bull from Holland,
bought Caracú cows, obtained a young herd, and then when droughts came
in 1913–14, lost “thirty or more head, under a deluge of ticks, tumours,
insects of all kinds....” He then bought a Nellore (Indian) bull,
obtained a breed that was “a revelation” and came to this conclusion:
“In Paraná and Rio Grande, where the climate is cold and there are fine
pastures, a stock breeder with capital can raise the Devon, Hereford,
Flemish, Durham, Jersey, etc.; he will have appropriate forage, and can
use dips and calf-foods ... but in wild rural regions only strong,
acclimated races resisting climate and insect plagues can prosper.”
Until the development of the meat industry for export Brazil sold
nothing abroad as the product of her vast herds except hides, just as in
the early days of Texas when only the skins of her cattle were worth
anything. Today the cow-hide leather industry of North America in
particular is largely dependent upon South American production, the
three republics of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay together furnishing
fifty-five per cent of all the hides sold in world markets. Now and
again the export of hides leaps for reasons that do not mean good
business, as when Ceará in 1914–15 shipped out, in addition to her
normal sales, the hides of animals that died of the terrible drought to
the number of eight hundred thousand head; looking north to Mexico we
find another big leap of hides exports after revolution invaded the
cattle states, owners slaughtering their stock to avert theft by
bandits.
Rise in sales by the Argentine and her neighbours since the European War
has, however, been largely on account of increased slaughter in response
to calls from the meat market: in two years Argentina has doubled her
export of hides, Uruguay has multiplied her contribution by five, while
Brazil between June, 1915 and March, 1916 shipped out thirty-seven
million pounds of hides as against two and a half million pounds in a
corresponding period two years previously.
The total value of Brazilian hides exported in 1915 was $13,260,000 U.
S. currency; the amount was thirty-seven thousand metric tons. Of this
nearly twenty thousand tons went to the United States, Great Britain
taking 6,000 tons, France less than 3,000, and Uruguay 3,400 in round
numbers.
War orders account for the marked stimulation of the leather business
which is dependent to a considerable degree upon supplies of
cattle-hides, the United States alone increasing her exports of leather
from thirty-seven million dollars’ worth in 1914 to eighty million
dollars’ worth in the fiscal year June 1915–16.
COTTON GROWING AND WEAVING
Cotton is native to Brazil, as to other regions of northern South
America, Central America and Mexico, the south of the United States, and
the West Indian islands. Wild, or carelessly cultivated Brazilian
cottons are despite neglect of such excellent quality that George Watt,
in _Wild and Cultivated Cotton of the World_ says that when they are
properly selected and standardized they will “make Brazil as famous as
Egypt in the production of excellent fibres.” North American cotton
buyers, visiting Brazil early in 1916 were astonished to find cotton of
long silky fibre produced here, and made arrangements for shipping
quantities of the Seridó variety to the United States; England has for a
very long time been a purchaser of the same fine qualities of raw
cotton, for mixing, as Egyptian cotton is mixed, with the short-fibre
product of the United States.
Cotton of one kind and another is grown all over Brazil. There seems to
be no region which refuses to mother it. But the best lands, yielding
most prolifically and with large areas suitable for cultivation on a
great scale are in the centre, on the north-east promontory, and all
along the coast to the mouth of the Amazon. Comparatively very small
fragments of this belt are under cotton culture, although wild cotton
and patches of cultivation of more or less merit are widely scattered;
Todd, in his _World’s Cotton Crop_ says that Brazil “might easily grow
twenty million bales, but her actual crop does not yet reach half a
million bales.” Now, with the encouraging measures taken by the
Brazilian Government as well as the enterprise of individual firms and
planters, and the new realization of the opportunity waiting for the
farmer with small capital but large technical skill, experience and good
sense, cotton culture should open up great spaces of land suitable for
this well-rewarding form of agriculture. Brazilian cottons or their
Peruvian and West Indian kin have endowed the world with fine varieties;
it remains for their standardization to benefit the land of their
origin.
Cotton was used by the Aztecs for making elaborate clothes, richly dyed
and embroidered, long before the Spanish Conquest in 1520. Farther
south, the carvings of the Maya show that that race was using textiles
hundreds of years previously—as early as the beginning of the Christian
Era, if the dates assigned to the Copán and Quiriguá temples are
correct. In Brazil, where the inhabitants were much less socially and
industrially developed, small domestic use was made of the fibre, but it
had its name, _amaniú_.
Cotton (_Gossypium_) belongs to the natural order of the malvaceas,
claims more kin in the New than in the Old World, and its parents are
genuine tropical dwellers; there seems to be little doubt that the first
of the fine, long staple cottons introduced into North America were
perennials, and that they became annuals only because they were unable
to survive the winter cold. Names of cottons grown in Brazil leave the
searcher after details rather hazy on account of the many local
appellations given them, but the scientist has classified them by the
characteristics of their seeds, dividing them into eleven kinds. The
first, _Gossypium herbaceum_, is not a tropical native, was brought in
from Asia both here and to the United States, is not common or
successful, and so may be dismissed.
_G. mustelinum_ again “is only interesting for botanical reasons,” but
is found wild in the hilly interior of Brazil; _G. punctatum_ is said to
be identical with the wild cotton of the United States; _G. hirsutum_ is
a true native of South America and the West Indies, and is the lineal
parent of the “Uplands” cottons of North America. _G. mexicanum_ is,
together with _hirsutum_, which it resembles, grown all over the coastal
cotton country of Brazil; it is a small plant with a prolific yield. The
writer has seen in the vicinity of Campos, State of Rio, tiny plants of
this variety not more than eighteen or twenty inches high, bearing forty
and more bolls and forms. It is true that the district had suffered from
lack of rain and thus the tendency to run to growth rather than
production, the agricultural curse of the tropics, had been checked. The
field yielded over a bale to the acre.
_G. peruvianum_ is a highly interesting, hardy, prolific variety,
relative of the best native cottons of Brazil. Professor Edward Green
says that he considers it one of the two most valuable in the country.
It is a perennial, grows best in the humid North, often reaches a height
of four metres, and yields a crop for at least three years.[13] Maranhão
has produced it for centuries, getting a reputation for long fine fibres
on its account; the percentage of fibre is over thirty-eight per cent of
the total weight of the boll, a very high average, and it is undoubtedly
well adapted to the river valleys of North Brazil. It is said to be
identified with the carefully cultivated, irrigated cotton of the Incas.
Cultivated forms of this excellent cotton are the famous _Mocó_, grown
so successfully in Ceará, Parahyba, and other northerly states, the
_Seridó_, and the _Sede de Ceará_, local names of which Brazil is proud.
_G. microcarpum_ appears to have a relationship with the _peruvianum_,
and seems also to be derived from the other side of the Andes; it is
credited with producing a pound of clean cotton to one hundred and
twenty bolls. This is the last on the list of cotton with “fuzz” on the
seeds; the remaining four varieties have clean, free seeds. Of these by
far the most important is the fine _G. vitifolium_. From this stock most
of the cottons described as “Sea Island” are derived, as well as the
best of the Egyptian varieties, and in a genuine wild state in Brazil it
still produces a beautiful long silky fibre. When grandchildren of its
stock have been brought to Brazil from the United States they have
rapidly degenerated, delicate nurslings of exotic temperament; beside
them the old _estirpe selvagem_ flourishes and yields royally. _G.
purpurescens_ is another black-seeded perennial, identified with the
“Bourbon” of Porto Rico, and said to owe its introduction into Brazil to
the French. _G. barbadense_ is a blood-brother of the _vitifolium_, and
like all the Sea Island-Egyptian group, is a highly esteemed producer of
top-priced cotton. The fourth of this class is _G. brasiliense_, a true
native, observed growing wild by Jean Lery as early as 1557.
The two most precious of the list, _Gossypium peruvianum_ and _Gossypium
vitifolium_, possess the advantage of being genuine South Americans;
they form a magnificent stock from which the expert cotton grower can
develop a product for the market which need not fear Sea Island as a
rival.
Cultivation of cotton by the Portuguese colonists began very soon after
the granting of the capitanias in 1530. By the year 1570 large crops
were being produced in Bahia, chief centre of industrial activity,
although they could not equal sugar in value. Europe was just beginning
to use this material, for with the acquisition of strips of India by the
Portuguese there was an entry into European markets of Calicut “calico.”
Before this dawn of the cotton era Europe went clothed in leather, wool,
and, on occasions of great splendour, silk. We may conclude that the
clothing of the day was probably as comfortable as, and certainly more
substantial than, garments of the present period, if not as sanitary:
but cleanliness had not yet become a virtue. India taught Europe the use
of cotton, and the spindles and looms of the ladies were filled with the
vegetable fibre in lieu of wool.
In Pernambuco the culture of cotton became of more importance than
sugar; farther south the Paulistas set their Indian slaves to work and
were soon producing cotton crops on widely spread plantations. In the
seventeenth century cotton was carried into Minas Geraes by the gold
hunting bandeirantes, but it was only cultivated in the most desultory
manner and when there was nothing else for the slaves to do. So complete
indeed was disregard of all agricultural work that actual famines
occurred in 1697–98 and in 1700–01 on account of the abandonment of
plantations for gold-washing districts.
When the Marquis de Pombal practically ruled the destinies of Portugal
good fortune led him to take a shrewd interest in Brazil; especially
interested in the comparatively new settlements at Pará and Maranhão,
and struck by the fine fibre exported from these northerly regions, he
decided upon the establishment of spinning and weaving mills. In 1750
the Marquis de Tavora was given the task of engaging expert weavers for
the colonies, and shortly afterwards the first cotton-cloth factories
were set up in Brazil. Pombal’s fatherly interest in weaving did not
extend to the south; these sections of the country should devote their
time to mining and agriculture, he thought, and finding that looms were
being set up all along the coast and in the interior of Minas—always a
good cotton region—he passed a law in 1766 prohibiting cotton and silk
weaving. It had the desired effect of checking the development of any
considerable commerce, but did not prevent the use of hand looms in
almost every farm, where a patch of cotton was as much a part of the
crop as a field of maize. In a _relatorio_ of 1779 the Viceroy Luis de
Vasconcellos reported to Lisbon on the “independence of the people of
Minas of European goods, establishing looms and factories in their own
_fazendas_, and making cloth with which they clothe themselves and their
families and slaves....”
In 1785 the Portuguese Government ordered the suppression of all
factories in Brazil; they must have been considerably advanced, despite
the previous orders, if the decree abolishing establishments for making
“ribbons, laces of gold or silver velvets, satins, taffetas, bombazine,
printed calico, fustian,” etc., etc., meant anything. In spite of this
the weaving of coarse cottons managed to survive, perhaps with the
connivance of sympathetic Viceroys, and repeated letters emphasized the
inconvenience of factories in Brazil: a _carta regia_ of 1802 instructed
the Governor of Minas Geraes not to allow “anyone to present himself
before him unless dressed in materials manufactured in the Kingdom or
the Asiatic dominions.”
The transference of the Portuguese monarchy to Brazil in 1808 changed
all these ideas—which helps to demonstrate the still burning need for
all rulers, of whatever denomination, to take a travelling course—and in
a few years cotton threads and cloths were freed from duties, the Prince
Regent sent a master-weaver at his own expense to set up _fabricas_ in
the interior, and by 1820 the industry was thriving. Cotton growing was
equally stimulated at this period by high prices in England; in 1818
that country was not only buying raw cotton, but cotton cloth, from
Brazil.
With the development of the south of the United States in cotton
production on a great scale a shadow fell over the Brazilian industry.
Unable to compete with the low prices at which North America offered her
bales in the early eighteen-forties the farmers of the southerly states
of Brazil checked their planting, and, coffee just then dawning upon
them as a commercial possibility, filled up the empty spaces in the
fields with the beans of _coffea arabica_. North Brazil, with its
special cottons of long staple, kept on producing these varieties for
home mills, steadily at work, and for European export; a new incentive
came with the Civil War of the United States when Confederate cotton
shipments were contraband and English spinners were at their wits’ end
for raw material, but prices sank with the declaration of peace.
Since the beginning of the present century Brazilian exports of, and
prices received for, national cotton have varied so remarkably that it
is worth while glancing at the statistics; almost the whole of the
export of this raw cotton, and of cotton seed, went to England. If in
addition to this export we reckon about fifty thousand tons as the
amount consumed by the factories of the country, the whole production of
Brazil can never have exceeded ninety thousand tons.
_Year_ _Tons_ _Value in Gold Milreis_
1902 32,137 10,701 contos (one conto equals 1000 milreis)
1903 28,235 11,766 „
1904 13,262 7,347 „
1905 24,081 10,291 „
1906 31,668 14,726 „
1907 38,036 15,418 „
1908 3,565 1,833 „
1909 9,968 5,261 „
1910 11,160 7,934 „
1911 14,647 8,714 „
1912 16,774 9,221 „
1913 37,423 20,513 „
1914 30,434 16,556 „
1915 5,223 2,551 „
Exports almost vanished, to 1000 tons, in 1916, not recovering fully
until 1920, when 25,000 tons were shipped.
What measures are being taken in Brazil to develop cotton culture? First
let us take into consideration new governmental means of assisting the
industry. When the drought of 1914–15 scorched up northern plantations
the weavers found themselves paying higher prices inside Brazil than the
same national cotton was bringing in Liverpool. The Centro Industrial, a
very strong and useful body, asked the Government to hold an enquiry,
and the also extremely powerful Centro do Commercio e Industria of São
Paulo made the suggestion that duties against imported cotton should be
remitted so that the mills could get cheap supplies of foreign material.
Remarking on the situation the _Gazeta de Noticias_ of Rio said: “On one
side we have the cotton planting industry declaring that it will face
certain extinction if the door is opened to foreign raw material; on the
other is the weaving industry declaring that it must shut its doors if
it is not permitted to buy from foreign markets!”
The Federal Government only temporarily remitted dues, believing that
the situation would remedy itself with the new crop—rain fell copiously
at last in the scourged districts, and Ceará alone foretold a cotton
crop of twelve thousand tons for 1916—but prepared to consider measures
to open up larger areas of country to this culture. A project submitted
to the Legislature at the end of 1915 suggested the construction of good
cart roads in cotton districts, and the establishment of modern gins at
convenient points, at the expense of the Government.
Already, three years ago, the Government had acquired the services of
Professor Edward Green, a cotton expert from the United States who has
been working with the double object of classifying and standardizing the
best cottons for plantation in Brazil, and of noting the best regions
for such plantations. At the _Conferencia Algodoeira_ (Cotton
Conference) held in Rio under the auspices of the Centro da Industria in
June, 1916, Professor Green gave an address dealing with some phases of
his labours, and concluded by saying:
“After three years of observation and experiment in Brazil I am
convinced that this country, above any other, possesses excellent
natural conditions for cotton production, and that the development of
this great national resource depends only upon the adoption of a few
simple measures:
“1. The selection and standardization of superior types, and
the production of great quantities of selected seeds for
distribution.
“2. Introduction of simple, animal-drawn cultivators, with practical
instruction on their use to be given to large planters of cotton
in the interior.
“3. Stimulation by the Government of all activities related to the
cotton industry, and suspension for some years of all connected
taxes and duties.
“Extensive propaganda in favor of cotton growing is being animated by
the far-seeing and incomparable activity of Dr. Miguel Calmon. If this
work is continued in all parts of the country where cotton is cultivated
there is no doubt of success. The cotton production of Brazil will find
itself doubled if not quadrupled in a short time, and this country will
take the high place in world markets which is legitimately hers as the
greatest exporter of high-class cotton.”
Both Federal and State Governments have brought technical experts from
foreign countries to help in the solution of Brazilian problems; the
Directorship of the Jardim Botanico in Rio, where a series of valuable
experiments in tropical agriculture were carried out, was for some time
in the hands of an English expert, Dr. John Willis, who brought his
knowledge of Ceylon and Malaysia to bear upon Brazilian conditions; the
work of the eminent Swiss, Dr. Emil Goeldi, on the Amazon, succeeded by
the labours of Dr. Jacques Huber, have been invaluable in regard to
classification of North Brazilian natural plants and their adaptation to
commercial uses, as well as the introduction of suitable tropical
fruits, etc., from other regions. The Ministry of Agriculture in Rio is
the centre of much live work, and has had a series of excellent men at
its head. The brilliant Pedro de Toledo was neither the first nor the
last of agricultural devotees in this post.
The work of State Societies of Agriculture is more highly specialized,
and cotton has its list of societies just as coffee, cacao, sugar and
tobacco have theirs. Many big cotton estate owners take a keen interest
in improving conditions of production, and have been during the last few
years definitely helped by the American expert already referred to and
by a Texan cotton grower at the head of demonstration farms operated by
the Leopoldina Railway Company. One meets in Brazil an unusually high
percentage of finely educated men who are _fazendeiros_, who willingly
leave the gay cities of the coast to live in patriarchal authority upon
interior farms having as their sole connection with the outside world a
narrow mule-track; they appear to have inherited the affection for land
of their own possession which sent the early Portuguese so far afield,
and which seldom seems to be mingled with any dislike of solitude. It is
this feeling which scantily populates the sertão with fazendas, far
removed from any town, dotting the vast interior with _nucleos_ of
independent life; it may be partly due to a strain of Indian ancestry,
for it extends to the upper reaches of the Amazon and its tributaries,
lining, at infrequent intervals, the banks of forest-bound rivers with
palm-thatch huts, their foundations in the water, where families subsist
upon a handful of farinha, and fish caught in the flood below them,
looking with unenvious eyes at the passing boats of rubber collectors
and apparently quite content with their withdrawal from the world. To
such a people, not markedly gregarious, the opening of great tracts of
interior is in accord with their instincts, and cultivation is but a
matter of communication and transport.
The cotton country of Brazil needs expert growers and good roads or rail
service; it will not lack the work of the small native farmer.
There is a cotton cloth factory near Pernambuco which is an excellent
example of a self-contained industry in Brazil. Situated seven miles
outside the mediæval port-city of Olinda, whose narrow cobbled streets
are lined with tiled and gabled houses reminiscent of Dutch regimen, the
estate covers forty-five square miles of pasture and woodland besides
the area directly occupied by the works and the village of employees;
one edge borders on the sea, fringed with coconuts, and there are two
little ports where native _barcaças_ bring their loads of raw cotton and
merchandise, at the mouths of two rivers flowing through the estate.
Here, on the warm coast of the northern promontory with its tropic
vegetation and mestizo population, a Brazilian company started a factory
for spinning and weaving; it was not a marked success until Herman
Lundgren, an energetic man of Swedish birth, resident in Brazil since
1866 and later a naturalized Brazilian, took over the management of the
property. He made an arrangement by which the original owners were paid
ten per cent on their investment, all farther profits belonging to
himself, and later on bought out the old stockholders; new machinery was
brought from Great Britain, technical workers imported from Manchester,
and the scope of the business enlarged so that today all processes for
producing fine coloured cotton cloths are performed on the estate—
spinning, weaving, dyeing and colour-printing. When the writer visited
the factory in the early part of 1915 a shortage of dyestuffs was
predicted and I understand that since that time experiments have been
successfully made with native vegetable dyes, too long abandoned for the
convenient aniline varieties.
The factory employs three thousand five hundred people, of whom seventy
per cent are women and children; the total population in the village is
fifteen thousand. Over thirty-five thousand dollars a month is paid in
wages. The manager of the mills, an Englishman, spoke highly of the
Brazilian operatives: the company has never taken any measures to import
other labour than that of the district; the majority of the workmen’s
dwellings are built and owned by the company, and are rented out
cheaply, while in some cases these modest cottages of sun-dried brick,
thatched with palm or covered with a zinc or tile roof, have been
erected by the workmen themselves, their only obligation to the company
being the payment of ground rent of two to four milreis a month, the
palm-thatched house paying the lowest and the zinc-roofed the highest
rate. The company maintains a school, hospital and dispensary, free, for
the villagers.
Apart from the mills the estate contains a dairy and stock farm—where
some well-known English horses occupy stables, apparently unperturbed by
their transference to Brazilian tropics—tile and brick factories, a
bakery, blacksmith’s shop, and lumber yard. The company uses one
thousand tons of coal a month when it can be obtained, but curtailment
of imports since the outbreak of the European War has entailed a greater
use of wood fuel. This is cut from the _matto_ on the estate, typical
Brazilian woodland of great beauty, containing a marked variety of
different trees, but notable for its absence of animal life with the
exception of insects and some fine butterflies in the neighbourhood of
streams and pools.
The estate produces no cotton, purchasing all of this raw material from
Pernambuco and Parahyba; one hundred and fifty bags weighing
seventy-five kilos each are used daily, and the monthly bill for cotton
amounted to £35,000 or £40,000 even when the price of Brazilian cotton
was down to about eleven milreis an arroba (fifteen kilos), equal at the
rate of exchange then prevailing to about eight cents a pound United
States currency; but towards the end of 1915 native cotton rose in
Brazil to twenty-five and thirty cents a pound in consequence of the
drought in the North followed by crop failures, and factories all over
the country suffered from the shortage.
Pernambuco and other northern factories had an advantage in being nearer
sources of supply, the difference in freight enabling these mills to get
raw material at a rate at least twenty per cent below that paid by the
importers of Rio and S. Paulo. From forty thousand pounds to fifty
thousand pounds a year is spent by the factory on drugs, colours and
chemicals.
Production of cotton cloth averages one million, five hundred thousand
metres a month, woven on nine hundred and sixty looms; the cloth
measures twenty-two to twenty-six inches in width and has an immense
variety, from heavy blue denim to fine flowered fabrics woven or printed
in brilliant colours, beloved by Brazilian working classes. Trains of
mules pass daily along the road from the factory, each animal carrying
two bales of cotton cloth weighing seventy-five kilos each; the whole of
this output is sold in Brazil, distributed over half a score of
different States by shops established by the company. There are over
eighty of these stores, selling cloth and also ready made garments of
simple make, in Pernambuco State alone, as well as others in Bahia,
Ceará, Parahyba, Rio, S. Paulo, Matto Grosso, etc.
HERVA MATTE
Herva matte, sometimes called “Paraguay tea,” is the leaf of a small
tree belonging to the ilex family. It is, botanically, _ilex
paraguayensis_, and has much the appearance of a small, particularly
dense live-oak. It grows wild, and very thickly, in the south Brazilian
State of Paraná, the forests straying out into Matto Grosso, São Paulo,
Santa Catharina, Rio Grande do Sul, and over the borders of the
Argentine; but Paraná is the great home of the little tree and of the
manufacture of the leaf into a commercial product. Its preferred habitat
is from 1500 to 2000 feet above sea-level, and until recently it had
never been cultivated successfully except by the early Jesuit
missionaries; but now Argentina announces her intention of fostering
plantations of matte, and the Brazilian exporters are more alarmed than
were the rubber shippers of the Amazon when they first heard of
Wickham’s experiments.
Prepared in Brazil, matte has little sale in that country; only the
states of the southern border have learned to drink the infusion. Buyers
and users of the leaf are, first, Argentinos and next Paraguayanos, with
several other South American countries taking smaller quantities; the
confirmed matte drinker rejects Indian teas and coffee with contempt,
and there is undoubtedly much to be said for this herb. It is tonic, is
not accused of possessing nerve-attacking properties to the same extent
as tea or coffee, and has a delicate flavour: it has a good opportunity
to prove its qualities in world markets, now that a society has been
formed in Paraná to defend and advertise it. In the Argentine
stock-raising districts every _gaucho_ has his apparatus for making the
infusion, and is said to be able to work all day on this drink and a
little bread.
The leaves are gathered for three or four months in the year, May or
June until August; carried to a central hearth, they are dried over
fires, packed in bags and sent on mule-back to Ponta Grossa or Curityba,
and there carefully prepared for export. Mills and sieves of Brazilian
invention reduce the dried leaves to powder, divide it into qualities
according to the fineness of the reduction, and pack for export;
Paranaguá is _the_ matte port. Thousands of colonists and isolated
dwellers of interior Paraná depend upon matte for the basis of their
living; the _hervaes_ (matte forests) are often seen together with the
fantastic Paraná pine, a thick green growth below the tall stems of this
other tree characteristic of the landscape of southern Brazil. The
Paraná pine, besides its value as a yielder of excellent lumber, is
noted for its product of pine kernels so large that they often exceed
good-sized chestnuts in bulk. They are to be seen in huge sacks on sale
in all the markets of South Brazil, are boiled like chestnuts and form a
nutritious and excellent food. They should be better known, but their
use seems to be largely confined to the Italian population, who have
always had a predilection for pine kernels: when the Romans invaded
Britain they brought and planted pine trees of the nut-yielding variety.
Each matte _herval_ is invaded in the picking season by local gatherers;
the central fire is started, the trees stripped of small branches; care
is taken to prune them so that succeeding yields are not injured; there
is not a great variety of shrubs in the vicinity of the matte forests,
and not much cleaning has to be done. Brought down to the ports, the
cost of prepared matte rarely exceeds six cents: including freight and
other costs it could be placed upon North American markets as it is in
European, at about eighteen to twenty cents a pound in normal times.
During the year 1915 Brazil exported her highest record of matte to
date, 75,800 tons, but left this figure far behind in 1919 and 1920,
with over 90,000 tons. This was not such a good price as that of 1913,
when sixty-five thousand tons fetched 21,000 contos, at an average price
of five hundred and forty-two reis per kilo. The amount exported has
gone up steadily since the beginning of the century, when thirty-five to
forty thousand tons was a fair total.
Argentina, the most important buyer of the “yerba,” has for some years
imposed certain restrictions upon the entry of Brazilian matte,
insisting, as she is right to insist, on guarantees and proofs of its
purity: Brazil has conformed with wishes of the Argentine authorities.
In April, 1915, the customs-houses of Buenos Aires were circularized by
the Argentine Minister of Finance, requesting tests which would have
meant the opening and submitting to chemical analysis of each package of
matte. Compliance meant a very large addition to costs, as each separate
analysis meant an expenditure of at least ten Argentine pesos, or about
four dollars; as a result importation ceased and orders were
countermanded. A month later restrictions were modified, but one
analysis of each consignment being obligatory; at the same time even
more rigid measures were taken to ensure the entry of nothing but
unmixed leaves, the Argentine Counsel of Hygiene urging the Government
not to admit any matte which did not contain at least seven per thousand
of _mateina_ or _cafeina_.
No such rules, meanwhile, have been imposed upon matte of Argentine
origin or milling; the product of the home mills is not free from
suspicion of adulteration with other herbs, and the _Revista de Economia
y Finanzas_ of Buenos Aires (July, 1916) wrote scathingly of the law
which “imposes analysis upon the foreign product, with the preservation
of public health as object, while the product of our mills, uninspected,
may endanger it.” The root of the Argentine obstacle really seems to be
a new project for planting the tree on an extensive scale in the
territory of Misiones, bordering on the south Brazilian,
matte-producing, states; the plan includes plantation of thirty thousand
hectares of land and the construction of a railway line. If success
crowns this enterprise Brazil will not immediately be forced to search
for other consumers of the product of her two hundred thousand square
kilometers of matte forests, but in the course of a few years she might
find her industry seriously threatened. If the society which has taken
up matte defence and advertisement is only half as successful as that
specializing in Brazilian coffee propaganda, matte will find good
markets north of the equator should those below it fail her. The
following is the analysis of matte, compared with green tea, black tea,
and coffee:—
In 1000 parts.
_Green Tea_ _Black Tea_ _Coffee_ _Matte_
Essential oil 7.90 6.00 0.41 0.01
Chlorophyll 22.20 18.14 13.66 62.00
Resin 22.20 36.40 13.66 20.69
Tannin 178.00 128.80 16.39 12.28
Theine or caffeine 4.30 4.60 2.66 2.50
Fibre & cellulose 175.80 283.20 174.83 180.00
Ash 85.60 54.40 25.61 38.10
Extract and colouring matter 464.00 390.00 270.67 238.83
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
960.00 921.54 517.89 554.41
Out of her total exports in 1915 of nearly seventy-six thousand tons,
Brazil sent over fifty-eight thousand to Argentina, fourteen thousand to
Uruguay, and three thousand tons to Chile. In 1920, seventy thousand
tons were sold to the Argentine, eighteen thousand tons to Uruguay, and
rather more than three thousand to Chile, where sales of Oriental teas
compete with the matte leaf.
SUGAR
Sugar production is one of the Brazilian industries which have waxed,
waned, and with the encouragement of high market prices abroad, has
recently again forged ahead. As in the case of cotton, sugar can be and
is grown in the great majority of Brazilian states, from the mouth of
the Amazon down to the Laguna Mirim, but there are areas, chiefly on the
central littoral, where soil and climate are so well suited to sugarcane
that production from these regions is able to compete with other world
offerings. There was a time when Brazil was the chief source of sugar
supplies to Europe, but the industry suffered two great blows—one, the
stimulation of cane-growing in the British West Indies, and again the
abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888, which resulted in many instances
in the abandonment of the plantations by a large part of the negro
population, crowding into the coast cities to enjoy new liberty.
Cane production has all the advantages of an ancient industry whose
details have long been reduced to an exact science. Its recorded history
goes back to the fifth century, so that we can reckon that there have
been fourteen centuries of experiment in cane culture. A native of
Bengal, sugar was in cultivation in the fifth century along the valleys
of the Tigris and the Euphrates; the conquering Moors took it into Spain
in the eighth century, and during the following six or seven centuries
its cultivation on a limited scale proceeded on the shores of the
Mediterranean. In the fifteenth century when Portugal re-found and
colonized Madeira and the Azores, sugarcane was introduced into these
islands, flourished there, and yielded sugar to the home market in
Lisbon. That it was an exotic luxury in Europe generally is proved by
its price: a hundredweight sold in London in 1842 fetched £55.
Twenty-five years later the price had dropped to ten pounds for a like
quantity, but by that time larger supplies were coming in. After the
discovery of the West Indian Islands by Columbus cane was introduced
into Hispaniola and Cuba by the Spanish settlers, but cultivation was
strongly discouraged by the home government, who chiefly aimed at the
stimulation of gold-mining. Brazil, whose gold-deposits were luckily not
discovered until the seventeenth century, became in contrast to New
Spain an agricultural country from the time when the first _capitanias_
were allotted: she began shipping sugar in the visiting Portuguese
caravels in a few years after first settlement.
Thenceforth for over a century and a quarter Brazil became the main
source of sugar supplies to Europe; when placer gold and diamond-bearing
gravels were found by the _bandeirantes_ everyone rushed to the General
Mines taking slaves along, until the coast plantations were denuded both
of masters and labourers. Consequent languishing of sugar production
made it worth while for both England and France to develop cane growing
in the West Indian isles which they had seized from Spain. It was in
1662 that the British “Company of Royal Adventurers of Africa” agreed to
deliver three thousand slaves a year to the British West Indies, and
sugar production in Jamaica, Barbados, etc., began to attract wealthy
planters: whole fleets of high-prowed sailing ships came into Caribbean
waters to take away sugar, rum and molasses in those palmy days,
enduring until Napoleon started the beet-sugar industry and Great
Britain, not long after, abolished the slave trade.
Europe only discovered her possession of a sweet tooth during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before the great production of
sugar from the New World began to be carried to Spain and Portugal, and
by them distributed at high prices and in small quantities to the rest
of Europe, the only sweetening known to the masses of the population was
honey, and this was a luxury. There was no taste for sweets until sweets
became common. The real taste of the Middle Ages was for spices; it is
not generally realized today to what extent the food of Europe was at
this period saturated with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and other spices
brought from the Orient. It was for the “Spice Isles” that the early
navigators searched the wide seas, spices that they ate with a gusto
almost incomprehensible today: they flavoured their beverages and
scented their clothes with spices.
The most flourishing centres of sugar production in Brazil are in the
State of Rio de Janeiro, where Campos is the focus of sugar deliveries,
and Pernambuco, a thousand miles farther north; São Paulo has also an
increasing sugar industry, as may be seen from the following list of
large sugar mills; small factories, of which there are hundreds in
Brazil chiefly turning out _rapadura_, a brown sugar-brick, and
_cachaça_, the native rum, are not included:—
Alagôas 9
Bahia 7
Maranhão 3
Minas Geraes 7
Parahyba do Norte 2
Pernambuco 46
Rio de Janeiro 31
Santa Catharina 2
São Paulo 20
Sergipe 15
Piauhy 1
Rio Grande do Norte 3
———
139
On almost every cotton, coffee, tobacco or other _fazenda_ in Brazil,
besides those given over to sugar production, one finds patches of the
bright veridian green that demonstrates the presence of sugar, grown and
milled for home uses; altogether the production of sugar in Brazil must
be much larger than is shown by any statistics, and there does not exist
any comprehensive estimate of the total amount. A few years ago the
charge could be made that Brazilian sugar-milling methods were
antiquated, extraction low because the machinery employed was inferior:
but whoever repeats this tale today has not seen any of the huge,
scientifically managed estates and mills of Pernambuco, the _usinas_ of
the country about Campos, where the sky-line is punctuated by slim
chimneys, or any of the fine modern equipments of São Paulo. One of the
first good mills that the writer saw in Brazil was at Piracicaba, in the
interior of São Paulo, where an excellent product was marketed by the
employment of thoroughly up-to-date methods. Here the installation of
machinery is European, chiefly French, but there has been an increasing
tendency since the outbreak of war in Europe towards purchases of
American equipment, perhaps especially among the _usinas_ of the
northern promontory.
Exports of sugar from Brazil have fluctuated in an extraordinary manner
since the beginning of this century; swift drops in amounts sent abroad
have nearly always spelt “drought,” but there seems to have been a
general tendency to decline until the stimulation of war prices helped
the industry, due partly to formidable competition from the Caribbean
islands and coasts, and partly to increased consumption in Brazil. A
marked feature of the Brazilian sugar export lists is a developing sale
to Argentina; it has been recently stimulated by the failure of
Argentine supplies, but is also part of the symptomatic increase of
interchange between the commercial South American countries. Brazilian
sugar exports, shipped in bags of sixty kilos weight, 1906 to 1920 in
round numbers:—
1906 85,000 tons
1907 13,000 „
1908 32,000 „
1909 68,000 „
1910 59,000 „
1911 36,000 „
1912 4,800 „
1913 5,400 „
1914 32,000 „
1915 59,000 „
1916 54,000,000 „
1917 138,000,000 „
1918 116,000,000 „
1919 69,000,000 „
1920 109,000,000 „
The price has ranged during this period from two hundred and twenty-five
reis per kilo paid for the short crop of 1904, down to one hundred and
eight reis paid in 1906 when the crop was large; from that low point it
climbed upwards, fluctuating about one hundred and sixty to one hundred
and eighty reis from 1907 to 1913, fixed exchange making this price the
equivalent of about three and a half to four cents a kilo, or something
like a cent and a quarter to a cent and three-quarters per pound. In
1914, with war prices encouraging the sugar market, the price rose to
two hundred and twelve reis a kilo, and in 1915 to two hundred and
forty-four reis, a figure exceeded enormously in the post-war boom of
1919–20.
The average yield of sugarcane per hectare in Rio de Janeiro and São
Paulo is fifty tons, or let us say something over twenty tons an acre;
this does not compare with Caribbean coast yields, where eighty or
ninety tons an acre is obtained from lands impregnated with volcanic
ash, and fields are to be seen which have not been re-planted for a
dozen years. Brazilian soils, chiefly composed of drifts of
disintegrated granite, oxidized by the sun to a brilliant red tint, are
sometimes very rich, but also are frequently just good honest soils that
cannot stand abuse without exhaustion following; with proper rotation of
crops these lands will yield generously, but it is scarcely surprising
that, in regions where sugar has been almost continuously cultivated for
a couple of centuries, the cane crop per acre is comparatively low.
Pernambuco, for instance, counts her cane cultivation from the year
1534, when the first _engenho_ (sugar mill), piously named _Nossa
Senhora de Ajuda_, was established near the settlement at Olinda.
Brazilians are large consumers of sugar; the internal consumption has
been calculated at three hundred thousand tons a year, or some eighty to
ninety pounds a head of the population, and, with the exception of fine
sweets imported, chiefly from France, all of the sugar used in Brazil is
nationally produced. The sugar growing and refining industry is in an
exceedingly healthy condition, is one of the important national
resources, and has shown marked revival during the last two years.
[Illustration:
Carioca Cotton Mill, Rio de Janeiro.
Catende Sugar Mill, Pernambuco.
]
TOBACCO
The use of tobacco in Brazil dates back an unknown number of centuries:
the natives smoked the leaf, both in the form of rolled cigars and also
in small quantities in wooden pipes, made in the fashion which Europe
subsequently adopted. The first European to make any record of this
habit was that painstaking Frenchman, André Thevet, who came to Rio de
Janeiro with Villegaignon’s unfortunate expedition in November, 1555; he
says that the native name for the plant was “betun” or “petum,” and the
drawing in his book (_La Cosmographie Universelle_) identifies it with
_Nicotiana tabacum_. In the Amazonian regions both men and women smoked
tobacco as a recognized form of enjoyment, and its effects were so much
appreciated by another traveller, Piso, that he declared it to be one of
the three American plants which had no equal in the Old World for
beneficial uses—coca, tobacco, and the root of mandioca. Tobacco-smoking
by American natives had first been noticed by the crew of Columbus in
1492.
During the latter half of the sixteenth century Europeans began to take
to the use of tobacco, the Spanish colonies sending it home from the
West Indian Islands and the Portuguese from Brazil; it was not until
about 1600 that it was seriously cultivated for export in the Brazilian
_capitanias_, and when experiments were made with this object it was
found that Bahia yielded the best product, although that of Pernambuco
was also good, and the plant produced freely all along the littoral,
from Amazonas to the lagoons of Rio Grande do Sul. Tobacco became during
colonial days one of the important exports of Brazil, together with
dyewoods and sugar.
Brazil marks her extensive cultivation of tobacco from about 1850, after
her ports had been thrown open to world commerce and the flags of all
lands were seen in her ports. In 1860 she exported 4,609 tons; in 1870,
13,276 tons and in 1873, nearly 17,000 tons, of which over 14,500 tons
came from Bahia. By the year 1886 Brazilian exportation had risen to
23,000 tons, the value was over 15,000,000 francs (or more than
$3,000,000) and a part of this to the value of 3,500,000 francs, “was
returned to us made up into so-called Havana cigars,” remarks Almeida.
“It was not fashionable to smoke any tobacco or cigars other than of the
Havana kind in Brazil fifteen years ago.”
Now ideas have changed: Brazil realizes the value of her own product,
and Bahia has no hesitation in challenging Vuelta Abajo to a comparison.
Soils of the two regions are similar in qualities. Farther north, the
Brazilian _fumo_ has a stronger, less delicate flavour, and is largely
consumed at home; cigarettes of Pará, Amazonas, Parahyba, Pernambuco,
Matto Grosso, Minas, and many other states are manufactured in large
quantities, and sold cheaply; very good Pará cigarettes made of the
black local tobacco sell at ten for a “tostão”—a fraction over two
cents.
By the end of the century Brazilian tobacco production had grown to some
forty thousand tons, largely the result of ready markets in Germany,
which practically absorbed the whole of this export until the outbreak
of the European War, and the adoption of North American seeds and
methods of cultivation. The output suffers fluctuations due to climatic
conditions, as will be seen from inspection of the following figures; it
will be noticed that prices have on the whole a tendency to rise:
_Year_ _Tons_ _Total Value in Gold _Price per Kilo in Paper
Milreis_ Milreis_
1905 20,390 7,335 contos 636 reis
1910 34,149 14,453 „ 714 „
1915 27,096 10,328 „ 835 „
1920 30,561 1200 „
In calculating prices it is well to bear in mind that the gold milreis
is always worth twenty-seven English pence, while, although fixed
between 1906 and 1914 at sixteen pence, the value of the paper milreis
fluctuates. During 1915 it was worth an average of a fraction over
twelve pence, so that the price of tobacco—eight hundred and thirty-five
reis a kilo—may be considered as about eighteen cents a kilo, or a
little over seven American cents per pound. While, as we have seen,
thirty thousand tons of tobacco is exported each year from Brazil,
enough remains in the country to supply ninety-six per cent of the
internal consumption; cigars, tobacco and cigarettes are consumed in the
country to the value of 40,622 contos, importations being worth only
1,500 contos of this amount.
Every state in Brazil has its large or small tobacco factories, but the
great manufacturing region is that of São Felix, just across the bay
from São Salvador (Bahia) city. Accessible to the factories established
here are the finest tobacco regions: the product is excellent in flavour
and well prepared for a discriminating market. Organizers of the
manufacturing industry, as well as shippers to Europe, are largely
German; German also is the big cigar factory of the South, that of Poock
in Rio Grande do Sul, whose product goes all over Brazil.
Since the beginning of the European War the absence of German and
Austrian shipping movement has paralyzed tobacco sales, and as this item
forms about thirty per cent of Bahia’s exports it was necessary to seek
unimpeded sales channels. Negotiations were opened with the _Regie
Française_, the great French tobacco-buying organization, and the
packing, quality, fermentation and other conditions studied with
reference to sales.
CEREALS
Wheat growing is only possible on a commercial scale in the south of
Brazil where temperature and climate are not unlike those of the
European lands of origin of this cereal. At present Rio Grande is the
only great wheat producing state, although Paraná has a budding
industry; the great Italian firm of Matarazzo has recently acquired
large areas of land in that state with the object of growing wheat and
establishing a flour mill.
Rio Grande, which owes the major part of its opening-up to the German
settlers who emigrated there about the middle of the nineteenth century,
already grows half enough wheat to satisfy the internal needs of the
State, for although she still imports 361,000 barrels of flour, and
236,000 bushels of wheat (equal to another 47,000 barrels) yet she also
grows enough wheat to yield 407,000 barrels of native flour. She has, it
is calculated, over 83,000 hectares of land under wheat, employs 29,000
field hands, and has over a thousand grain mills. Many of these are
equipped with out-of-date machinery, and are small, but there are others
fitted with good modern systems producing fine flour.
Two of the best wheat producing municipalities are Alfredo Chaves and
Caxias, each of which have over four thousand hectares under wheat and
produce an average of six thousand tons of this grain; the first
municipality has fifty-one and the second sixty-seven mills. To show the
“riograndense” growth in wheat production:
1909 15,250 tons
1910 31,267 „
1912 52,332 „
1915 55,000 „
Santa Catharina is a cereal State, but does not today produce notable
quantities; São Paulo, the high interior of Rio de Janeiro, and the
hills of Minas, are all suitable; fine wheat, barley and oats are often
seen in the vicinity of European colonies. But Brazilian production is
not yet within measurable distance of coping with internal demands, and
as a result wheat, with wheat-flour, accounts for one-fifth of Brazil’s
total import values. The bulk of the grain imported comes from the River
Plate.
Linked with the agricultural production of cereals is the flour-milling
industry, which dates from the time when wheat entered Brazil free of
duty while wheat-flour paid thirty reis a kilo: this was the condition
of the tariff until December, 1899, by which time two large mills had
been established in Rio de Janeiro. In January of the following year
imported wheat was taxed for the first time, ten reis a kilo, while the
duty on flour was reduced to twenty-five reis; national milling profits
suffered correspondingly.
In 1906 other alterations were made in the tariff as regards flour from
the United States, in addition to certain manufactured articles; it was
suggested to Brazil that the United States was a good customer for
Paulista coffee and Amazonian rubber, and that she expected “most
favoured nation” treatment in return: a tax of three American cents per
kilo against coffee was indicated as a short way with objectors. Brazil
yielded, giving the United States a twenty per cent reduction on flour
import duties, as well as for condensed milk, manufactures of rubber,
clocks, dyes, varnishes, typewriters, ice-boxes, pianos, scales and
wind-mills. Four years later the preferential tariff was extended to
dried fruit, cement, school and office furniture, and in 1911 the rebate
on flour entries was changed to thirty per cent.
As a result American sales of the goods indicated have increased very
largely, although sales of rubber and coffee have remained, on Brazil’s
part, about the same for the last seven or eight years; her more
markedly larger shipments to North America are cacao and hides. But
American flour imports into Brazil have increased from a little over
twenty-four thousand tons in 1906 to nearly sixty thousand tons in 1920,
with rises in other articles equally pleasant for the northern
manufacturer—cement sales, for instance, increased from one hundred and
twenty tons in 1908 to over 76,000 tons in 1920; but in 1921 Germany,
selling 30% below her rivals, captured this trade. Reduction of taxes on
American flour is actively opposed from two points; the first is the
group of flour mills operating in the country, and the second in the
sister republic of Argentina who also has flour to sell.
The flour mills in Brazil of commercial importance are eleven in number:
the Moinho Fluminense and the Rio de Janeiro Flour Mills, in the city of
Rio; Moinho Santa Cruz, across the bay in Nictheroy; Grandes Moinhos
Gambas and Moinho Matarazzo, in São Paulo city; Moinho Santista, in
Santos; there are three modern mills in Rio Grande State, at Pelotas,
Porto Alegre, and Rio Grande City; Paraná has two, at Paranaguá and
Antonia.[14]
The great cereal of Brazil is that wonderful plant developed by the
aborigines of the Americas, maize: it is commonly known as _milho_ in
Brazil. Only recently has the wild plant, mother of all the different
kinds of maize in the world, been identified—a proof of the long culture
which brought it to the perfection which the first European conquerors
encountered; yet such was the hardihood of this cereal that thirty years
after the Conquest it had spread all over the warm parts of Europe and
was thriving in Africa and Asia.
It is, with mandioca, the great food of all South and Central America
and Mexico, grows under almost any conditions, apparently, and while the
seed is seldom carefully selected, strongly marked varieties of prolific
habit are found in Brazil, the red, white and yellow all yielding well.
It is found in patches outside every little hut, and in enormous fields
in Central Brazil. In spite of the large importation of wheat nowadays
to satisfy the more luxurious tastes of the cities, Brazil could not
live without maize.
Rye is grown by the Russians of the southern colonies, and the south
also produces a limited quantity of oats and barley.
FIBRES
Among the fibres of Brazil which are offered extensive markets is the
wonderful _paina_, known in European markets as kapok, which is
thirty-four times lighter than water and fourteen times lighter than
cork. Produced chiefly in the Orient, its qualities were many years ago
appreciated by German manufacturers who were until recently the largest
purchasers of the fibre, using it for life-belts, mattresses, etc. Today
an unsatisfied demand for kapok comes from the _Société Industrielle et
Commerciale du Kapok_ of Paris and London, which is said to expect
enormous calls after the close of the war, when rehabilitated Belgium
and northern France will need pillows, mattresses, coverlets, and
quantities of other things with the qualities of lightness, warmth,
elasticity and impermeability possessed by this renowned fibre. At
present world supplies come from Java (best fibre, cleanest, best
packed), British India, an inferior grade, as is also that of Central
Africa and Senegal; a few years ago, at the suggestion of Germans
interested in Venezuelan railways, the kapok tree was introduced there;
but when the cotton was sent to Europe it was rejected on account of its
condition “the greater part of the bales containing stones, refuse,
etc., which sometimes amounted to thirty per cent of the total weight;
thus, in spite of the fine quality of Venezuelan kapok, French importers
were obliged to cease purchases,”—a lesson for careless exporters.
Many parts of Brazil display this beautiful tree. When the writer was
first in Petropolis, in bright May weather, the avenues of that mountain
city were gay with the large bright pink flowers of this grey-trunked,
spreading exotic. Later, when the bolls ripen, the fibre is collected,
sold by the kilo over many counters throughout the country, and used
locally for stuffing pillows and cushions.
The price paid by France for paina fibre is about one hundred and forty
to one hundred and sixty francs per hundred kilos of good-grade
material: she imposes no duties against its entry. Brazil has many good
fibres, but their extensive industrial use is as yet limited to
_aramina_, of which coffee bags are made in S. Paulo, a flourishing
industry, and the _pita_ which is used by the Indians of Amazonas to
make hammocks. These are woven with great art, interspersed along the
edges with delicate feathers of gay-coloured Amazonian birds.
Fibre production in a scientific manner and on a commercial scale is
only in its infancy in Brazil, but has recently shown interesting
development. There are numbers of fine fibres native to the country,
yielded not only by a large number of palms, one of which supplies the
_piassava_ exported for broom-making, but also by many plants of the
aloe tribe. Some of these produce fibres equal in commercial value to
the famous _henequen_ (sisal) of Yucatan, upon which the rope-making
industries of the United States so largely depend.
Banana fibre is used by the lace-makers of the north for the production
of a curious, stiff, shiny lace of fairly intricate workmanship. The
best specimens which I possess of this lace were bought at Maceió, but
the great home of the lacemaker is Ceará. She usually works with linen
or cotton threads, and is to be seen at every cottage door, with her
pillow bristling like those of the Devonshire lace-makers, with scores
of pins, while she throws the myriad bobbins to and fro, working her
pattern on the pins.
Some of the lace produced is quite beautiful, of extreme fineness and
intricacy, some of the most prized being the _labyrintho_, with its
darned-in pattern of heavier, silky thread, among the fine filaments of
the background. Lace-making is one of the small industries of Brazil
which are little known, but deserve a better market.
CACAO
Cacao culture and preparation is the great absorbing industry of
southern Bahia, where soil and climate, particularly along a couple of
river valleys, combine to render the pretty little cacao tree fruitful.
Not even coffee presents a more charming sight than a good cocoa
plantation ready for harvest, the sun filtering through the light
branches, and these, as well as the trunk thickly clustered with the big
heavy red or yellow pods, looking something like elongated melons
attached, almost stemless, to the strongest parts of the tree. Methods
in use on many native plantations in Brazil are fairly primitive, and it
is the exception to see the elaborate machinery for fermenting, washing,
and drying such as is common in Trinidad; but the cacao produced is
good, has a ready sale in a market which never seems to have too much
cocoa and chocolate, and has made remarkably good prices since the
European War began. Bahia is the great producing state, but Maranhão,
Amazonas and Pará also send contributions to the export lists; the chief
Bahian centres of production are Ilhéos and Itabuna, which send
two-thirds of the crop, the rest coming from Cannavieiras and Belmonte
primarily. The groves run inland for more than two hundred miles along
the river valleys, full of the red triturated paste which is the base of
Brazilian soil.
The cacao year is reckoned from May the first to April the thirtieth,
and there are two gathering seasons: the _safra_ proper begins in
September and goes on until April, while the summer crop, the
_temperão_, begins in May and has a less important yield. Practically,
picking goes on all the year.
Cacao is native to the Americas, but its first cultivation and export
from Bahia appears to date no earlier than about 1834, when there are
records of shipments of 447 sacks of sixty kilos each. In 1840 the
export was nearly 2,000 sacks, and in 1850 had risen to more than 5,000
sacks. In 1915 Bahia shipped about 750,000 sacks, as a result of the
enthusiastic planting which has gone on in this favourable region for
the last twenty years.
Until the war broke out the average price for six years for Brazilian
cacao was about 725 reis a kilo—about seven cents a pound. It was at
this price that Brazil sold an average of thirty-two thousand tons. In
1915 the price soared to 1$248 a kilo, or about twelve cents a pound,
and Brazil with the biggest crop then on record exported 44,980 tons, a
total exceeded in each of the following five years, 1919 showing exports
of 93,000 tons, at 1$500 per kilo.
Cacao is a very good business, because there is seldom a surplus in
world markets; a demand exists for every pound, and the populations of
great centres seem to consume it in increasing quantities; it is a
valuable food, against which as yet no analytical chemist has laid one
of the charges that seem designed to warn us from most things that are
agreeable to eat and drink.
Anyone accustomed to warm climates, with a little capital to invest, and
able and willing to wait three or four years for his first returns,
could do worse than to take up cacao planting in Brazil.
Agricultural methods in Brazil are in many regions quite primitive. When
wild land is taken up, it is denuded by the axe of its big trees, and
the small scrub disposed of by burning the land over. Frequently the
next process is little more than that of making holes in the ground with
a stick, dropping in seed, and waiting for it to come up: a fertile
land, Brazil gets her crops with a minimum of trouble. That is all very
well for the little owner of a small property, but it has already given
way in more advanced districts to sound agricultural methods. Modern
scientific agricultural implements of American and European make are
commonly seen in the centre and south, but in the extreme north and the
deep interior they are more rare. There is an excellent market for
small, light hand ploughs, harrows and cultivators, for in some parts of
the country, such as interior Rio, the land in the bottoms of valleys is
very good, has been neglected because only coffee, planted on the
hilltops, has pre-occupied the small farmer, but there is not sufficient
flat space for the use of large motor or animal operated machinery. A
campaign of agricultural instruction has been inaugurated for some years
by the Department of Agriculture, some good statistics and maps and
literature sent out, but perhaps less theory and more practical
instruction is needed. A recent writer in the _Estado de S. Paulo_
remarked upon this, rather caustically: “... instructions for the
culture of squashes—plough the ground with a plough with a disc of such
a number, harrow it with such or such a harrow, drill it with such or
such a drill; afterwards fertilize it with so many tons of phosphate of
lime, so many of potash, and a few kilos of powdered gold; cultivate it
with such a cultivator, harvest the crop with such and such methods, and
take it to market in a certain kind of motor-truck, et cetera, this
‘etcetera’ meaning that the farmer must hand over his farm to his
creditors and go to hunt a job as sanitary inspector....”
Other countries have also suffered from a plethora of agricultural
theory, but there is plenty of room for instruction of a practical
character and several good agricultural schools in Brazil, notably that
at Piracicaba, São Paulo, are leading the way.
BRAZILIAN FRUITS
There are many fine fruits in Brazil, unrecognized abroad, which may
some day, with refrigerating spaces in outgoing vessels multiplied, find
a way to international tables; there is already a pineapple export to
Europe, arriving in time for Christmas, and Brazil’s sweet bananas are
shipped to the Plate. But who realizes that Brazil is the native home of
the finest oranges in the world? Bahia is the place of origin of the
seedless orange; slips of this tree, taken to California, have created a
tremendous daughter industry whose products are spread far and wide by
steamer and train; there is no export from Brazil, the Bahian orange,
which is greatly superior in size and flavour to the Californian, hardly
creeping down the coast to the markets of Rio and São Paulo. There is
room for a huge industry in growing and shipping in this direction, and
some of the planters of California, trembling of nights when the frosts
come and smudges have to be burnt—sometimes in vain, would do well to
transfer their skill and energy to a land where frosts are unknown, land
is cheap, and the best oranges known are produced without any great care
or science.
MINING
Brazil was for more than a hundred years after the discovery of placer
deposits in the interior the source of important gold exports;
altogether she is estimated to have yielded gold worth more than a
hundred million pounds sterling, but her fame diminished with the
exhaustion of the gold-bearing river sands. It was easy enough to wash
out gold grains with the _bateia_, but when it became necessary to seek
mother lodes and to use machinery, native capital and technical skill
were lacking. Two gold-mining companies are working today in Brazil,
both British owned and operated, and both in the State of Minas Geraes.
One, at Morro Velho, property of the S. João del Rey Mining Company, is
worked at a depth of a mile and a quarter, pays dividends regularly, and
is a standing tribute to British energy and skill: it is a magnificent
social organization as well as an engineering triumph.
The second company of importance using modern equipment is that of
Passagem, close to the old capital of Minas Geraes, Ouro Preto; it is
excellently operated, but has not had equal good fortune with the Morro
Velho mine. In 1916 Brazil’s gold exports, in bars, weighed 4,564,523
grams, were worth about £480,000, and went entirely to England, but
Brazil subsequently forbade gold exports, and now takes over all the
product.
A certain amount of Brazilian gold is absorbed internally every year by
the excellent native goldsmiths, for the fabrication of special
jewellery objects, but no estimate of the value is obtainable.
Until diamonds were found in South Africa Brazil was the cradle of the
most important diamonds put on foreign markets; the stones are still
sought by native _garimpeiros_, mostly, in the interior of Minas and
Bahia, and from the _grutas_ of the latter State are obtained the finest
white diamonds known. But they have practically disappeared from export
lists together with the black _carbonados_, even more valuable, for a
reason commented upon by the _Diario Official_ of Bahia, discussing 1915
trade: “If diamonds and carbonados have been, since the war, sent to
Europe or North America, their exportation, which is for the most part
unknown, has been realized by the habitual processes of smuggling.”
Brazil is the main source of these “carbonados,” black diamonds of great
hardness and therefore value, used industrially.
The precious stones openly shipped from all Brazil during 1915 were
worth only about one hundred and seventy-six contos of reis (say
forty-four thousand dollars), of which about fifty-five per cent went to
the United States and the rest to France. During 1916 the export of
precious and semi-precious Brazilian stones to North America has been
greatly stimulated by the access of luxury-purchasing which has
coincided with the accumulation of war profits, and out of American
purchases of jewels from abroad at the rate of a million dollars a week
Brazil has her share. The stones of Brazil have long been appreciated in
Europe—I am thinking of a certain shop in the Rue de la Paix in Paris
and another at the top of Regent Street in London—and deserve to be
better known in North America; the diamonds are beautiful, and their
distribution among not only the wealthy but the “middle” classes in
Brazil is so usual, the possession of good diamonds is so universally
considered the right of every woman, that a gala night at the theatre in
São Paulo or Rio is a display of brilliant stones which would put, for
choice jewels, many capitals of the world to shame.
The lovely sea-blue _agua-marinhas_, with exquisite transparency and
lustre, the soft green _tourmalinas_, the pink and golden topazes and
purple amethysts are all found in great quantities in the Brazilian
interior: many are native cut, and the wheel of the lapidary using
beautiful coloured stones may be seen at work in Bello Horizonte, Rio,
Bahia, and São Paulo.
If half that geologists have said of Brazil is true, this country is
destined to become one of the greatest mining regions of the Americas;
it has an extraordinary variety of minerals, but their location in the
interior where little transportation exists, added to the restraining
influences of archaic mining laws, has checked enterprise. Before the
European War began plans were well under way for development of
important iron mines in Minas Geraes by an English company, but work is
in abeyance at present. There has been, however, a marked increase in
exports of high-grade manganese, chiefly from Minas, chiefly shipped
away in the newly operating line of freight steamers owned by the United
States Steel Corporation, which bring manufactured products to Brazil.
Out of the total of more than three hundred thousand tons of this ore
exported from Brazil in 1915, over two hundred and sixty-six thousand
tons were sent to the United States, the price paid being over two and a
half million dollars; Great Britain also took ten thousand tons, but
Germany and Belgium, former customers for this ore, were eliminated from
the lists.
During 1916 production, mainly from Minas deposits, rose to over five
hundred thousand tons, again increasing to five hundred and thirty-three
thousand tons in 1917; after this time depression was experienced, due
in great measure to lessened demands from the United States using
home-produced low-grade ores for steel hardening. Post-war prospects of
development of the great Itabira iron deposits suggest iron and steel
industries within Brazil.
Large manganese deposits also occur in the neighbourhood of Nazareth, on
the mainland side of the Bahia de Todos os Santos (Bahia State),
situated conveniently for shipment; its export was reduced to
practically nothing from this point during 1914 and 1915, probably for
the same reason that shipments of another famous Brazilian mineral,
monazite sand, vanished about the same time from Bahian lists. This
reason was the imposition of strangulating export taxes, amounting to
about twenty-two per cent of the value of the mineral. Manganese
deposits are known to exist, in addition to the beds in Bahia and Minas,
in Matto Grosso, Santa Catharina, Paraná and Amazonas; the total
quantity available is estimated at one hundred million tons.
Monazite sands lie all along the southerly shores of Bahia, extending
into Espirito Santo; their peculiar glow and lustre was first noticed by
an Englishman, John Gordon, who had samples examined and found that they
contained thorium, used in making incandescent gas mantles; he was in
the shipping business in Brazil, and had no difficulty in thenceforth
sending large quantities of the precious sands abroad, as ballast; the
story goes that only by an accident was the fact revealed to the
authorities that the sands were valuable above the ballast of most
vessels, after some years. Duties were put on, and eventually exports
slumped. The largest amount officially sent abroad in one year was 2,114
tons, 1908, with a value of 609 contos of reis. In 1915 only 439 tons
were exported, all to the United States.
These three meagre items, precious stones, manganese and monazite sands,
complete the 1915 official mining exports of a great mineral country.
Probably increases will be shown for the year 1916, for, in addition to
manganese increases, there has been great stimulation of coal mining in
the States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina and Paraná. More than
one Brazilian railway, exasperated at the prices demanded for foreign
coal, has been using native coal and helping in its production, and
during the latter part of 1916 experimental shipments were made to the
Argentine. Results are said to be good, but a little caution must be
used before serious claims are made concerning the existence of very
extensive deposits of fine hard steam coal. In any case the production
of useful coal is a blessing to the east coast of South America, devoid
as this region has been up to the present of any source of reliable
_carvão de pedra_; every ton has been imported, chiefly from Wales but
latterly from North America. Chile, on the other side of the Andes, has
been mining coal for years, but the quality is not satisfactory for all
purposes, and supplies have been supplemented from Australia in normal
times.
Brazil has, it is known, important deposits of nickel, copper, lead,
mica, platinum, wolfram, and many other minerals, but there has been no
real attempt at operations, and until prospecting is systematically
undertaken and money put into good equipment, Brazil cannot take her
place as a great mineral producing country. She has the minerals, but
she needs roads to get them out, and favourable laws to encourage mining
development, as well as abolition of strangulating taxes. With
intelligent assistance, Brazil’s manganese should be able at the close
of the European War to compete with that of Russia, and her monazite
with that of Travancore (India), aside from the other rich deposits.
BRAZILIAN MANUFACTURES
There is much controversy in Brazil on the subject of national
manufactures. I have heard extremists declare roundly that Brazil ought
not to manufacture anything at all, because each mill-hand is one more
person taken away from the fields to which all Brazilian attention
should be given.
“Brazil is an agricultural country,” a cotton planter said to the
writer. “She cannot legitimately compete with the manufactured products
of great industrial countries because the price of living is too high
here. To obtain large revenues from the import taxes which are the
Federal Government’s source of support we have heavy duties against
large classes of goods entering the country; the barrier has been so
high that it has been worth while for factories to be started here,
sometimes making things from material produced in the country, which is
not bad policy when we have enough labour, but often making goods every
separate item of which is imported, an absurdity.”
He went on to say that there is a considerable manufacture of matches in
Brazil, but that the igniting chemicals, the little sticks, and the
boxes were all imported; nothing was done but the mere putting together.
“It is only remunerative because the tax on imported matches is so high,
and in many districts owing to want of communication the match factory
has a monopoly of local trade—a purely artificial condition.” This
fazendeiro was equally opposed to the silk and velvet factories of
Petropolis, declaring that “every item, raw silk, colours, machinery,
even the skilled weavers, are imported” and that until Brazil produces
national silk—a beginning has been made—she should not have silk
factories.
[Illustration:
Coffee-loading equipment at the port of Santos, State of São Paulo.
Sugar lands In Pernambuco.
]
This view was that of the agriculturist who sees a menace to labour
supplies in the growing manufactures of Brazil: I give it for what it is
worth, as an interesting view point with force in some of the argument.
But there are industries in Brazil which the agriculturist will admit to
be legitimate in themselves and helpful to himself in that they tend to
raise prices for his raw products. Of this class the most shining
example is the list of cotton mills. They are already so active that the
national supply of raw cotton is not sufficient for their needs, demand
being so acute in 1919 that the price in Brazil rose to forty cents a
pound. The output is sold in Brazil, supplying over eighty per cent of
the fabrics used, with a surplus for export since 1918.
It is not generally recognized to what extent Brazilian manufactures
have developed. The great industrial region is Rio de Janeiro. Her
industrial advance has been made possible in this direction, as in
agriculture, by the influx of sturdy Italians, Portuguese and Spanish
workers.
At the same time the manufacturing section is not confined to S. Paulo;
it is notably active in Minas and Rio, especially where electric power
derived from waterfalls is employed, and in Bahia and Pernambuco where
tobacco and sugar create legitimate home industries, and where there is
a sufficiency of native and negro labour, the latter an inheritance from
slavery days.
The total value of the products of Brazilian factories is about
2,000,000 contos of reis, equal at twelve pence exchange to £100,000,000
or in U. S. currency, $500,000,000 _mais ou menos_. This is a larger sum
than the value of Brazil’s exported agricultural and forestal products,
which was about 1,811,000 contos in 1919, and 1,464,000 contos in 1920.
This calculation, however, is not quite fair because it does not take
into consideration the agricultural produce consumed in the country;
there are no figures available on this subject.
In a review of commerce published in May, 1916, the _Jornal do
Commercio_ said that out of the ninety-four classes of Brazilian
manufacture, eighty were free from internal taxes (the “imposto do
consumo”) while fourteen were subject to tax, as well as to foreign
competition.
It was demonstrated that in these fourteen classes Brazilian
manufactures fell below fifty per cent of the total consumption in only
one instance, that of pharmaceutical specialties. The most important
items are these, in round numbers:
_Brazilian-made_ _Imported_
Woven fabrics (chiefly cotton, but 450,000 contos 47,300 contos 82
some silk and wool)
Beverages (mineral waters, beer, 101,300 contos 47,640 contos 68
wine, spirits)
Footwear (leather shoes and boots, 150,225 contos 2,425 contos 97
and _alpagartas_)
Prepared tobacco, cigarettes and 39,000 contos 1,565 contos 96
cigars
Hats 29,000 contos 3,800 contos 86
Matches 18,000 contos 4 contos 99.9
Conserves 13,300 contos 9,800 contos 58
Pharmaceutical specialties 11,700 contos 15,780 contos 43
In 1921 the number of home-made goods paying imposts rose to 21, and the
value to well over one million contos, and includes, besides those
detailed above, vinegar, walking sticks, salt, candles, perfumeries (of
which Brazil makes sixty per cent of the consumption) and playing-cards.
Among the large class of manufactures free from internal taxes are the
important items of cotton thread, jute products (rope, cord and coffee
bags) the products of ironworks, potteries, furniture factories;
goldsmiths and jewel-workers, soap makers, paper and paper-bag
factories, biscuit and bottle, shirt, mirror, trunk, ink, pipe, pin, and
window-glass makers; but all of these pay a contribution to their State
or municipality or both, appearing in revenue lists under “_Industrias e
Profissões_.”
In the city of São Paulo this tax upon industries and professions, the
latter list embracing bankers, lawyers, barbers, shoe-shiners,
hotel-keepers, doctors, newspaper sellers and so on with true democratic
impartiality, brings in over forty per cent of the municipal income; it
is now worth some three thousand five hundred contos a year, or let us
say nine hundred thousand dollars, the cotton factories paying the
biggest item, twelve thousand dollars, while shoe factories, jute mills,
potteries, jewellers, furniture makers and metal works each pay about
eight thousand dollars.
It is plain that manufacturers do not have things all their own way in
Brazil, and must be prepared for fairly heavy taxes, but one does not
hear the same complaints about petty taxation for every trifle as in the
Argentine; on the other hand, the mill owner has not to face cut-throat
competition as in older manufacturing countries, is able to get an
excellent price for his products, is able to buy land at inexpensive
rates and to obtain comparatively cheap labour. As soon as a district
becomes thickly sown with factory chimneys prices of land and labour
automatically rise, of course; this natural law has operated already in
the now densely populated and built over suburbs of São Paulo, Braz and
Moóca, and is, under one’s eyes, transforming the windy upland flats of
Ypiranga. A year or two ago much of this area was red clay swamp, with a
cottage here and there and a few Italian market gardens producing
vegetables for the city dwellers, and land could have been bought for
ten milreis an acre or less; today it is worth from two hundred to five
hundred milreis; the wet lands have been filled in, an enormous
undertaking, rows of workmen’s houses extend for miles to the crest of
the hill where the Monument stands commemorating the _Grito da
Independencia_, and from its summit one has a view that is mottled with
factory smoke and punctuated with tall chimneys. To see this and to
watch the crowds of pretty chattering Italian girls pouring out of Braz
and Moóca factories at noon or evening is to obtain a revelation of the
newer South America. It is no longer a land of sugar and brazil-wood
only and although the agriculturist may shake his head over the lack of
hands on the farm, manufacture in Brazil is a live, energetic phase of
her modern development. São Paulo City was employing, by the end of
1921, over twenty-five thousand horsepower of electrical energy in her
factories.
The fabric-weaving factories in all Brazil, including cloths of cotton,
jute, linen, silk and wool, were 303 in number in 1914, employing 75,000
workpeople and capital totalling over 368,000 contos of reis; in 1920
they had increased to 328 including 242 cotton mills which alone
employed 109,000 hands. The premier producer of cotton cloth in 1920, in
values, was Rio de Janeiro (Federal District) with an output worth
102,000 contos; next came S. Paulo State, 92,000 contos; then Minas
Geraes, 91,000; Rio de Janeiro State, 46,000; Bahia, 32,000; Pernambuco,
21,000; Alagôas, 16,000; Sergipe, 12,000; Maranhão, 11,000; Rio Grande
do Sul, 9,000; Ceará, 3,000; and Piauhy, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraná,
Parahyba and Espirito Santo, about 1,200 contos each. The States absent
from cloth manufacturing returns are the great forestal territories of
the extreme north, and those of the vast interior uplands, where
conditions are not greatly changed from the time prior to the Portuguese
discovery so far as development is concerned.
In numbers of mills São Paulo again comes first with seventy-eight mills
making cloths: fifty-five of these weave cotton alone, leaving a higher
proportion of fabrics made from other materials than in sister States;
generally speaking cotton cloths occupy the greatest share of capital
and labour, as for example in Minas, where sixty _fabricas de tecidos_
operate, and out of the total value of the production, 23,500 contos,
cotton accounts for over 22,600 contos. With a larger number of
cotton-cloth mills at work than S. Paulo, but with production worth not
much more than one-fourth, it is clear that factories are very much
smaller in the interior State; nevertheless, she is able to pride
herself upon a thriving industry, occupying nearly nine thousand people,
twenty-five thousand contos of capital, and using ten thousand tons of
raw cotton. In common with the other weaver States of the Brazilian
Union, Minas ships her cloths to less industrially developed regions: in
this connection some light is shed upon the ramifications of finance cum
industry by the President of the Sociedade Mineira da Agricultura (Minas
Society of Agriculture), Dr. Daniel de Carvalho, in an address at the
Cotton Conference held in Rio in June, 1916. Stating that the Minas
export of cotton cloth (to other States) was nearly 28,000,000 metres in
1915, he showed that, at an average price of four hundred reis (eight
cents) a metre, the total value was more than eleven thousand contos:
but in the official statistics the value of exported cotton cloth
appeared as only 3,893 contos. “This anomaly is an example of the
regimen of fiction in which we live, from the taxation point of view.
The Minas legislator votes for high and sometimes excessive taxes,—and
the Government in a fatherly manner corrects the excess in calculations
of ad valorem percentages, accepting a benign interpretation of
merchandise values. Instead of products appearing with exaggerated
values we find on the contrary that most estimates are well below the
real amount, as in the case of manganese....” The cure for this
deliberate lessening of values, which certainly does Brazil poor
service, would be, said Dr. Carvalho, an all-round diminution of
tribute, together with a rigorous application of the law.
In the Federal District the number of weaving mills is thirty-five,
several clustering in the mountain valleys of Petropolis and deriving
power from waterfalls; the State of Rio has twenty-seven; Santo
Catharina, fifteen; Bahia and Maranhão have thirteen each; Rio Grande do
Sul, twelve; Ceará and Alagôas, ten each; Pernambuco, nine; Paraná and
Sergipe, eight each; Espirito Santo, three; Rio Grande do Norte, Piauhy
and Parahyba, one each.
The largest employer of labour in weaving mills is S. Paulo, with (1920)
over thirty thousand hands; the next is the Federal District with about
twelve thousand; third comes Minas with over eight thousand. São Paulo
is also the greatest consumer of raw cotton, using thirteen thousand
tons; the Federal District uses eleven thousand tons and the State of
Rio nearly six thousand tons, Minas using, as we saw above, about five
thousand.
At the end of 1915 when, in spite of great demands upon the national
mills consequent upon checked importations of cotton cloth several had
to reduce their staff on account of shortage of raw cotton, the Centro
Industrial addressed a letter to the President of the Republic in which
the plight of the manufacturers was displayed. A cotton famine in the
North had reduced the national supply, and raised the price beyond
precedent, while importations are always minute in Brazil owing to the
heavy duty of about six cents per pound against it. The signatories of
the letter explain that the cotton cloth industry never calls for less
than forty-five thousand tons[15] of raw cotton produced on national
soil, and that this amount was made up in 1913 into cloth worth over
162,000 contos; that, with the exception of aniline dyes, which cost
about 2,000 contos a year, no other prime material enters into the
Brazilian cotton Industry.
“The time is long past when cotton yarns were imported on a great scale
for weaving. Now, our numerous factories have created in their vast and
modern mills a perfect industrial cycle from spinning to printing,” so
that the present import of yarns is worth only 1,800 contos, and the
value of cotton cloths brought from abroad less than 17,000 contos (1914
figures).
At the same time Brazil’s export of raw cotton from the Northern States
of fine long staple, usually practically all sent to England, diminished
until returns for 1915 show only 5,223 tons against over 37,000 tons in
1913 and 30,000 in 1914, but this restriction did not make up the
shortage following the drought. The Centro Industrial asked for a
governmental enquiry into cotton conditions; in the middle of 1916 the
Conference was held in Rio, samples of cotton, etc., displayed, and,
after a collection of facts by a _questionnaire_ sent to all weaving
mills, expositions of the highest interest were made by officials of the
government, technical experts, and cotton growers. Reference is made to
this valuable conference under “Cotton,” but the manufacturing notes of
these pages may include the name of Miguel Calmon, Chemical Director of
the Companhia Industrial do Brasil, popularly known as the “Bangú”
factory, who gave an address on the use of native vegetable dyes;
optimistic as regards tints drawn from Brazilian forests, Senhor Calmon
spoke with appreciation of the “urucú,” a dye producing hues ranging
from yellow to deep red, as well as many other better known colouring
matters. There is already a very busy dye factory in Minas, the _Fabrica
de Tinta Machado_, using native vegetable bases, and much is expected in
S. Paulo from dyes made by the use of “Inglotina,” obtained from
mangrove leaves: a factory has recently been established at Cubatão.
It was at the same conference that Dr. Costa Pinto gave details of the
threads spun in Brazil; counting in English measurement, Brazilian mills
spin from No. 2 to No. 100 thread. From No. 30 upward a long staple
cotton is needed, and only a small proportion of native-grown fibres are
suitable, although there is plenty of short fibre for the coarser
weaves.
Brazilian manufacturing already depends considerably upon the water
power accessible, especially in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas.
There is enough hydraulic force available in Brazil to turn the wheels
of the world but the majority of these wonderful cascades are scarcely
known by name, and many were not charted in the interior of Matto Grosso
and Amazonas until the work of the Rondon Commission opened great tracts
of those unknown lands. It is not possible here to do more than mention
one or two of the most important falls. The Maribondo, in the Triangulo
Mineiro, has an estimated force of six hundred thousand horse power;
Urubupunga, on the Paraná river, has some 450,000 horse power; Iguassú
has 14,000,000, four times as much as Niagara; and the force of the Sete
Quedas, or Guayra Falls, on the Paraná near the Paraguay boundary, is
calculated at 80,000,000 horse power. The Light and Power companies of
Rio, São Paulo, Campinas, Petropolis, and other cities obtain their
force from falls, hundreds of little townships in the central interior
sparkle with electric lights, run factories and public utilities as a
result of a nearby source of water power.
Allusion has before been made to the variety of Brazilian soils and
climates which result in her possession of several important and utterly
diverse industries; the list is so long that many interesting embryo
industries, or others of local or internal importance only, can only
claim space for passing mention. Among these is the wine-making industry
of the far south, where European colonists cultivate grapes and have
created quite a notable business in the production of fairly light red
wines. These are shipped to many other parts of the country, are sold
inexpensively in Rio and other cities, and while they lack the mellow
tone of imported wines, they are sound, good, and popular.
Salt extraction in Rio Grande do Norte is another busy industry, and
here is the chief source of Brazil’s native salt; it is exported from
the ports of Macáu and Mossoró. Also in the north are the famous
lace-makers, whose yards of fine _rendas_, made on a pillow with scores
of bobbins, would not disgrace Malta; the big, thickly woven white
hammocks of Ceará are justly prized all over Brazil, and both lace and
hammocks should form the base of an export business. In Maranhão, where
the babassú palm grows luxuriantly, a local industry extracts the fine
oil from the kernel hidden in a stony shell, and experimental exports
have occurred during the past year; the babassú is but one of the
valuable nuts of the Brazilian north. One, the “Brazil nut”[16] of
commerce, has of course been exported from the Amazon for nearly a
century, and is a considerable revenue yielder to Pará and Amazonas
states, but the _sapucaia_, of the same family but larger and sweeter,
is rarer, less known, and fetches much higher prices in sophisticated
world markets.
[Illustration: [Agriculture Map]]
In Parahyba State there is at least one considerable coconut oil
extracting factory, on a sandy spit south of Parahyba city; several
thousand people are said to be employed in this industry and the product
is shipped as far south as Rio: in spite of the immense quantity of
coconuts on the littoral of the northern promontory there is no copra or
fibre industry yet established, apparently because the native
consumption of the nut leaves little surplus for the one, and interest
is lacking in the other.
CHAPTER VI
FINANCE
_Brazilian Currency_
In common with other young countries whose gold reserves are
insufficient to back the paper currency used to carry on the ordinary
business of life within her borders, Brazil has been and still is faced
with difficulties in regard to exchange, i. e., the gold value of her
paper and its relation to the face value of that paper. Exchange in
Brazil is the measure of the paper milreis (one thousand reis) with
English money: this standard is the official one as a result of the
preponderance of English finance.
The par value of the Brazilian milreis is twenty-seven pence (fifty-four
cents), but at the end of 1916 it was worth 12 pence, rose to 18 in
early 1920, and later sank below 8 pence. In 1889 the milreis was
actually above par by a fraction of a penny, but later on great
fluctuations took place, almost invariably as the result of the issue of
large quantities of paper money, which, unbacked by gold, are regarded
as of diminishing value in comparison with the gold-backed currency of
other countries.
The present rate of exchange, which is a recovery from the first panicky
drop of paper here, as in many other parts of the world on the outbreak
of the European War, is below a rate which the efforts of Brazilian
financial men succeeded in preserving for eight years by the
establishment of the Caixa de Conversão; continuance of exchange at a
lowered level is probably partly the result of the issue of extensive
amounts of inconvertible paper into circulation for budgetary purposes
since the middle of 1914, and partly on account of the heavy demand for
bills of exchange on London, which began to have their effect from the
time of the Balkan trouble of 1913. The drop would without doubt have
been much sharper were it not for three causes of strength: the first is
the unprecedentedly large trade balance in favour of Brazil in 1915,
amounting to nearly £28,000,000 ($140,000,000); the second is the
Funding Loan which the Federal Government succeeded in making with its
European creditors in the latter part of 1914 and which prevented the
outflow of other large sums in gold; and, third, the strong gold
reserves of the Caixa de Conversão. It is true that these reserves have
been drawn upon until they now stand at less than one-fifth of their
level at the beginning of 1913, but without that stream of gold and its
strengthening effect on circulation it is reasonable to suppose that
exchange would have suffered to a greater extent.
The Caixa de Conversão, which I will henceforth call the Conversion
Office, is Brazil’s concrete effort to fix a rate of exchange; it was
excellent in conception and performed its function admirably until
unforeseen world conditions overpowered its operation. After the
establishment of a Republic in Brazil large issues of paper were for the
first time put into circulation, with the accompaniment of successive
falls in exchange; the proclamation of the overthrow of the Empire found
Brazil with not more than 199,000 contos in paper, but eight years later
the amount had risen to nearly 790,000 and Brazil was obliged to suspend
interest on her debt to Europe. A Funding Loan of ten million pounds
sterling was arranged with Rothschild’s, which had the effect of
checking the fall in the value of the milreis, then (1897–98) down to
eight pence or nine pence, and even touching the threatening level of
six pence; the arrangement included destruction of the debased paper in
considerable quantities, and as this work was accomplished exchange
steadily rose until in another ten years’ time, 1908, outstanding
inconvertible paper amounted to less than 650,000 contos, and the value
of the milreis was sixteen pence. But by this time the Conversion Office
was in operation, thanks largely to the efforts of President Affonso
Penna; this office in 1906 began receiving deposits of gold and issuing
against them convertible paper bills having the fixed exchange value of
fifteen pence; these bills always equalling the amount of gold in the
Conversion Office had the value of actual gold; they differ in
appearance from the ordinary paper currency, and as they always command
a five per cent premium there was created a tendency to hoard them—a
tendency which cannot occur in the case of the bills of the similar
Conversion Office of Argentina, which exactly resemble the ordinary bank
bills.
By the end of 1909 the unbacked, inconvertible paper currency of Brazil
was about 628,000 contos, while the convertible bills of the Conversion
Office amounted to over 225,000 contos, with an equivalent amount of
gold on deposit there; in 1910 it was found possible to raise the
official value of the milreis to the point that the money market
indicated, sixteen pence, and at this rate of exchange all the paper in
the country stood until the outbreak of the European War. At the same
time that the exchange rate was officially raised a rule was put into
operation by which all foreign coins were received by the Conversion
Office at rates based on their mint value, excepting English sterling
which was still accepted at its exchange value.
It is likely that had neither the Balkan nor the great European wars
happened Brazil might have been able to raise again the official value
of the milreis farther towards par; at the end of 1912 and beginning of
1913 the gold-backed paper amounted to over 406,000 contos of reis, and
the unbacked was only 607,000 contos. In spite of the accumulation of
heavy debts Brazil was in such a flourishing condition that she was able
to show convertible currency amounting to two-thirds of the value of the
inconvertible, as against one-sixth in 1907–8. Today, with eighty per
cent of the gold of the early 1914 highwater mark gone from the Caixa,
the convertible currency is but one-tenth of the inconvertible, a matter
for regret, but things are undoubtedly in a much better condition than
had the Conversion Office not existed. Suspension of conversion was
ordered when deposits were reduced to £5,005,000.
Since the middle of 1914 the Brazilian Government has been obliged to
issue nearly 400,000 contos of new inconvertible paper; it has not
actually added more than about 100,000 contos to the total paper
currency, since at the same time a shrinkage in the convertible element
has been proceeding. An emergency issue of 250,000 contos was made in
the autumn of 1914 and another 150,000 was authorized in August, 1915.
During the same period of stress the internal floating debt was added to
by the issue of Treasury Bills to the nominal value of about 250,000
contos: a curious and instructive situation arose from the employment of
these special Bills.
The Government, called upon for currency by national banks which were
embarrassed by lack of paper owing to the financial _crise_, lent them
sums from the emergency issue, charging two and a half per cent
interest. Next, pressed for payment by creditors many of whom were
merchants supplying the various governmental departments, and the
emergency issue being insufficient for the purpose in all cases,
recourse was had to Treasury bills; as these are not legal tender the
merchants were not altogether pleased, and in some cases refused to
accept the bills and had to wait longer.
The creditor who did accept them found himself with paper in his
possession which could not be passed over the counter or paid into a
checking account at his bank, and his only recourse was to sell the
bills for what they would fetch, bearing the loss between their face
value and market price. Although the bills bear interest at five and six
per cent, almost the only buyers were the banks which had borrowed money
of the Emergency issue, for in the meantime the Government agreed to
accept the Bills as repayment of these sums, in a “curso libre,” or
(limited) legal tender.[17] The price of the Treasury bills was always
below par, and the writer saw them quoted in Brazilian newspapers as low
as seventy-six. Buying at this or higher prices the bankers were able to
present them to the Government at their face value in payment for
currency advances, and were thus in the fortunate position of making
profits on borrowed money. Promptly labelled “sabinas” in this country
where everything has a nickname, the Treasury Bills roused a storm of
discussion in the press. Totals of bonds (apolicies) and paper money
issued from August 1915 to October 1916 amounted to nearly 550,000
contos.
In late 1916, the total currency of the Republic stood as regards paper
money at 1,551,122:650$500, over a million contos being inconvertible.
It may be useful here to explain the manner in which Brazilian money is
counted. It is, like the Spanish from which most American systems are
derived, very simple, based as it is on the decimal plan. The
theoretical single _rei_ or _real_ does not exist, the smallest coin now
consisting of the nickel one hundred _reis_.[18]
There is also a coin of two hundred reis, which pays a car fare or buys
the _Jornal do Commercio_, and 400 reis, and a silver 500 reis. The
silver _milreis_ is what it says it is, one thousand reis, and any sum
reckoned in milreis and below a thousand of them is written with the
figures first, followed by the “dollar” sign; thus four hundred milreis
is written 400$000.
One thousand milreis (a million reis) is a _conto_, the colon sign being
written immediately after it. Six contos is written 6:000$000. The
present exchange value of the conto is a little over fifty pounds
sterling.
The following figures, extracted from reckonings made by the _Brazilian
Review_, show some of the variations in paper currency:
December, 1889 195.485:538$
„ 1894 367.358:625$
„ 1899 733.727:153$
„ 1904 673.739:908$
After the establishment of the Conversion Office a new element,
convertible paper, was added:
_Inconvertible_ _Convertible_ _Total_
1907 643.531:727$ 100.032:700$ 743.564:427$
1912 607.025:525$ 406.035:800$ 1.013.061:325$
1914 822.496:018$ 157.786:930$ 980.282:948$
1916 1.060.562:720$ 94.559:930$ 1.155.122:650$
Issues of paper money during war years greatly increased this currency,
but against it the Government held, in 1921, nearly 63 million contos of
gold, in the Treasury and Conversion Office. Besides this amount of
paper there is the coin circulation of nickel, and of silver in
half-milreis, milreis, and multiples.
It is an excellent coinage, of good design, well made and convenient,
that minted since the Republic bearing republican devices, the date of
inauguration of the new administrative plan, etc. But now and again a
handful of change contains a coin bearing the bearded head of Dom Pedro
II, for it is but twenty-seven years since the Empire was ended. A
curious superstition exists among some Brazilians with regard to these
coins; received, they are never passed on, but carefully put away in
some drawer: “it is not good to spend the Emperor,” they will tell you,
handling his image with kindliness.
The six million pounds sterling below which the gold reserves of the
Conversion Office have not been allowed to sink, and to which it has
been possible to add little, back the large amounts of convertible
paper, and, although a greatly shrunken sum, it has its effect in
steadying exchange: another factor in preventing farther breaks, in
spite of the seventy per cent increase in inconvertible paper, is the
earnestness with which the Federal Government and the people of Brazil
are insisting upon a vigorous solution of the problem of the foreign
debt. Individuals in Brazil show themselves no less interested than
officials: letters bearing upon the situation are constantly printed in
the public press, many personal sacrifices have been made of percentages
of salaries by legislators, officials and civil servants, and it is
clear that the ablest heads in Brazil are trying to find a way in which
Brazil can meet her obligations. This sincerity of purpose may not
create gold, but it does strengthen public credit and helps in a more or
less direct manner in restoring confidence which is certainly not
without its effect upon exchange.
More than once a fall of exchange in Brazil has, by an anomaly, actually
saved industries from something near bankruptcy. This is readily
understood when it is realized that exporters of such products as rubber
and coffee, cacao and hides, selling in the markets of London, Paris,
Hamburg or New York, are paid in gold, while they pay their day
labourers in paper. To the Brazilian interior it is of little interest
that the bankers of Rio say that it takes another milreis paper to
purchase a gold pound sterling; the country markets do not reflect such
_nuances_, unless, indeed, a fall should be heavy and continued in which
case it must in course of time react upon the whole country. But a
temporary depression does not affect the amount of black beans or
mandioca that can be bought with a milreis, and neither the rubber
collector of the Upper Amazon or the more sophisticated worker upon a
_fazenda_ of coffee or cattle will demand a rise in wages because
exchange goes down for a time. To the exporter the fraction of a milreis
makes all the difference between prosperity and ruin, and both rubber
and coffee have benefited thus by temporary low rates of exchange; the
present crisis has certainly been smoothed to the agriculturist, the
producer and exporter, of Brazil, by the fall in exchange since the
middle of 1914, the paper receipts of the country showing marked
inflation due to the larger number of milreis bought by the foreign gold
paid for these products. Low prices received abroad for coffee and
rubber are thus compensated, and when, as has happened since the war
began, prices have been better than had been predicted. It is not to be
wondered at that there is a feeling of prosperity in Brazil and that
money is abundant among certain classes in spite of administrative
difficulties.
The people who really suffer from fallen exchange are, besides the
governments owing sums abroad which must be paid in gold, the importing
houses which have bought in gold and must sell in depreciated paper, and
which cannot always adjust paper prices to fit the monetary market; the
transportation companies, too, whose rates are fixed now find themselves
with paper in hand of a lowered value abroad; it is true that their
obligations to employees are paid in paper, but since most carrying
companies are owned or leased in Europe, and dividends must be paid in
gold, earnings are very much reduced when large quantities of additional
paper are needed to buy bills on London. Every railway, port company,
street-car line and lighting and power company which derives its capital
from outside Brazil has seen its dividends cut down during the last two
years even if earnings have been larger and expenses reduced.
[Illustration:
Ministry of War, Rio de Janeiro
Avenida Nazareth Belem (Pará)
]
Large foreign debts have of course a depressing effect upon exchange in
the long run, but at the time when the loans have been made there has
almost always been a rise corresponding to the influx of gold; this
effect was a marked cause of wild ups and downs of exchange in the
palmiest days of the present century. I have frequently asked bankers in
Brazil if they would like to see an absolutely stable rate of exchange:
more than once the answer has been Yes, and the examples of the
stabilized countries of the world quoted as showing that real financial
strength can only be obtained with a firmly gold-backed currency. But
even the most conservative banker will admit that variations in exchange
have been the cause of large earnings on the part of financial houses in
Brazil, and it is certain that fluctuation is not only the source of
many fortunes, but that it materially lends itself to the promotion of
the gambling spirit that helps both to make and to undo a young country;
it is a spirit prevalent in many parts of Latin America and perhaps
particularly in Brazil where such spectacular turns of Fortune’s wheel
have been seen from time to time in different parts of the country.
_Investment in Brazil_
Investment in Brazil from other countries has been of three chief kinds:
blood, brains, and money. The investment in blood came during the
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries almost exclusively from
Portugal—with a forcibly introduced negro element from Africa at the
same time—while during the nineteenth century colonies were introduced
of a remarkably wide variety of peoples; the investment in brains came
so far as technical skill is concerned almost directly as a result of
the great investment of the third element, money, which began soon after
the erection of the monarchy in Brazil in 1808, flowed steadily for
eighty years, and increased to a golden torrent after the establishment
of the republic in 1889.
Nearly the whole of the investment of manhood, skill, and gold came from
Europe. Brazil’s debt to other parts of the world is small. The African
slave contributed more towards the opening-up of Brazil than any other
race, and it is almost impossible to conceive of a flourishing Brazil
without him during at least the first three centuries after Portuguese
possession; the Asiatic only came here in noticeable numbers since the
beginning of the present century, and the Oriental is not a strong
element. North America has done remarkably little for Brazil. With the
exception of a few technically skilled individuals, and the ill-fated
little colonies which sought a home here after the Civil War in the
United States there has been practically no investment in personality
until within the last few years, when branches of American businesses
have sent resident employees to Brazil: investment in money is still in
its infancy so far as Government or State loans[19] are concerned,
development work in railways, docks, harbours, or city improvements, and
it is only within the last few years that North American money has made
timid entry into Brazil for the establishment of industries. The opening
of branches of North American financial establishments in Brazil dates
only from 1915, and the capital so far employed is insignificant in
comparison with that of the powerful European banks, established in
South America for a couple of generations.
No Brazilian securities were, up to the end of 1916, listed upon the New
York Stock Exchange, for the simple reason that there were practically
no North American investments in South American securities; but since
the war, changes in the world’s finance have induced a lively interest.
The British investment in Brazilian securities, apart from many
enterprises and businesses of a private nature, were reckoned at the
commencement of 1916 at £226,719,052, or the equivalent of about
$1,133,595,000. The French investment is estimated at Fr. 1,500,000,000
or some $300,000,000, and that of Belgium, with considerable railway
interests, at about half this sum; Germany and Portugal also hold a
certain quantity of Brazilian securities.
The following are the most important securities represented by the
British investment in Brazil; the list shows that it was this money,
more than any other element, which contributed to the opening-up of
Brazil in the nineteenth century, giving her railways, public utilities,
and helping to operate a number of industries. There was no philanthropy
about this stream of bright pounds sterling. South American investments
were expected to return a better rate of interest than did similar
securities in Great Britain, and frequently results justified the hope.
The average return on British investments in South America, which
altogether total about £1,050,000,000 (say $5,250,000,000) in 1913 was
four and seven-tenths per cent; this average dropped to three and
one-half in the first year of the European War, a showing which very
many profit-earning corporations in other regions of the world would
have been glad to equal in that critical time.
BRITISH INVESTMENTS IN BRAZIL
_Railways_
_Amount invested, _Name_
1916_
£605,569 Brazil Great Southern
£341,000 Brazil North Eastern
$57,835,200 Brazil Railways, 5 classes[20]
£4,187,650 Great Western of Brazil, 4 classes
£15,893,429 Leopoldina, 6 classes
£2,600,000 Madeira-Mamoré
£4,000,000 Mogyana Sul-Mineira
£100,000 Quarahim International Bridge
£6,000,000 São Paulo (to Santos)
£3,175,000 Sorocabana
£900,000 Southern São Paulo
_Public Utilities_
£1,154,700 Port of Pará
£115,800 Cantareira Water Co. (S. Paulo)
£1,321,900 City of Santos Improvements, 4 classes
£2,003,000 City of S. Paulo Improvements
£1,200,000 Manáos Harbour and Manáos Improvements
£349,000 Pará Improvements
£1,761,875 Rio de Janeiro City Improvements, 4 classes
£1,423,400 Central Bahia Railway Trust, A and B
£275,000 S. Paulo Gas, 2 classes
£2,571,871 Rio Claro Ry. and Investment, 2 classes
£527,800 Amazon Telegraph, 2 classes
£91,000 Pernambuco Waterworks, 2 classes
£596,000 Manáos Tramways
£1,384,449 Pará Electric, 4 classes
$110,361,400 Brazilian Traction, Light and Power, 2 classes
$1,400,000 Jardim Botanico Tramways
$28,013,500 Rio de Janeiro Tramways, Light and Power, 2 classes
$6,821,917 S. Paulo Tramways, Light and Power, 2 classes
$2,000,000 S. Paulo Electric
(The five last mentioned companies are registered in Canada, and the
securities are thus issued in dollars, although the stock was largely
held in Great Britain and Canada, prior to the European War.)
_Industrial Companies_
£1,182,400 Dumont Coffee Estates, 3 classes
£120,000 S. Paulo Coffee Estates
£150,000 Agua Santa Coffee Co.
£646,265 S. Juan del Rey Mining
£643,601 Rio de Janeiro Flour Mills
£100,154 North Brazilian Sugar
£100,000 Mappin and Webb (Rio and S. Paulo)
£850,000 Brazilian Warrant Co.
At the same time the British share in the total foreign debts of the
Federal, State and Municipal governments are estimated at about
£150,000,000 out of aggregate obligations of some £180,000,000. These
debts are treated in more detail on another page.
There are very many enterprises carried on with British capital which do
not figure upon the Stock Exchange, or are branches of businesses which
do not differentiate the capital employed in Brazil. Included in one or
other of these classes are the shoe factories belonging to Clarke
(Glasgow) in São Paulo; the cotton-spinning mills of Coats, also heir of
Scotch skill; several cotton cloth mills, as the Carioca in Rio, and
others in Petropolis and Campos; sugar factories in Pernambuco, etc.
Included also in money investments should be counted the eight and a
half million pounds of paid-up capital of the three British banks, the
British Bank of South America, the London and Brazilian and the London
and River Plate, which total with their branches to twenty-four
establishments. It is impossible to say what part of the huge shipping
investment serving Brazil should be included, but it is a highly
important element and quite the greatest developing factor in Brazilian
commerce; the Royal Mail is the great popular passenger and freight
line, while Lamport & Holt, Booth, Harrison, the Prince, Johnson, and
other smaller lines do a big Brazilian business.
Among firms doing energetic work and with large capital invested are the
two great coal firms, Wilson’s and Cory’s, with their depots for Welsh
coal, their fleets of lighters, repair equipment, salvage departments
and stevedoring; old-established commercial firms such as Stevenson’s
and Duder’s in Bahia, chiefly occupied with cacao export—the latter in
addition to other activities maintains a fleet of modern whaling boats,
and a factory for refining whale-oil; there are the “dry goods” stores
of Sloper’s series; the new house of Mappin; the Brack firm in
Pernambuco; all these and a score of other classes are not only
commercial developers but in a greater or smaller degree employers of
Brazilian labour. There are British cattle breeders, sugar and cotton
growers, owners of coffee and cacao estates, operators of ironworks,
foundries, schools, bookshops, oil-depots, and many other enterprises.
The total British investment of money in Brazil cannot be under
£300,000,000.
The external debts of the Brazilian States and Municipalities have
varied very little since 1913–14. Loans became difficult to obtain from
the beginning of Balkan troubles, while since the outbreak of the great
European War there have been no additions to cash advances and in only a
few cases has there been substantial reduction of debts. On the
contrary, most debtor States and cities found it necessary to make
funding arrangements by which specie payments were suspended for a
number of years—measures which gave temporary relief, but seriously
increase the amount of money to be paid annually when the funding period
comes to an end.
Certain states, as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Paraná (paid up until the
autumn of 1917), Espirito Santo, and the Federal District, have made
gallant efforts to avoid piling up debt in this way, and by severe
economy have continued to pay interest on their foreign obligations. The
sacrifice has not been small, for with depressed exchange it has taken
an unusually large number of paper milreis to buy sterling, and at a
time when it has not been easy to collect even paper revenues. The
effort is all the more creditable.
With the worst part of the 1921 crisis past, state finances have been
materially eased by calls for Brazilian products at enhanced prices, and
there is a perceptible restoration of confidence, at the end of 1922. In
some districts the post-war boom proved an undisguised blessing,
bringing profits that could not have been looked for under normal
conditions: coffee, hides, rubber, cacao, frozen meat, sugar and
manganese, have all brought stimulated prices, and many home industries,
such as coal mining and cotton spinning and weaving, have been greatly
encouraged.
In round numbers the external debts of the separate states of the
Brazilian Union appear to amount to about forty-seven million pounds,
with the municipalities adding another twelve or thirteen million
pounds.
The British interest in these loans is largely dominant, but important
sums of French money have also been invested. Brazil’s direct debt to
France includes £10,400,000 for three loans with which the Bahia, Goyaz,
and Corumbá railways were constructed; there are also state debts, that
of the State of Pará being held by Meyer Frères of Paris, while the
Société Marseillaise holds the bonds of the big Amazonas debt. Part of
São Paulo’s debt is owed to the Société Générale, and the State of
Espirito Santo owes nearly two million pounds to the Banque Française et
Italienne, as well as large sums about which a dispute rages, advanced
by the French Hypothecary Bank established at the port of Victoria.
There is a good deal of French money sunk in the Madeira-Mamoré railway,
one of the Farquhar undertakings which cost the equivalent of more than
six million pounds sterling, fifteen hundred livres, is said to need
much reconstruction already (opened to traffic in 1912), and does no
more than pay its way. French bondholders also hold part of Minas Geraes
debt, and of that of Rio de Janeiro. French engineers, operating with
French money, built several of the existing railways, notably the
Auxiliaire de Chemins de Fer au Brésil with 1,400 miles of track; it was
a French firm, the Compagnie Française de Rio Grande do Sul, formed in
Paris in 1906, which put one hundred and fifty million francs into the
port works of that southerly city, opened to shipping in November, 1916.
French companies also began the port works of Pernambuco, checked by
money paralysis after 1914, and constructed the new harbour facilities
of Bahia.
When the much-discussed “Missão Baudin” came to Brazil in 1915, it was
with the object of investigating the condition of the properties in
which French money was concerned, and the chief member of the party was
also credited with an effort to induce the Brazilian Government to
guarantee the rather clouded State obligations to French bondholders.
German investment in Brazil is, as regards money, not of great
importance; it is largely confined to the loans made by the Dresdner
Bank, and to capital expenditures in the southern states, including the
construction there of a couple of small railways. There has, however,
been great investment of blood and energy, there are many strong German
commercial houses and retail stores in all districts, and to Germany was
due the first granting of long and easy credit facilities to Brazil.
Germans have been largely interested in the coffee and rubber
businesses. The Brasilianische Bank für Deutschland operates with a
capital of fifteen million marks, and the Banco Alemão Transatlantico is
another strong German financial house.
This summing up of European investment in Brazil, incomplete as it is,
serves to demonstrate the extent to which Brazil has been opened up by
Europeans. The European has asked for Brazilian raw products, brought
ships to carry them, built ports for the ships to lie in and railroads
to freight the products to the ports; has sold manufactured goods and
lent Brazil the money with which to pay for them, and established banks
for financial operations connected with the business created. Millions
of hardy and industrious people have gone to live in Brazil and to bring
the land into cultivation, to educate their children as Brazilians and
help in the mental progress of the country.
When, therefore, some of the less thoughtful journals of the United
States turned their eyes towards South America at the outbreak of the
European War and protested loudly that this country was not getting her
“share” of commerce, it was rather as if the cuckoo complained that she
was not getting her share of the robin’s nest. To accuse Europe of
monopolizing Brazilian trade is like accusing water of monopolizing the
river. Brazil, in fact, like the whole of the Americas, had no trade
until Europe created it by calls for natural products, supply of
transportation means, and loans of money for development work.
Today the situation is changed. It was inevitably changing as North
America herself became during the last fifty years herself a caller for
raw products, and began to take great quantities of Brazilian coffee and
rubber, drugs and hides. Her sales to Brazil, despite the drawback of
the shipping triangle, have been increasing for some time along certain
highly specialized lines, but sales and purchases are not sufficient to
create a permanent link between countries, especially when conducted
through the medium of a third person as freighter and banker. The
European War brought about as no other awakening process perhaps could
have done, a realization of the new duty of the United States to South
America: it is part of her inheritance from Europe. It is the work that
lies to her hand: if she will do it, there is no one better fitted at
the present time; if she will not she loses an extraordinary chance for
both service—and profit.
She must not think only of buying and selling, and when she is occupied
with this trading she must remember that to her as to South America,
sales of North American goods are less important than purchases of South
American raw materials. It would not matter very much to the United
States if she did not sell anything to Brazil: the probability is that
more money has been spent on making sales, so far, than the profits
amount to. What does matter is that North American manufacturers should
continue to be supplied in vast and increasing quantities with South
American hides for the use of leather manufactories; with ivory nuts for
the button industry; with the coffee that cannot be grown in northern
climes; with rubber and fibres and tannin materials; and with the
minerals that exist in the sands and rocks of South America in
unexampled variety and which can be there produced at half the cost that
North America is forced to pay for labour.
Apart from trading there is a great need for more investment in Brazil,
for more opening of great spaces, planting of fields, lumbering,
road-building, mining, cattle-raising. There is space for twenty million
people in the cool temperate zones alone, excluding tropical areas. Is
the United States ready to take up the task which Brazil cannot perform
alone, however seriously she attacks her problems? Is she prepared to
devote to this work blood, brains and money?
Entry of North American interests into Brazil has been steadily
increasing for the last ten years, and was hastened after the outbreak
of the European War; there has been noticeable since then much more
energy on the part of individuals and small firms. Before 1914 the bulk
of United States work done in Brazil was part of the international
campaign of such big firms as Standard Oil or the Singer Sewing Machine
Company. Oil has its rivals in other companies, also with depots on the
coast, but the Singer machine has almost a South American monopoly;
locomotives, cars, elevators, most of the typewriters, electrical
equipment, and quantities of agricultural machinery, are sold by
American houses with branches in Brazil. Agricultural, printing and shoe
machinery of United States origin also seems to make good sales.
In 1915 the National City Bank of New York opened branches in Santos,
Rio and S. Paulo; the United States Steel Corporation started a line of
freight steamers, and was followed by a number of new lines.
The two great Light and Power companies of Rio and S. Paulo are
Canadian, but some of the capital, equipment and personnel are from the
U. S.; one of the two existing packing-houses is Chicagoan in capital,
equipment and personnel. Several of the allied enterprises of the Brazil
Railways Company are American managed and equipped, as the lumber mills
at Tres Barras and the cattle company, as well as part of the
transportation lines. The Brazil Railways is the largest
American-registered company in Brazil, but is rather an example of how
not to do things in South America, for although a few interests, as
those cited above, are doing well, the company as a whole is in the
hands of a receiver. The time is probably past when money could be
obtained in Europe by persons registering a company in a second country
to spend it in a third, and what is most needed now is continued and
genuine development work actually financed from North America.
Most of the United States firms with agencies in Brazil are sellers, but
among the purchasers are several coffee-importing houses and, with the
eclipse of German traders, the greatest rubber dealers, while the past
year has seen American agents coming to Brazil to increase takings of
manganese, precious stones and hides.
_The State Debts_
The figures given below are in round numbers only, and are without the
additions which the Funding loans entail; all sums are in pounds
sterling:
_State_ _External Debt_
Alagôas £ 500,000
Amazonas 3,000,000
Bahia 3,875,000
Ceará 600,000
Espirito Santo 1,160,000
Maranhão 720,000
Minas Geraes 6,800,000
Pará 2,040,000
Paraná 2,200,000
Pernambuco 2,370,000
Rio de Janeiro 3,000,000
Rio Grande do Norte 350,000
Santa Catharina 220,000
São Paulo 20,350,000
The States of Goyaz, Matto Grosso, Parahyba, Piauhy, Rio Grande do Sul
and Sergipe have no external debts.
The Funding Loan arranged by the State of Pará adds another £1,070,000
to her debt; the Funding Loan of Minas Geraes adds £600,000 and that of
Amazonas, £850,000.
The external debts of Brazilian municipalities, also borrowers from
Europe, are about as follows, round numbers again being used:
Federal District of Rio de Janeiro £4,395,000
Manáos (Amazonas) 214,000
Belem do Pará 750,000
plus Funding Loan 88,500
Recife (Pernambuco) 400,000
Bahia 2,000,000
São Paulo 750,000
Santos 1,000,000
plus Funding Loan 118,000
Other municipalities in S. Paulo State 685,000
Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) 600,000
Pelotas (Rio Grande do Sul) 600,000
Bello Horizonte 216,000
_Federal Debts_
On the outbreak of war in Europe in August, 1914, the foreign debts of
the Federal Government of the United States of Brazil amounted to
something over £102,000,000. President Wencesláo Braz inherited
obligations which had been enhanced by about £30,000,000 during the
previous four-year régime of Marechal Hermes da Fonseca. Brazil’s
reputation as a good world customer had long permitted her to borrow
freely, often paying old debts or interest with new loans, and piling up
deficits as the most facile solution of economic complications.
The world shock of 1914 brought exchange down with a run, and, although
it recovered from the first fall, it was soon evident that Brazilian
credit could not bring it back to its old level, and that the financial
burden of the country, its obligation to pay foreign debts, would be
rendered still more onerous by this depression; it would take just so
many more milreis, with Federal receipts perilously lessened by the
stoppage of imports, to buy pounds sterling, than in normal times.
Brazil asked her foreign creditors for relief, obtained a Funding Loan
by which payments on interest and amortization were suspended until
October, 1917. As the specie payments called for by the foreign debt
would have needed about £5,200,000 in both 1915 and 1916, a burden was
lightened, for the time, which the increased balances of trade during
the intervening period have also helped to lift. But between 1914 and
1918 the Foreign Debt was increased by nearly £12,000,000 of accumulated
interest, and the sums required for annual service were more difficult
to find after the depreciation of the milreis in 1920. In 1920 the total
nominal Foreign Debt was £120,400,000, plus 325,000,000 francs. Later,
Brazil borrowed a few millions from the United States, and in early 1922
again borrowed successfully in London. The internal debt, at the
beginning of 1921, amounted to over one million contos. It will be seen
from the following list that while nearly £12,000,000 came from France
yet the great bulk of the borrowed sums came from England originally: a
considerable proportion of the original sums—apparently about forty per
cent—were destined to the construction or acquisition of railways and
port works in the Republic.
BRAZIL’S EXTERNAL STERLING DEBT, DECEMBER 31ST, 1920
STERLING
Loan— £ _s._ _d._
1883 4,599,600 0 0
1888 6,297,300 0 0
1889 19,837,000 0 0
1895 7,442,000 0 0
1898 (Funding) 8,613,717
1901 (Recision) 16,619,320 0 0
1903 (Port Works, Rio de Janeiro) 8,500,000 0 0
1908 4,000,000 0 0
1910 10,000,000 0 0
1911 (Port Works, Rio de Janeiro) 4,500,000 0 0
Ceará Railways, 1911 2,400,000 0 0
Lloyd Braziliero, 1906–1911 2,100,000 0 0
Loan—
1913 11,000,000 0 0
1914 (Funding) 14,502,396
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total nominal 120,411,334 0 0
FRANC DEBT
1908–1909—Loan for the construction of the Itapura to 100,000,000
Corumbá Railway
1909—Loan for the Port Works at Pernambuco 40,000,000
1910—Loan for the construction of the Goyaz Railway 100,000,000
1911—Loan for the construction of the Viação Bahiana 60,000,000
network of railways
1916—Goyaz Railway loan, responsibility for which was 25,000,0000
assumed by the Government by Decree No. 12,183 of
August 30th, 1916
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total nominal Fr 325,000,000
This would be an exceedingly heavy debt if Brazil were an old,
exploited, filled up country with no spare lands and her natural
resources tapped; Brazil’s reason for hopefulness lies in her youth, the
vast undeveloped land and mineral resources of her patrimony, her good
credit among the nations, and the sincerity with which her statesmen are
attacking the task of resuming interest payments.
Brazil has a big income, but it needs to be increased before she can pay
her debts without a strain; the President has repeatedly declared his
firm intention to sustain payments at whatever sacrifice, and has
recently called the States into conference with a view to devising new
methods of raising revenue. In the Budget estimates of the Federal
Government for 1921 revenue was reckoned at 102,000 contos gold (milreis
= twenty-seven pence) and 624,761 contos paper (probably a fraction over
twelve pence); expenditure at the same time was calculated at 75,680
gold and 711,640 paper contos, including in the gold payments the
service of the foreign debt.
The Federal Government’s chief revenues are derived from import taxes,
impartially placed upon entries into all the States; income of the
States is mainly derived from export dues, while municipalities get
revenues from imposts upon professions and industries, and manage
sometimes to get a share in export dues. The Acre Territory, purchased
by the Brazilian Government from Bolivia in 1903, is the only part of
Brazil paying export as well as import dues to the Federal authorities,
this contribution coming from rubber.
To help raise new revenues, _impostos do consumo_ (excise) have been
increased on articles consumed in the country, the addition to the
burden of the retailer and the consumer himself raising some outcry, as
has also the suggestion to put on railway freight imposts. The States,
exporting larger quantities of goods than normally, are not so badly
placed as the Federal Government, but that they look upon the matter of
raising income from produce exported with different eyes in different
parts of the republic is shown by a look at some of the export tax
figures for 1922; these figures are not constant, as the _pauta_ is
frequently changed by the officials of exporting points in response to
conditions in international markets:
Coffee, the premier export of Brazil, pays to S. Paulo an export tax of
9 per cent, plus five francs a bag for Valorization service; in Minas it
pays 8½, plus five francs a bag, used for administrative purposes; Bahia
coffee pays 10 per cent of its value, Pernambuco 4.8, Paraná 30 per
cent, Santa Catharina 8, Espirito Santo 12½.
Cacao pays in Bahia 14 per cent of its value; in Amazonas 5 per cent; in
Pará 5 per cent; in Maranhão 4 per cent.
[Illustration:
Fishing Boats of North Brazil.
]
[Illustration:
Rocks at Guarujá, near Santos.
]
[Illustration:
Bertioga, the Old Entrance to Santos.
]
[Illustration:
Cantareira Water Supply, São Paulo.
]
Sugar pays in Pernambuco, the principal producing state, 8 per cent,
with additional charges bringing this to nearly 10 per cent for
interstate, and 12 per cent for foreign, exports; in Bahia, 4 per cent;
Alagôas, 7.8; Paraná, 4.4; Rio sugar pays 2½ to the State and 2 per cent
to the municipality of Campos.
Rubber pays 15 per cent of its value in Amazonas, or half of the amount
paid in the palmy days of the industry; Pará charges 18 per cent; the
Acre, 6 per cent; Matto Grosso, 10 per cent.
Cotton pays 11 per cent in Pernambuco, nearly 12 in Alagôas, 8 per cent
in Bahia.
Hides pay 20 per cent in Amazonas; Maranhão, two cents a kilo;
Pernambuco, 18 per cent; Alagôas, 13 per cent; Bahia, 15 per cent;
Paraná, and Santa Catharina, 10 per cent; Rio Grande do Sul, 10.5; Matto
Grosso, 6 per cent.
Tobacco pays a variety of dues, ranging from 12 per cent in Bahia, the
chief exporting point, to 4 per cent in Pernambuco and the southern
States.
Matte pays 3.6 in Rio Grande, 46 reis a kilo in Paraná and 20 reis a
kilo in Santa Catharina.
Frozen meat, a new industry, escaped taxation until September, 1916,
when Rio put on a tax of about one-hundredth of an American cent per
pound, a delicately weighted burden, which a vigorous industry can stand
perfectly well if it is not multiplied too much.
_Principal Banks in Brazil_
Certain strong banks, as the three of British origin (London and
Brazilian, London and River Plate, and the British Bank of South
America), have branches or agencies at several places, the two first
possessing establishments in every important town; the National City
Bank of New York has three Brazilian branches (Santos, Rio and S.
Paulo); the French-Italian Banque Française et Italienne and the
(French) Crédit Foncier have several branches besides the establishments
in Rio and S. Paulo, as also have the (German) Banco Alemão
Transatlantico, Brasilienische Bank für Deutschland, and the
Sudamericanische, the (Spanish) Banco Español del Rio de la Plata, and
the (Portuguese) Banco Nacional Ultramarino, and the (Italian-Belgian)
Italo-Belge.
The Banco do Brasil is the strongest Brazilian bank, with headquarters
in Rio and many branches. In addition to the houses spreading all over
Brazil each State has its own banking firms established in the capital.
In banking power the Federal Capital, Rio de Janeiro stands first, with
a capital of nearly 46,000 contos of reis; S. Paulo is next, with
banking capital of over 13,000 contos; Rio Grande do Sul comes third,
with over 11,000 contos, Minas Geraes following, succeeded by Bahia and
Pernambuco, Pará and Amazonas.
The chief banks of Rio, in addition to the three British, one American,
and other foreign banks above mentioned, as well as the Banco do Brazil,
are the Banco Commercial do Rio de Janeiro; the Banco do Commercio;
Banco do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; Mercantil do Rio de Janeiro; and the
Lavoura e Commercio do Brasil. São Paulo, besides the foreign
establishments, has the Commercial do Estado de S. Paulo; Banco do
Commercio e Industria de S. Paulo; Banco de S. Paulo; Banco de Credito
Hypothecario e Agricola do Estado de S. Paulo; the Banco de Construcções
e Reservas, and the União de S. Paulo.
Among the local banks doing excellent service are the Hypothecario e
Agricola do Estado de Minas Geraes (headquarters in Bello Horizonte);
the Provincia do Rio Grande do Sul; Banco do Porto Alegre; the Banco do
Recife (Pernambuco); the Commercial do Pará; Credito Hypothecario e
Agricola do Estado da Bahia; Banco do Ceará; Banco do Maranhão; but many
other places also have comparatively small banks, and in addition there
are many private “Casas bancarias”—financial houses—strongly entrenched,
doing sound and useful work.
CHAPTER VII
THE WORLD’S HORTICULTURAL AND MEDICINAL DEBT TO BRAZIL
Loudon, the English horticultural authority, says in his _Encyclopædia
of Gardening_ (1835) that “some of the finest flowers of British gardens
are natives of South America, especially annuals.” He mentions the
dahlia—by the obsolete name of Georgina; the Marvel of Peru (Mirabilia)
the Calceolaria and the Schizanthus, adding that “beautiful shrubs are
not less numerous, but they are generally inmates of greenhouses.”
Since Loudon wrote Brazil, as other parts of South and Central America,
has been the happy hunting ground of plant explorers, and the gardens of
Europe and North America have been beautified to an extent of which that
devoted horticulturist never dreamed. The tale of the indebtedness of
the gardens of less fortunate climes to South America in general and
Brazil in particular for plants and shrubs, both ornamental and of
economic value, would occupy a large volume; the extent of the debt is
no less great than general ignorance of it. Practically nothing is known
of early attempts to introduce Brazilian plants, for they were failures,
and failures they remained for two and a half centuries after South
America was discovered. The science of botany and art of gardening were
alike in primitive stages until the latter part of the eighteenth
century, and, whilst South American plants were known by their local
names, means for their successful transportation had not been found;
nor, in the rare cases of their surviving long journeys by sailing boat,
was successful cultivation of these exotics known. If, as is possible,
there are yet in herbariums in Portugal any plants which the early
colonists sent home, no printed record of them seems to exist.
It was not until the second decade of the nineteenth century that any
serious attempts were made to reveal to the world the richness of
Brazilian flora, and only within recent years that anything like a
comprehensive account of it has been published: as far back as 1648
Willem Piso and Georg Marcgrav published in Amsterdam a large folio
volume containing spirited woodcuts carefully coloured by hand of
Brazilian flowers, shrubs, fishes, birds, reptiles, etc., but this was a
natural history rather than a botanical book. Both these pioneers are
commemorated in _Pisonia_ and _Marcgravia_, species of which are still
in cultivation.
In 1820 three scientific works dealing with Brazilian flora appeared.
Mikan’s _Delectus floræ ... brasiliensis_ was issued in Vienna: Raddi’s
_Di alcune specie nuove del Brasile_ and his _Quarante piante nuove de
Brasile_, were issued in quarto volumes in Modena. Four years later St.
Hilaire published in Paris his _Histoire des Plantes_ of Brazil and
Paraguay; between 1827 and 1831 J. E. Pohl’s _Plantarum Brasilæ icones_
appeared in two folio volumes in Vienna. Other floras of Brazil, notably
that of Martius, 1837–40, came out at intervals, and by the end of the
century the plant life of Brazil was well covered by scientific
publications.
So far as Great Britain is concerned, and it may be taken as a criterion
of Europe generally, the most comprehensive record of sources and dates
of the introduction of South American plants is Loudon’s _Hortus
Britannicus_, first published in 1830. It enumerates something like
thirty thousand species, exotic and otherwise. As the importation of
South American plants was only in its infancy at that time many hundreds
of flowers, now familiar in gardens and hothouses, are not recorded, but
the book is reasonably complete up to the time of publication. Most of
the more important introduced aliens, before and after the date of
Loudon’s great work, may be found described and illustrated in the
_Botanical Magazine of London_ (issued monthly from 1787 to the present
time), while others are dealt with in Loddiges’ _Botanical Cabinet_,
1818–24, and in many other of the quantity of horticultural publications
appearing in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century—
notably in Nicholson’s _Dictionary of Gardening_ and in the revised
edition of Johnson’s _Gardener’s Dictionary_, bringing the record to the
end of the nineteenth century.
Whilst many European botanists, such as Langsdorff, Burchell, Lhotsky
and others had, during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century,
explored certain parts of Brazil, nothing was of more importance to
general knowledge of the plant-treasures of the country than the work
accomplished by a Scotch botanist, Dr. George Gardner, afterwards
Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens of Ceylon. His _Travels in the
Interior of Brazil_ during 1836–41 is a record of high merit, not only
on account of its contribution to Brazilian botany and natural history,
but because it is a faithful and genial picture of life and conditions
in the interior of Brazil three-quarters of a century ago. The amazing
richness and beauty of Brazilian flora had never before been revealed to
Europeans as through Gardner’s book and his collections of thousands of
specimens; it is extraordinary that these fascinating _Travels_ should
have remained out of print.
Of all the groups of plants introduced to the rest of the world from the
southerly countries of the New World, orchids easily rank first, as the
most precious, the most varied and beautiful, and the most costly: the
first brought to England came from the East and West Indies. _Epidendrum
cochleatum_ found its way from Jamaica to England and was flowered for
the first time in 1787; another species of the same lovely family,
_Epidendrum fragrans_, came also from Jamaica in 1778 but was not
flowered until 1788. In 1794 fifteen species of epiphytal orchids were
at Kew, chiefly brought from the West Indies by Admiral Bligh, and for
many years these islands, and India, were the main sources of orchid
importation. But in 1793 a species of Oncidium was introduced to England
from Panama: in 1811 another came from Montevideo, and by 1818 Brazil
had begun to contribute species of the same genus. In 1825 Loddiges of
Hackney, London, had in cultivation some eighty-four species of orchids
from South America and the East, and by 1830 the Royal Horticultural
Society of London had collectors in various parts of Brazil, hunting for
rare plants.
Many beautiful orchids were sent home by business men residing in South
America; for instance, William Cattley of Barnet, who died in 1832, and
whose name is commemorated by the noble Cattleya, established an
extensive correspondence with business men living abroad for the
purposes of obtaining new and rare orchids, and through his efforts came
many fine specimens, chiefly from Brazil. The earliest Brazilian
_Cattleya_ to reach Europe was C. Loddigesii, 1815, but the most famous
and most protean species of all _C. Cabiata_, reached Europe in 1818,
and others of the same genus came in rapid succession from Brazil,
Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Argentine. Many
beautiful Brazilian orchids were sent by William Harrison, a merchant
living in Rio de Janeiro during the thirties and forties of last
century, to his brother Richard in Liverpool, whose residence at
Aigburth was in those days a Mecca to which orchid lovers paid annual
pilgrimages.
To introduce these plants was one thing; to cultivate them successfully
was quite another. Hooker once declared that for more than half a
century England was “the grave of tropical orchids” and that those
surviving did so in spite of, rather than on account of, the treatment
they received. Each grower had his special system, mostly wrong: it was
not until after repeated and costly failures that orchid importing and
growing became a success, and that success only became general about
1850.
The debt of other countries to Brazil and indeed all tropical America
for ferns and cacti is also great. The Canna and its ally Marcanta may
be traced in England as far back as 1730; the Begonias and the Gesnera
date from 1816–18, whilst the favourite Abutilon, introduced in 1837, is
today hardy in many parts of Europe. The Gloxinia, arriving from South
America a century earlier, has developed possibilities undreamt-of by
earlier horticulturists, and the same may be said of the Fuchsia,
brought from Mexico and Chile, 1823–25. The most popular South American
shrub is the _Escallonia macrantha_, introduced from the island of
Chiloe (Alexander Selkirk’s retreat) in 1848; it has for many years been
a favourite hedge plant in the county of Cornwall, where it thrives in
pink profusion.
[Illustration:
On the Madeira River, Amazonas; rapids at Tres Irmãos.
Victoria Regia lilies near Manáos.
]
The Calceolaria is another early nineteenth century alien from South
America; so too is the Dahlia: sixty years ago whole nurseries were
given over to the culture and hybridization of this flower, and an
entire literature appeared on the subject. Its popularity has somewhat
waned, but on the other hand the most gorgeous of greenhouse climbers,
Bignonia, was never more treasured than it is today. Brazil, and other
adjacent countries, has given us also many species of such genera as
Achimenes, Alstromeria, Anthurium, Aristolochia, Caladium, Calathea,
Hibiscus, Iponoea (the Evening Primrose), and hundreds of other
beautiful plants.
Among plants introduced and cultivated abroad for other reasons than
their loveliness are the pineapple (_Anana sativa_) which reached Europe
as early as 1690; coconuts were carried from Brazil a century ago; and
the Brazil nut (_Bertholletia excelsa_), which was probably first taken
to Portugal by very early navigators, finds its first mention in England
in the 1830 edition of Lindley’s _Natural System of Botany_; he speaks
of the “Souari ... or Brazil nuts of the shop, the kernel of which is
one of the most delicious fruits of the nut kind.”
Brazil’s gifts to the pharmacopeias of the world have also been very
valuable. Discovery, or rather publication in Europe of the medicinal
properties of many Brazilian plants is due to Piso, author with Marcgrav
(“een geboren Duitscher”) of the work _De Medicina Brasiliensi_, etc.,
of 1648, already mentioned. This monumental publication was undertaken
under the patronage of Count John Maurice of Nassau, Governor of North
Brazil during the period of Dutch occupation, a far-seeing man whose
portraits are to be seen in the public galleries of Amsterdam and
Brussels. Nearly all the Brazilian plants with notable medicinal
properties are fully described and illustrated in this book: among them,
and perhaps the best known, is Ipecacuanha, obtained from the root of
_Cephalis ipecacuanha_, native to the damp shady forests of Brazil. This
drug was first mentioned in an account of Brazil given by a Portuguese
friar in Purchas’s _Pilgrimes_, 1625, where it is called _Ipecaya_, so
that it is clear that Piso, although the first to bring the drug to the
notice of European medical men, was not the discoverer of its qualities.
In England the famous physician John Pechey was the first savant to
bring ipecacuanha to general notice in his _Observations made upon the
Brasilian root called Ipepocoanha_, issued in 1682; a few years later it
was firmly established in European medicine. In 1686, says A. C. Wootton
(_Chronicles of Pharmacy_, 1910) Louis XIV bought from Jean Adrien
Helvetius the secret of a medicine with which a number of remarkable
cures had been performed; Helvetius, whose patronymic was Schweitzer,
was the son of a Dutch quack, and he not only made his own fortune out
of ipecacuanha (the royal gift alone was a thousand louis d’or) but got
the appointment of Inspector General of the hospitals of Flanders and
court physician to the Duke of Orleans.
Another famous drug from Brazil is the Balsam of Capevi (or Copaiba—
Copaiva), the sap of _Copaifera officinalis_, a genus of the leguminous
order of plants; it was described by Piso; is mentioned in Edward
Cooke’s _Voyage to the South Sea and round the World_, published in
1712, and first made its appearance in English gardens in 1774, having
previously figured in Jacquin’s _Stirpium Americanarum Historia_, 1763.
Jaborandi, obtained from the dried leaflets of _Pilocarpus
pennatifolius_, was described by Piso and Marcgrav: like the two
mentioned above, this drug was well known to the native tribes of Brazil
and employed by the pagés or medicine men; it received its first serious
notice in recent times in the _Diccionario de Medicina_ published by Dr.
T. J. H. Langgard in Rio de Janeiro in 1865. The plant reached English
gardens three years later, but its properties do not seem to have been
recognized in Europe until 1874, when a Brazilian scientist, Dr.
Coutinho, sent some leaves to M. Rabutau, the eminent pharmacist of
Paris, who tested it and declared it to be as valuable as quinine as a
febrifuge and sudorific.
Guaraná (_Paullinia sorbilis_, Mart.) is a tonic widely used in Brazil
and Peru, which has recently been making its way into favour in Europe,
France taking the drug readily. It is obtained from seeds, and a paste
made which hardens into such a consistency that it can only be powdered
by a grater; this powder is dissolved in cold water and taken as a tonic
and digestive. One of Brazil’s bottled mineral waters is also made with
Guaraná added, and the pink-tinted, rather acrid drink is quite
agreeable.
The Brazilian interior, and particularly Amazonas, is so rich in
medicinal herbs, seeds and roots, that it would take pages to give their
names, and as they are not popularly known, the reader would not be
greatly enlightened, but the Quassia (_Quassia amara_, Linn.) has
international fame; Jalap (_Piptostegia Pisonis_) is an old
acquaintance. Many drugs have local names as the Lagryma da Nossa
Senhora (Tear of Our Lady), a diuretic; the Melão de São Caetano (S.
Caetano’s Melon), whose little fruit of the cucumber class is a
medicine, whose stalks furnish a fine fibre, and whose leaves contain
potash. There is at least one remarkable astringent, the Cipó Caboclo
(_Davallia rugosa_); Cambará is a much-used base for pectoral syrups;
the Batata de Purga and the Purga do Pastor are used all over Brazil;
many of the Rubiaceae are used as febrifuges; there are numbers of
tonics, as the Laranjeira do Matto (Forest Orange) and the Páo Parahyba
and Páo Pereira. Andiroba oil is used to make a skin soap, and also to
light the family lamp in northerly states; the Sapucainha (_Carpotroche
brasiliensis_) tree yields a nut containing fifty per cent of oil used
locally for rheumatism in Minas, Rio and Espirito Santo; and the Pinhão
de Purga’s seeds furnish an oil said to be convertible into gas.
Besides the well-known Vanilla, there is known one fine flavouring and
scenting plant, the Páo precioso, one of the Lauraceae; its bark and
seeds are sweetly perfumed and it is much used by local chemists.
Brazil could if necessary ship excellent mineral waters abroad. There is
an import of bottled waters into Brazil, but they have rivals in the
national waters, chiefly found in Minas Geraes and there bottled by
Brazilian companies. Perhaps the most popular are Caxambú and Salutaris,
but there are others. The chief points of origin are at Aguas Virtuosas,
Caxambú, Lambary, Cambuquira, São Lourenço, and the recently opened
wells at Araxá.
Altogether the natural gifts of Brazil in minerals and plants are such
that not only does she supply the basis for many home-made remedies but
also ships drugs abroad; were her resources better investigated and
quantities developed she could greatly increase her position as a
supplier of medicines to international markets.
CHAPTER VIII
BRAZIL’S EXTERIOR COMMERCE
Studying the commerce of Brazil with the rest of the world, following
the remarkable variations in amount of export of certain articles, and
the no less remarkable fluctuation in price of others, one comes at last
to the conclusion that Brazilian trade has never had a normal year.
Almost every twelve months has seen changes taking place which are not
the result, in most cases, of the growth, to be expected, along definite
lines; influences unforeseen have more than once knocked the bottom out
of certain prosperous businesses, production has been affected by remote
causes, or stimulated by others as little to be normally reckoned upon.
The history of Brazilian exterior commerce, which is largely the history
of her exports since purchases depend upon income, shows some of the
most sensational transferences of prosperity from one region and
industry to another, oddest appearances and disappearances of
industries, falls and rises of prices, in commercial records.
To realize something of this it is only necessary to think of the
dominance of the northern promontory, in colonial days, when sugar was
the great Brazilian staple together with dyewood, and of the total
disappearance of the latter—until the last year—from consideration; of
the once-feverish gold industry, which shipped over a thousand tons of
the refined metal in its hey-day, employing an army of people, and which
has now vanished, with the exception of the operations of two
British-owned companies; of the obliteration of Brazil’s fame as a
diamond producer after the discovery of the blue-clay deposits of
Kimberley; of the rise of the once-neglected and uncolonized south to
the position of “leader” section of the country with its enormous coffee
production, built up during the last forty years; of the phenomena of
the rubber export of the extreme north, as well as the new developments
in Brazilian business appearing on the horizon, great in potentiality,
during the war period, and which may bring Brazil into the front rank of
countries exporting chilled beef and producing manganese ore. Few
countries on the active list have seen such revolutions in industry;
they have been largely due to the variety of Brazilian regions, and they
will in all probability be repeated while Brazil opens her great
expanses of virgin prairies, forests, and mineral-saturated hills.
The following figures show that between 1915 and 1920, Brazil’s exterior
commerce was nearly equal in value to that of the previous ten years:
_Ten-year _Total _Total _Relation _Average
Period_ Importation Exportation of Imports Value of
Values_ Values_ to Milreis
Exports_ in Pence_
1846–1855 737,720 contos 691,740 contos 106.6% 27 ¹⁄₁₆
1856–1865 1,228,171 „ 1,225,563 „ 100.2% 26 ⁹⁄₃₂
1866–1875 1,551,630 „ 1,902,331 „ 81.5% 21 ⁹⁄₁₆
1876–1885 1,768,564 „ 1,969,515 „ 89.8% 19 ³¹⁄₃₂
1886–1895 3,267,650 „ 4,073,764 „ 80.2% 18 ³⁄₁₆
1896–1905 4,856,634 „ 7,324,009 „ 66.3% 11 ³⁵⁄₆₄
1906–1915 6,331,487 „ 8,115,492 „ 78 % 14 ³⁹⁄₆₄
1916–1920[21] 6,063,000 „ 7,397,300 „ 81.5% 13 ¹¹⁄₂₅
These figures show one or two points clearly—first, the vitality of
Brazil, for as one industry has waned another has waxed, exportation
values steadily showing increases in spite of the caprices of fortune;
it is also plain that for the last fifty years Brazil has exported more
than she has imported. In war years, this excess of exports was very
much more accentuated, but, although this balance is useful in helping
to steady exchange, to pay debts abroad, and to put money into shippers’
and producers’ pockets, it has the effect, when imports are greatly
curtailed, of starving the Federal Government, whose revenues are mainly
dependent upon import taxes.
The famous “nine principal articles” of Brazilian export were coffee,
cotton, sugar, rubber, cacao, hides (of cattle), skins (of goats and
sheep), tobacco, and matte (“Paraguay tea”) up to 1916. Other items
which displayed marked rises up to 1918 were lard, rice, Brazil nuts,
carnauba wax, manganese ore, precious and semi-precious stones, and
chilled or frozen beef. Prosperity over all Brazil depends much more
upon volume and variety of goods exported than upon prices, for while
soaring values put large profits into the hands of the few, great
volumes of products mean employment for the field labourer or collector,
for transportation companies, and a host of intermediaries. In addition
to increased prices, the actual volume of Brazilian exports was larger
in the five years 1916–1920, rising from seven million tons in 1911–1915
to nearly ten million tons. This prosperity was due to war calls,
several new items appearing on the 1916–20 lists on page 319.
_1915_ _1914_ _1913_ _1912_ _1911_
Coffee 17,061,000 11,270,000 13,267,000 12,080,000 11,258,000 bags
Matte 75,885 59,354 65,415 62,880 61,834 tons
Rubber 35,165 33,531 36,232 42,286 36,547 „
Sugar 59,074 31,860 5,367 4,772 36,208 „
Cacao 44,980 40,767 29,759 30,492 34,994 „
Hides 38,324 31,442 35,075 36,255 31,832 „
Tobacco 27,096 26,980 29,388 24,706 18,489 „
Cotton 5,228 30,434 37,424 16,774 14,650 „
Skins 4,578 2,487 3,232 3,189 2,798 „
_1920_ _1919_ _1918_ _1917_ _1916_
Coffee 11,525,000 12,963,000 7,433,000 10,606,000 13,039,000 bags
Matte 90,686 90,200 72,781 65,431 76,777 metric
tons
Rubber 22,876 32,213 22,211 31,590 28,865 „
Sugar 109,141 69,429 115,634 138,159 54,438 „
Cacao 54,419 62,584 41,865 55,622 43,720 „
Tobacco (leaf) 30,562 42,575 29,011 25,282 21,021 „
Cotton (raw) 24,696 12,153 2,594 5,941 1,071 „
Cotton seed 23,564 22,649 42 22,882 11,762 „
Rice 134,554 28,423 27,916 44,639 1,315 „
Mandioca Flour 8,660 21,834 65,322 18,745 5,370 „
Beans 23,000 58,607 70,914 93,536 45,817 „
Brazil Nuts 9,279 24,998 6,750 16,057 9,882 „
Hard Woods 125,394 103,824 179,799 64,264 82,816 „
Manganese 453,737 205,725 393,388 532,855 503,130 „
Meat 63,600 54,094 60,509 66,452 33,661 „
Lard 11,166 20,028 13,270 10,235 3 „
Hides 37,265 56,788 45,584 39,912 53,511 „
Tinned Meat 1,649 25,398 17,223 6,552 856 „
Skins 3,966 5,166 2,215 3,046 3,840 „
The preponderance today of São Paulo as a producer state is shown by her
shipment values—465,212 contos out of the total exports, or about
forty-six per cent of Brazilian sales. Next in values come the sales of
Minas Geraes, worth 221,000 contos, and Rio de Janeiro state, with about
176,000 contos; Bahia is fourth, with exports worth over 102,000 contos;
Pará and Amazonas follow with about 70,000 and 64,000 contos
respectively; Paraná, 33,565 contos; Espirito Santo, nearly 30,000; and
Pernambuco, with 22,600 contos, are next, followed by Ceará, shipping
nearly 19,000 contos’ worth of goods, to Rio Grande do Sul, with sales
worth almost 16,000 contos; the only other state shipping over 10,000
contos’ worth of goods is Maranhão.
The United States has been for many years the greatest single purchaser
of Brazilian materials, generally taking rather more than one-third of
all exports, Europe taking nearly all the rest, with South America also
buying an appreciable share, amounting to about five per cent of the
total. The coffee trade is that in which the United States is most
largely concerned: for the last six years Brazilian exports of coffee
have averaged over fourteen million bags, and of this the United States
has been taking about one-third, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands
accounting for another third, France taking from one to two million
bags, and the rest of Europe absorbing the remainder. The United States,
purchaser of a billion dollars of tropical and sub-tropical products in
1915–16, is an eager taker of Brazilian hides and skins, an export
markedly stimulated since the European War began, important shipments
coming from Rio Grande do Sul among other cattle states; she has, during
the last two years, apparently been able to receive larger quantities of
all Brazilian products, and perhaps the most salutary trend, for both
the United States and Brazil, has been in the great quantities of raw
materials taken by the northern country. These materials are the breath
of life to the manufactures, and nothing is better for Brazil than
increased volumes of such exports.
During 1915 the United States bought, reckoning in dollars, nearly
$107,000,000 of Brazil’s total exports of over $255,000,000, while Great
Britain took $31,000,000, France $29,000,000, Sweden $23,000,000
(chiefly coffee, and, in view of the disappearance of direct sales to
Germany, in all probability transferred to the Central Powers), and the
Netherlands $16,000,000; sales to the Argentine were nearly $13,000,000,
while Uruguay took about four and a half million dollars’ worth of
goods. Apparently, trading between Brazil and her South American
neighbours on the same side of the Andes has been greatly increased
during 1916, Argentina buying unprecedented amounts of sugar, as well as
maintaining her imports of matte. During 1915, the total sales of
Argentina to Brazil were worth over 89,000 contos, or something like
$22,000,000, of which nearly $20,000,000 were accounted for by wheat and
wheat flour. At the same time Brazil sold to the Argentine 42,226
contos’ worth (say $10,560,000) of goods, of which nearly 70 per cent
was accounted for by matte sales, with 15 per cent of tobacco.
Brazilian imports show important changes in places of origin since the
European War; formerly Great Britain was by far the greatest seller to
this country, supplying nearly a third of the total goods purchased. In
1911 the order in importance of countries selling to Brazil were Great
Britain, Germany, the United States, France, Argentina, Portugal,
Belgium; in 1912 and 1913 the same order was maintained, but with
Germany increasing her sales at a greater rate than Great Britain, while
the United States also showed gains.
In 1914, with the outbreak of war, England still retained her top place,
but with reduced values, while the United States drew second, Germany
third and the Argentine fourth. In 1915, the United States sold more
goods than any other country, and Great Britain came second, maintaining
her command of the market in cotton piece goods in a remarkable manner,
and holding over half of the coal sales in the latter item until 1916,
when United States’ sales replaced the Welsh coal, whose export was then
prohibited. Development of South Brazilian coal fields also helped to
supply the home market to an increasing degree. During 1921–2 Britain
recaptured much of her coal sales, and the share of the United States
fell almost to pre-war conditions, from top place (81%) in 1920.
In U. S. currency, Brazil imported nearly $146,000,000 worth of goods in
1915, the United States selling about $47,000,000, England nearly
$32,000,000 worth, while Germany’s former average of fifty-two millions
was reduced to two. Many of these changes were due to the abnormal war
situation, and while it could not be expected that the United States
would retain an advantage due to the elimination of competitors, she was
still the greatest supplier of goods in 1920, selling over twice as much
as her nearest rival, Britain, or goods worth $52,000,000, in comparison
with Britain’s $25,000,000. The European countries organized for
overseas trading are making strenuous and determined efforts to regain
the commerce built up by the transportation lines and development work
financed from Europe; although they awaited the end of the war to renew
these efforts. Probably the best recommendation of the United States to
a large share in Brazilian imports lies not in commissions and reunions,
but in her extensive purchases of Brazilian raw material.
Broadly speaking, nearly sixty per cent of Brazilian imports are
manufactured goods. Large quantities of machinery, steel rails,
locomotives, etc., are usually imported every year for the construction
work needed in a vast and young country. Over twenty-four per cent of
the total purchases are of foodstuffs with wheat and wheat-flour largely
preponderant: last year one-fifth of the total imports of Brazil were
credited to these two items. About ten per cent of Brazilian purchase
money is paid for coal. Financial stringency due to abnormal conditions
has cut down Brazilian imports in a salutary manner—and fortunately for
Brazilian merchants and retailers, stores were at the outbreak of
hostilities largely overstocked by the unprecedentedly large purchases
of 1913, when $326,000,000 was paid for imports.
As a result of big sales and reduced buying, Brazil in 1915 had a trade
balance in her favour of about 440,000 contos of reis (exports 1,022,634
contos and imports 582,996 contos) the equivalent of nearly $140,000,000
in United States currency. This balance appears to have largely remained
abroad to help meet Brazilian indebtedness, and helped to steady
exchange. This surplus of export values dropped well below 400,000
contos in 1916 and 1917, and to 148,000 in 1918, but rose to the
unprecedented height of 845,000 in 1919, when the milreis soared to the
rather inconvenient exchange value of 18 pence. The years 1920 and 1921
witnessed adverse balances of trade, with the milreis fallen below 8
pence, 1922 showing trade recoveries practically to pre-war values.
Brazil has weathered many a storm commercially and industrially because
the world needs her raw material; she has every reason for confidence in
the future.
_State_ _Capital_ _Area Sq. _Population_
Kilometers_
Alagôas Maceió 58,500 785,000
Amazonas Manáos 1,895,000 390,000
Bahia São Salvador 427,000 2,500,000
Ceará Fortaleza 104,250 1,000,000
Federal District Rio de Janeiro 1,116 1,200,000
(São Sebastião)
Espirito Santo Victoria 45,000 400,000
Goyaz Goyaz 747,000 300,000
Maranhão São Luiz 460,000 500,000
Matto Grosso Cuyabá 1,379,000 245,000
Minas Geraes Bello Horizonte 575,000 4,500,000
Pará Belem 1,150,000 660,000
Parahyba Parahyba 75,000 600,000
Paraná Curityba 250,000 500,000
Pernambuco Recife 128,400 2,100,000
Piauhy Therezina 301,800 425,000
Rio de Janeiro Nictheroy 69,000 1,300,000
Rio Grande do Norte Natal 57,500 410,000
Rio Grande do Sul Porto Alegre 236,500 1,500,000
Santa Catharina Florianopolis 43,535 450,000
São Paulo São Paulo 290,876 3,000,000
Sergipe Aracajú 39,090 450,000
Acre Territory 191,000 100,000
The Territory of Acre was legally acquired from Bolivia by the
Government of Brazil in 1903 but had been populated and the rubber
reserves worked by Brazilian _seringueiros_ for at least ten years
previously. Their entry into Bolivian lands was the cause of much
friction until the final settlement by the payment by Brazil of
£2,000,000 for this rich area.
[Illustration: [Agriculture Map]]
BRAZILIAN TERMS
_Alagôano_: native of Alagôas. Native of Amazonas State, _amazonense_.
Native of Bahia, _bahiano_; of Ceará, _cearense_; of Espirito
Santo, _espirito-saniense_; of Goyaz, _goyano_; of Maranhão,
_maranhense_; of Matto Grosso, _matto-grossense_; of Minas Geraes,
_mineiro_; of Pará, _paraense_; of Paraná, _paranaense_; of
Piauhy, _piauhyense_; of Parahyba, _parahybano_; of Pernambuco,
_pernambucano_; of São Paulo, _paulista_; of Santa Catharina,
_catharinense_; of Rio Grande do Norte and Rio Grande do Sul,
_riograndense do norte_, or _riograndense do sul_; of Sergipe,
_sergipano_. A native of the north is a _nortista_; of the south,
a _sulista_; of Brazil, in general, _brasileiro_.
_Aviador_: properly, _aviator_, but has special meaning on the Amazon;
is applied to the dealer who supplies the _seringaes_ with outfit
and food for the season, and who purchases the rubber crop. The
_aviado_ is the customer of the _aviador_.
_Bateia_: bowl for washing out placer gold.
_Borracha_: any kind of rubber in Brazilian; the term _goma_ is also
sometimes used, but applied only to latex of _hevea brasiliensis_.
_Braços_: lit. “arms,” that is, labourers; hands.
_Cabotagem_: Brazilian navigation, whether coastal or riverine.
_Caipira_: countryman from the south—“hayseed.” The equivalent type
from the north is a _matuto_.
_Capoeira_: second growth of vegetation after land has been cleared.
Also applied to kind of basket made of native grass; also to the
Brazilian equivalent to jiu-jit-su; genuine capoeira adepts have
remarkable muscular control. The term _capoeira_ is also applied
to a certain dance.
_Capim_: grass (plural, _capins_) of different kinds, as _capim
gordura_, capim panasco, capim sertão, etc.
_Carioca_: native of Rio de Janeiro City—from the Carioca fountain,
once fashionable centre of city.
_Carreiro_: by-path of the interior.
_Colono_: labourer imported, whether from another country or a sister
State.
_Conto_: (of reis); one thousand milreis, or 1,000,000 reis. In paper,
worth normally over £66, but since European War value fluctuates
about £50, or say $250.
_Engenho_: sugar mill.
_Estrada de Ferro_: railroad; _Rede ferroviario_, railway system, lit.
“net” of railways.
_Fazenda_: in South, any farm or estate of coffee, cacao, cattle,
etc.; in north more exclusively applied to cattle farm.
_Fazendeiro_, farmer or estate owner.
_Fallencia_: failure, bankruptcy.
_Farinha_: flour. — de mandioca, of two kinds “white” and “yellow,”
made from root of one of the Euphorbias.
_Feijão_: beans, red, black or white, universal Brazilian food;
_feijoada_, special dish made with beans, dried meat, pepper,
mandioca flour, etc.
_Flagellados_: lit. “the scourged,” applied to people from the
northern drought districts.
_Fluminense_: native of Rio de Janeiro State, from Lat. flumen, river;
Portuguese discoverers thought Rio Bay mouth of a river, and so
named it “River of January.” There is no river, but the name
remains, and the _fluminenses_ are proud to call themselves “river
folk.”
_Frigorifico_: cold storage, properly; applied to packing-houses also.
_Gaiola_: properly, cage; also applied to small open boats traversing
Amazonian fluvial network.
_Garimpeiros_: diamond hunters of Brazilian interior.
_Herva_: lit. herb: applied to the leaf of _ilex paraguayensis_, known
in Brazil as _herva matte_ and in Spanish America as yerba maté.
_Herval_, forest of trees from which leaf is obtained: pl.
_hervaes_.
_Matadouro_: slaughterhouse.
_Matto_: wild Brazilian woodland: _matteiro_, expert forester.
_Modinha_: Brazilian folk-song: term _fado_ also used.
_Parecer_: lit. opinion; generally applied to views given upon public
matters by eminent men.
_Paroara_: person going from another district to work in the Amazon
rubber country.
_Pauta_: rate of export tax; changed frequently in response to
international market prices for such Braz. goods as cacao, rubber,
tobacco, sugar, etc.
_Patrão_: owner or manager of estate or business.
_Pelle_: ball of rubber made by seringueiros.
_Praieiro_: one who lives by the _praia_, or shore.
_Rebanho_: stock of animals, herd or flock.
_Regatão_: row-boats of petty traders upon Amazonian waterways.
_Resaca_: violent wave-movement, often seen in Rio and Recife, when a
receding meets an oncoming wave and water is thrown up; _resacas_
along the Rio sea-front often throw spray sixty feet into the air.
_Romaria_: pilgrimage made by religious-minded to the places where
there are churches containing images of special devotion.
_Safra_: time of harvest; the crop yield is the _colheita_.
_Seringa_: gum of _hevea brasiliensis_; _seringueira_, rubber tree;
_seringueiro_, man who collects rubber; _seringal_, rubber
district in forest—pl. _seringaes_.
_Serra_: mountain range; _serro_, small hill. (_Montanha_, mountain.)
_Sertão_: Brazilian interior; pl. _sertões_. _Sertanejo_,
_sertanista_, one who dwells in the sertão.
_Tropa_: troop—generally of mules, used for cargo carrying in interior
of central and northern states; term also used in original sense
of military regiment or battalion; _tropeiro_, the conductor of a
troop of cargo mules or other animals.
_Vaqueiro_: (from _vaca_, cow)—employee specially employed upon
stock-breeding estates. Compare with _gaucho_, the cowboy of the
South.
[Illustration:
MAP OF BRAZIL
Adapted from the Railway Map arranged by Dr. Miguel Calmon for the
Brazilian Government
]
INDEX
A
A. B. C. Treaty, 120–122.
Acre Territory, 194, 204, 324.
Affonso Penna, 81;
colony, 71.
Agricultural methods, 256, 257.
Agua-marinhas, 260.
Aguas Virtuosas, 315.
Alagôas, 39, 151, 271, 297, 324.
Alagoinhas, 150.
Albuquerque, Jeronymo, 37.
Alcobaça, 155.
Alto da Serra, 130.
Alves, Rodrigues, 81, 106, 174.
Amazonas, State, 180–234, 297, 313, 319.
Amazon river, 161, 162;
basin, 3, 73;
rubber industry, 180–234;
Navigation company, 161.
Anchieta, José de, 22.
Apartaçao do gado, 85.
Aracajú, 150, 151, 324.
Araguary, 141.
Araguaya, 155.
Aramina fibre, 253.
Arantes, Dr. Altino, 70, 139;
also see footnote to p. 144.
Araxá, 315.
Area of States, 324.
Argentina, 5;
railways, 135, 138, 158;
sugar, 243;
trade with Brazil, 321.
Atalaia, 151.
Automobile roads, 127, 128.
Auxiliaire railway, 137.
Avenida Paulista, 67, 127.
Avenida Rio Branco, 105.
Aviador, 198, 199.
B
Babassú, 274.
Bacharel, Bacharelismo, 83.
Baependy, Visconde de, 61.
Bahia, city (São Salvador), settlement, 18, 19;
captaincy-general, 36;
Dutch seizure, 38, 39, 40, 44;
Dom João, 50;
negroes, 82;
churches, 91;
tobacco, 247.
Bahia, State, colonies, 60, 61;
mule troops, 86;
roads, 128;
railroads, 130, 150;
coffee, 178;
debt, 297;
tobacco, 245, 246, 247;
cacao industry, 254–256;
oranges, 258;
mines, 259, 260, 262;
factories, 265, 270;
exports, 319.
Banco do Brasil, 51.
Bandeiras, 25–33.
Bangú factory, 272.
Banks, foreign and Brazilian, 303–305;
British, capital, 290;
National City, 296.
Barbosa, Ruy, 99, 106.
Barra, 32.
Barra do Córdoba, 153.
Barreiros, 151.
Barretos, packing-house at, 140, 211, 212.
Bartholomeu Bueno da Silva, 32.
Belem (Pará), 153, 298.
_See_ Pará.
Bello Horizonte, 141, 144, 261, 298.
Bem Fica, 147.
Berrogain & Cia, 207.
Berwind Coal Co., 165, 296, 322.
Betun or petum (tobacco), 245.
Bicho, 87, 88.
Bilac, Olavo, 99, 100.
Blumenau of Brunswick, Herr, 58;
town, 138.
Bolivia, railway links, 135.
Bom Successo, 70.
Borba Gato, 31.
Borda do Campo, 22.
Brack, 291.
Braganza, 153.
Branco river, 159, 202.
Braz Cubas, 22.
Braz, Dr. Wencesláo, 54, 156.
Braz (suburb of S. Paulo), 268.
Brazil, discovery of, 11–14;
name, 15;
capitanias, 17, 18, 19;
export of tobacco, 247;
nuts, 274, 311.
Brazil Railway Co., 137, 142, 143, 297.
Brazil-wood, 15, 20, 41, 46.
British investment, 287–290.
Bureau in Paris, 103, 175.
C
Cabedello, 152.
Caboclo, 4.
Cabotagem, 123, 150.
Cabral, Captain, 14.
Cacao, culture and export, 254–258.
Cacequy, 137.
Cachaça, 241.
Cachoeiras (Itapemirim), 146.
Caeté, 48.
Cai-Uby, 23.
Caixa de Conversão, 172, 277, 278, 279.
Cajazeiras, 153.
Calmon, Dr. Miguel, 193, 229, 272.
Cametá, 48.
Caminho do Padre José, 125.
Camocim, 152.
Campinas, 141, 273.
Campos, 146, 147, 241, 290.
Campos Salles colony, 69.
Cananea, 64.
Cannavieiras, 64.
Cantareira Tramway, 139;
ferries, 147.
Cape St. Augustine, 11.
Capitanias, 17, 18, 19, 36.
Caracú cattle, 217, 218.
Caramarú, 18; town, 140.
Caravellas, 149, 159.
Carbonados (diamonds), 259.
Cardoso de Almeida, 158.
Careta, 85.
Carioca cotton mill, 290.
Carnauba wax, 152, 318.
Carvalho, Dr. Daniel de, 270.
Castilloa elastica, 182, 202, 203.
Catalão, 141.
Cattle, 40;
introduction, 208;
industry, 209–219.
Cattley, William, 309.
Caxambú, 315.
Caxias, 153, 155, 249.
Ceará, capitania of, 19, 86;
droughts in, 152;
railways, 152;
labour from, 184, 197, 198;
cattle, 218;
lace, 254, 274;
factories, 271;
debt, 297;
exports, 319;
area, 324.
Central Railway, 141, 144, 145, 146, 261.
Centro Industrial, 227, 271, 272.
Cereals, 248–252.
Chaves, Alfredo, colony of, 249.
Cincinato Braga, 217.
Ciudad Real, 23, 24, 28.
Clarke’s shoe factories, 290.
Class distinctions, 79, 80.
Climate, contrasts, 4;
variety of soil and climate, 6;
suited to immigrants, 73;
effect on roads, 128, 216, 217, 248, 274.
Coal, used, 146;
mining, 263.
Coats’ cotton mill, 290.
Coconut oil factory, 275.
Coelho, Duarte, 14, 15, 20.
Coffee drinking, 88.
Coffee industry, 167–180;
coffee exports, 175.
Colonization, Ch. 2, p. 56.
Columbus, 13.
Commerce, exterior, 316.
Commerciantes, 81.
Companhia de Viação S. Paulo-Matto Grossi, 136.
Companhia do Commercio do Brazil, 42.
Companhia Frigorifica e Pastoril, 140.
Comtists, 91.
Conde d’Eu railway, 151.
Conference, 228, 270.
Conquista, 149.
Conspiracy of Minas, 49.
Copaiva, (Copahyba), 39, 313.
Corcovado, 4.
Correia de Sá, 44.
Corsairs, 35.
Corumbá, railway to, 135, 136.
Cory Coal Co., 165, 290, 322.
Cotton, raw, export of, 226, 227;
weaving, 268–273;
industry, 219–234.
Court of Cartago, 121, 122.
Couto de Magalhães, 108.
Cozinha bahiana, 108.
Cratheus, 152.
Cruz, Dr. Oswaldo, 106, 195.
Cubatão, old road to, 126;
dye factory, 273.
Curityba, 68, 127, 133, 139, 235.
Curralinho, 144.
Currency, system, 281, 282.
Curvello, 144.
Cuyabá, 33, 46, 159, 160, 324.
D
Defesa da Borracha, 193, 206.
Diamantina, 33, 144.
Diamonds, 259, 317.
Dois Irmãos Mountains, 117.
Dom João, 50.
Dom Pedro I, 51.
Dom Pedro II, 52, 53.
Dona Anna Pimentel, 208.
Donatarios, 19, 44.
Dona Thereza (colony in Pará), 58.
Drugs, 311, 314.
Duarte Coelho, 14, 15, 20.
Duder, 290.
Dumont coffee estates, 168.
Dutch, seizure of coast, 35;
West India Co., 38;
establishment in Pernambuco, 38–41;
result of occupation, 42.
Dutra, Dr. Firma, 136.
Dyes, 272, 273.
E
Education, 115–118.
Electric power, Paulo Affonso falls, 155;
used for manufacturing, 265, 270;
falls available, 273.
Elpidio de Salles, 157.
Emancipated colonies, 71.
Emboabas, Guerra dos, 47.
Empire established, 52;
abolished, 53.
Engenho Novo, 60.
Entradas, 24, 25.
Erechim, 72.
Esperanza, Porto, 136.
Espirito Santo State, mines, 30;
early history, 36, 43;
colonies, 60, 61, 62, 71;
railroads, 148, 149;
coffee, 178;
monazite sands, 262;
factories, 271;
debt, 291, 292.
Estação da Luz, 131.
Estacio de Sá, 44.
Estrella, 62, 63.
Euclydes da Cunha, 193.
Export taxes of States, 302, 303.
External debts of States and Cities, 291, 292.
F
Fabrica da Pedra, 155.
Fabric-weaving mills in all Brazil, 268–269.
Factories in São Paulo, 265, 267, 268, 269.
Falls in exchange, 283, 284.
Farquhar, interests, 142–144, 162, 173.
Federal debts, 299, 300, 301.
Federal District, 270, 271, 291, 298.
Federal revenues, 302.
Feijó, Father Diogo, 52, 129.
Feira dos bizerros, 85.
Fernando Noronha, 15.
Fernão Dias, 29, 30, 31.
Festas, 92, 93.
Fibres, 252, 253, 254.
Fibres used by natives, 110.
Finance, 276.
Finger of God, 4.
Florianopolis, 6, 324.
Folklore, 92, 108.
Formosa, 145.
Fortaleza, 6, 152, 324.
France Antarctique, 43.
French investment, 286, 292, 293;
early settlements, 17, 37, 38.
French trade, 321.
Frey Tiburcio, 101.
Frontin, 145, 159.
Fruits, 258.
Funilense Railway, 139.
Future colonization, 73, 74, 75.
G
Garanhuns, 151.
Gardner, Dr. George, 308, 309.
Gavião Peixoto, 69.
“General Mines,” 124.
German investment, 293.
Germans, colonization, 57–62;
influence and language, 117, 118.
Goeldi, Dr. Emil, 229.
Gold mines, discovery, 30, 32, 33, 45, 46.
Gold mines in operation, 259.
Gonçalves, Dias, 100.
Good manners, Brazilian, 76, 77.
Goodyear Tire Co., 206.
Gordon, John, 262.
Goyana tribes, 29.
Goyaz, 2, 26, 27, 32, 44, 73, 141, 160, 161, 324.
Goytacazes, Capitania, 48.
Graciosa road, 127.
Granja, 152.
Grão Pará, 44.
Grass lands, 214, 215, 216.
Great Western of Brazil railway, 130, 149, 151, 152.
Green, Dr. Edward, 222, 228.
“Green Sea of Darkness,” 12.
Guanabara, Alcindo, 193;
Bay, 126.
Guaraná, 313.
Guarany nucleo, 72.
Guayará, 24.
Guayra falls, 273.
Gymnasio Anglo-Brazileiro, 117.
H
Hamburg, “Colonizing Union of,” 59.
Hammocks, 253.
Hansa, 138.
Henry, the Navigator, 12.
Herkmann, Elias, 39.
Herva matte outlet, 133;
industry, 234–238.
Hevea brasiliensis, 181;
seeds taken by Wickham, 188;
varieties, 194.
Hide exports, 218, 219.
Highroads, 124–129.
Horsemanship, skill in, 86.
Huber, Dr. Jacques, 229.
Huguenots, 43, 44.
I
Icelanders, 62.
Iguape, 63, 64;
footnote on 140.
Iguassú falls, 273.
Iguatú, 152.
Ilha de Johannes, 48.
Ilhéos, 6, 43, 48, 149.
Imbatuba, 138.
Immigration table, 72;
See colonization;
effect on Brazilian society, 78, 79.
Imperial road to Petropolis, 126.
Imports, 322, 323.
Imposto do Consumo, 266.
Independence, 52.
Indians, 109–113.
Inglotina, 272.
Inheritance of French ideas, 77.
Investment, 285.
Ipecacuanha, 39, 312.
Iquitos, 162.
Iron deposits, 261.
Isabel, Princess, 53, 80.
Itabira (iron), 261.
Itacoatiara, 162.
Itajahy, 63.
Italian immigrants, 66, 67.
Itamaracá, 41, 48.
Itanhaen, footnote on, 140.
Itapemirim, 146.
Itapura, 135, 137, 162.
Itatiaya, mountain, 3.
Itú, College at, 49.
Ivahy, 71.
J
Jaborandi, 39, 313.
“Jacaré Assu”, 62.
Japanese colony in São Paulo, 70, 71.
Jaraguá, 151.
Jardim Botanico, 229.
Jatobá, 155.
Jesuino Marcondes colony, 71.
Jesuits, 22–25, 28, 33, 34, 48, 111;
old Jesuit road, 125, 126.
João Alfredo, 81.
João Pinheiro, 72.
Joazeiro, railway to, 130;
steamboats touching at, 144.
Joinville (Dona Francesca) 58, 59, 138.
Jornal do Commercio, 9, 101, 102, 103.
Jorge Tibiriça colony, 69.
José do Patrocinio, 108.
Juiz da Fora, 125.
Jupiá, 137.
Juquiá, 64.
K
Kapok (paina), 252, 253.
L
Labour, origin and locality, 82.
Lace-making, 254, 274.
Lagôa dos Patos, 117, 137, 163.
Laguna Mirim, 238.
Lambary, 315.
Land for immigrants, 73.
Langgard, Dr. T. J. H., 313.
Lauro Muller colony, 138.
Leopoldina Railway, 130, 146, 147.
Light and Power companies, 273, 296.
Literature, 97, 98, 99.
Lloyd Brasileiro, 162, 163, 164.
Loddiges, 309.
Lotteries, public, 87.
Lundgren, 231.
M
Macahé, 146.
Macáu, 274.
Macedo, J. M. de, 79, 98, 99.
Maceió, 6, 151.
Mackenzie College, 116.
Madeira-Mamoré, 136, 142, 154, 292, 293.
Maize (milho), 251, 252.
Malho, journal, 83.
Mamelucos, 18, 25.
Manáos, 3, 6, 105, 159, 162, 185, 186, 187, 192, 197, 201–2, 298.
Mandioca, 84, 252.
Mangabeira, 182, 185.
Manganese, 261, 262, 317, 318.
Mangrove, dye from, 272.
Maniçoba rubber, 152, 182.
Mantiqueira mountains, 3.
Manufactures, 264–275.
Mappin, 289, 290.
Maranhão, 33, 37, 42, 44, 48, 49, 60, 86;
railways, 153;
coffee, 178;
factories, 270;
babassú nuts, 274.
Marcgrav, 39, 307, 313.
Maribondo falls, 273.
Martim Affonso, 18, 21.
Martinho Prado colony, 70.
Martius, 3, 307.
Matarazzo, 248.
Match industry, 264.
Matte (Herva), 68, 234–238, 318.
Matto Grosso, 2;
first entries, 26, 27;
captaincy, 44;
sertões, 78;
railways, 135, 139, 160, 161;
export taxes, 303.
Medicinal plants, 311–314.
Mem de Sá, 23, 43.
Mercantile Marine, 166.
Mestizos, 82.
Métayer system, 61.
Milho, (maize), 251, 252.
Mills, flour, 251;
sugar, 241;
fabric-weaving, founded in Pará and Maranhão, 224;
in Minas, 225;
Petropolis, 264;
S. Paulo, 265–8;
all Brazil, 268–272;
cotton mill near Pernambuco, 231–233.
Minas Geraes, products, 6;
early foundations, 26, 30, 44, 47;
colonization, 71;
roads, 127;
coffee and cotton, 178;
cattle lands, 216, 218;
cotton weaving, 225;
iron deposits, 148, 161;
gold mines, 259;
factories, 269, 271;
debt, 298;
exports, 319.
Mucury, 59.
N
Nabuco, Joaquim, 106.
Nassau, Prince John Maurice of, 39.
Natal, 152, 324.
Native races, 109–114.
Navigação Bahiana, 150, 162.
Nazareth, 150, 162.
Negroes, first introduced, 37, 82;
slavery abolished, 53;
eminent men, 108, 109.
Negro river, 159, 185, 202.
Newspapers, 101–105.
Nictheroy, 147, 324.
Nine principal export articles, 318, 319.
Nossa Senhora d’O, 60.
Nova Europa, 69.
Nova Friburgo, 57, 147.
Nova Lusitania, 20.
Nova Odessa, 68.
Nova Veneza, 69.
Novels, 98, 99.
Nucleos, 58–72.
O
Obidos, 162.
Ojeda, Alonzo de, 13.
Olinda, 38, 91, 231, 244.
Oliveira, Alberto de, 100.
Oranges of Bahia, 258.
Orchids, 309, 310.
Orgão mountains, 4.
Orellana, 16.
Osasco, packing plant, 143, 211, 212.
Ouro Preto, 46, 124, 259.
P
Packing-houses, 210–212.
Pagés, 111, 112.
Paina (kapok fibre), 252–3.
Paper money in circulation, 281, 282.
Pará City (Belem); foundation, 19;
settlements, 37;
Jesuits, 48;
newspapers, 105;
schools, 116;
shipping, 162;
coffee, 178;
modern works, 185;
rubber, 192, 197, 201;
debt, 298.
Parahyba, 41, 241, 271.
Paranaguá, 133.
Paranápanema river, 140.
Paraná river, 23, 27, 124, 126, 136, 162.
Paraná State, immigrants, 62, 68, 71;
land, 73;
matte forests, 133;
railways, 138, 139;
pine forests, 235;
coal, 263;
factories, 271;
debts, 291;
exports, 319.
Pará State, 4;
Portuguese colonies, 60;
imports, 196;
nut export, 274;
debt, 298;
exports, 319.
Paraty, 138.
Parceria system, 61.
Parnahyba river, 155.
Pastures, 215, 216, 218.
Patronato Agricola, 67, 169.
Paulista, Railway, 140.
Paulo Affonso falls, 124;
railway line, 155.
Pauta, (export tax rate), 203.
Peçanha, 60.
Pedra Preta, 152.
Pelotas, 298.
Pernambuco, 17, 19, 20, 128, 129, 137, 241, 319;
Dutch control, 38–41;
land, 73;
labour, 82;
tropeiros, 86;
churches, 91;
industries, 265, 271;
cotton cloth factory, 230–232;
sugar, 244.
Petropolis, 58, 126, 127, 147, 264, 270, 273, 290.
Piassava, fibre, 254.
Piauhy, 153, 155, 241, 271, 324.
Pineapples, 258, 311.
Pinto, Dr. Costa, 273.
Pinzon, 11.
Piquery River, 23.
Piracicaba, school, 63, 64;
sugar mill, 217, 242;
agricultural college, 257.
Piranhas, 155.
Pirapora, 144, 145.
Piso, 39, 307, 312, 313.
Pita, fibre, 253.
Plantation rubber, first experiments, 189, 190, 191;
tax on, 204.
Plants sent to Europe from Brazil, 306–314.
Poets, Brazilian, 99, 100.
Pombal, Marquis of, 45, 47, 48, 224.
Ponta da Areia, 149.
Ponta Grossa, 138, 139.
Population, 55;
separate states, 324.
Porto Alegre, 6, 298, 324.
Porto Seguro, 14, 48;
Visconde de (Varnhagen, historian), 47, 106.
Ports opened to world commerce, 50;
modern port works, 54.
Pottery, Marajó, 109, 110.
Prado, Conselheiro Antonio, 140.
Praia Formosa, 147.
Press, 100–105;
first established, 50.
Putz, Theodore, 207.
Q
Quedas, Sete, 273.
Queimados, 130.
Queiros, Luis de, 19.
R
Railroads, construction, 129;
Great Western, 130, 151, 152;
S. Paulo Railway, 131–133;
Paranaguá, 133;
links with other republics, 135, 136;
Northwestern, 135, 136;
Rio Grande, 137;
Santa Catharina, 139;
in S. Paulo, 139–141;
Minas, 144;
from Rio, 146, 147;
Espirito Santo, 148, 149;
Bahia, 149, 150;
Sergipe, 150;
Pernambuco, 151, 152;
other northern States, 152, 153;
Pará, 153;
Madeira-Mamoré, 154;
lines passing falls, 154, 155;
operation systems, 156, 157;
Federal and private control, 157, 158;
railways projected, 159–161.
Raiz da Serra, 130.
Ramalho, João, 18, 21.
Rapadura, 241.
Raposo, Antonio, 27–29.
Recife, 105, 151, 298.
Religion, 89–92.
República de Piritinim, 58.
Republic inaugurated, 53.
Ribeiro, João, 27, 28.
Riberão Preto, 141.
Rio Branco, Barão de, 119;
Visconde de, 81, 106.
Rio de Janeiro city, 4, 5, 6, 43, 44, 50, 51, 54, 76, 85, 97, 104, 127,
137, 260.
Rio de Janeiro State, 60;
sugar growing, 244;
factories, 265.
Rio Grande do Norte, 41, 86, 241, 271, 298.
Rio Grande do Sul, Spanish in, 25, 47;
colonization, 72;
land, 73;
wine, 88;
Germans, 117, 118;
railways, 137, 138;
docks, 138;
pastures, 141;
tobacco, 246, 248;
wheat, 248–251;
coal, 263;
exports, 320;
Rio Grande city, 137.
Rio Negro, colony in Paraná, 58, 138, 139;
Negro River, 159, 185, 202.
Rio Pardo colony, 62.
Rocha Pombo, 26.
Romero, Sylvio, 107, 108.
Roncador, 141.
Rondon, Colonel Candido, 48, 106, 112, 129, 273.
Rodrigues, José Carlos, 106.
Rua do Ouvidor, 105.
Rubber, 180–208;
table of prices, 188;
world’s crop, 205;
factories, 206, 207.
Russian settlers, 68, 72;
carters of Paraná, 129.
S
Sabará mines, 31.
Sabaúna, 70.
Salt industry, 274.
Salto Grande, line to, 136.
Salutaris, 315.
Sampaio, historian, 26.
Santa Anna do Livramento, 141.
Santa Barbara, 64, 65.
Santa Catharina, land, 73;
roads, 128;
railways, 138, 141;
cereals, 249;
coal mines, 263;
factories, 270;
debt, 298.
Santa Isabel, colony, 58.
Santarem, 64, 159, 162.
Santo André, 22, 23.
Santos, 133.
São Bernardo, 22, 70.
São Felix, 150, 247.
São Francisco, river, gold-miners’ route, 46, 124;
projected railway, 129;
railway passing falls, 155.
São João del Rey mine, 259.
São Leopoldo, colony, 57.
São Lourenço, 315.
São Luis, 153.
São Luiz, 324.
São Paulo, City, 6;
settlement, 18, 19, 23, 28, 29, 32, 34;
wealth, 67;
social life, 97;
newspapers, 104;
schools, 115, 116, 117;
Pure Coffee Company, 179;
railroads, 131, 132, 133, 135, 137, 141, 145;
factories, 265, 267, 268, 269.
São Paulo State, 5, 6;
early history, 18, 19, 21–35, 44, 46;
colonization system, 68–71;
education, 115–117;
coffee industry, 168–180;
sugar, 244;
manufacturing taxes, 267;
industries, 269–273;
debts, 291, 298;
exports, 319.
São Pedro de Alcantara, 57.
São Salvador (Bahia), 149.
São Sebastião (Rio de Janeiro), 44, 149.
São Vicente, settlement, 18, 22;
sacking, 35, 43, 48.
Sapucaia nuts, 274.
Schmidt, Francisco, 168.
Schools and Colleges, 116, 117.
Semi-precious stones, 260.
Sergipe, 150, 241, 269, 271, 324.
Seringueiro, cost of outfit, 197.
Serra Doirada, 32.
Serra do Mar, 125, 126, 128, 130–133.
Serrinha, 139.
Serro Frio, 30.
Sertanejo, 84, 85.
Sertanistas, 28.
Sertão, 25.
Sete Lagôas, 144.
Sete Quedas, 273.
Shipping, 161–166.
Silk industry, 264.
Silva, 60.
Sinimbú, 60, 63.
Skins, export, 318, 319.
Sloper, 291.
Solis, 16.
Sorocabana, railway, 136, 139.
Souza, Eloy de, 192, 195, 199;
Affonso de, 18, 21.
Spanish rule, 35, 36.
Stage, 100.
State Debts, 297, 298.
States, shares in export trade, 319, 320;
area and population, 324.
Steamship lines, 164, 165;
British, 290.
Stevenson, 290.
St. John’s Day observances, 92.
Sugar, 238–245;
mills, 241;
export, 243.
Sumidouro mines, 29, 30.
Swiss settlers, 56.
T
Tamoyo Indians, 21, 43.
Tapajoz river, 64, 159, 162, 188.
Taunay, Visconde de, 98.
Taxes upon industries, 267.
Terms, Brazilian, 325–327.
“Terra dos Papagaios”, 15.
Thereza Christina railway, 144.
Therezina, 324.
Theodore Wille & Co., 172.
Theophilo Ottoni, 61;
town, 149.
Thevet, André, 245.
Thomé de Souza, 34, 43.
Tibagy, 29.
Tibiriça, 18, 23, 136, 162.
Tieté river, 124.
Tijuca, 4.
Tiradentes, 50.
Tobacco, 245–248;
export, 246;
price, 247.
Tocantins, 155, 162.
Toledo, Pedro de, 230.
Tombu, 29, 30.
Trade, ten-year periods, 317;
balance, 323.
Transportation, 123–166.
Travellers in Brazil, 3.
Treasury Bills, 279, 280.
Treaty of Tordesillas, 12.
Tres Barras lumber mills, 138.
Tres Forquilhas, 57.
Triangle of Minas, 128, 218, 273.
Tropeiro, 86, 87.
Tupan, 111.
Tupi-Guarani tribes, 109.
U
Uberaba, 141, 218.
United States Immigrants, 63, 64.
United States interests, 294–297.
U. S. purchases from Brazil, 320.
U. S. Steel Corporation, 261.
Uricury nuts, 201.
Urubupunga falls, 273.
Urucú dye, 272.
Uruguay link with Brazil, 135.
V
Valorization of Coffee, 171–174.
Vergueiro family, 61.
Vespucci, 13, 14.
Viação Bahiana, 158.
Viçosa, 151.
Victoria, 147, 148.
Villa Americana, 63.
Villa Rica, 46.
Villegaignon, 43.
W
Wars, 119.
Waterfalls, power used or available, 265, 273.
Weaving industry, 268–271.
Wheat production, 249.
Wickham, 180, 188, 189.
Wileman, 121;
Review, 9.
Willekens, Admiral, 38.
Willis, Dr. John, 229.
Wilson Coal Co., 165, 290, 322.
Wine, national, 88, 89, 274.
Women, position and education of, 94, 97.
Writers, 98–100.
X
Xarque, 209.
Y
Ypiranga, 52, 268.
Z
Zé Povo, 84.
Zebu cattle, 217.
Printed in the United States of America.
-----
Footnote 1:
Martim Affonso’s capitania, then the most southern part of Portuguese
territory, had one hundred leagues of coastline, with headquarters at
S. Vicente; next came Santo Amaro (Itamaracá) and Parahyba do Sul
(present Rio de Janeiro State); Espirito Santo; Porto Seguro; Ilhéos,
stretching up to the south of the Bahia; Bahia itself, running from
the Bay to the mouth of the S. Francisco river; Pernambuco; Maranhão,
divided into 3 captaincies of which two, totalling 150 leagues, went
to João de Barros, the third, of 75 leagues, to Fernão Alvares de
Andrade; most northerly came Ceará.
Footnote 2:
Calculation of the Brazilian historian Theodoro Sampaio.
Footnote 3:
Brazilian historians differ as to dates, but Southey says that the
first discovery of gold in Matto Grosso was made in 1734 by Antonio
Fernandez de Abreu.
Footnote 4:
Portugal swallowed her loss without much protest, there was no serious
excitement in Brazil, and the Portuguese troops stationed in Brazil
were shipped home without violence from more than one district.
Footnote 5:
Bought by the Rio _Jornal do Commercio_ company at end of 1916 and now
published as the _Jornal do Commercio de São Paulo_.
Footnote 6:
There is another railroad running off from Santos. It does not attempt
the Serra, but follows the flat coast to Itanhaen port, and then turns
a few miles inland, passing Prainha, until junction is effected with
the Iguape river. Boats sail down from this point to Iguape port,
notable as the scene of settlement of Japanese rice growers a few
years ago.
Footnote 7:
The Continental Products Company: capital and personnel came from the
Sulzberger house in Chicago.
Footnote 8:
Message of Dr. Altino Arantes to the S. Paulo Legislature, July 14,
1916:
“Foreign capital flowed here in search of convenient employment, but,
instead of being destined to new enterprises in the development of the
great latent wealth of our State, it was localized in railways already
prosperous, whose income and control are by way of being totally
alienated, with grave prejudice and serious threats to the future of
our State....
“It would be, in truth, blamable want of foresight to allow what is
our own to pass to strange hands, when we created it at the cost of
our best efforts, constituting thus the most worthy exemplification of
our industry and our energy.”
Footnote 9:
Government: South of Pernambuco, Pernambuco Central, Paulo Affonso.
English: Conde d’Eu, Recife and São Francisco, Central Alagôas, Natal
and Nova Cruz. The Conde d’Eu dated from 1857.
Footnote 10:
For details of extreme interest in this connection, see _A
Madeira-Mamoré_ by Julio Nogueira, printed by the Jornal do Commercio
press of Rio in 1913, and _A Crise da Borracha_, by Eloy de Souza,
printed by the Imprensa Nacional, Rio, in 1915.
Footnote 11:
32 to 36 milreis for the first year and 40 afterwards, for Type Seven
beans.
Footnote 12:
Alqueire = 40 litres: Farinha = flour (of mandioca).
Footnote 13:
Professor Green says that he found one of these tree cottons in Rio
Grande do Norte, of the Mocó variety, sixteen years old and still
yielding beautiful cotton.
Footnote 14:
In 1915 Brazil imported 805,000 barrels of American flour, 56% of the
total and 605,000 barrels from the Argentine, or 41%, the remaining 4%
coming from Uruguay; at the same time she imported 14,000,000 bushels
of wheat, of which nearly 12,000,000 came from Argentina and about
2,000,000 from the United States. This wheat, at five bushels to the
barrel, made another 2,750,000 barrels of flour, and the total
Brazilian consumption may be reckoned at about 4,200,000 barrels of
wheat-flour of foreign, plus 407,000 of native, origin. The c. i. f.
price of United States flour in Brazil in 1915 averaged $7.49 a
barrel, while Argentine was able to deliver hers, c. i. f., for $5.28.
Footnote 15:
Dr. Costa Pinto reckons over 58,500 tons; he counts 49,648 looms and
1,464,218 spindles, each spindle taking 40 kilos of cotton annually.
Footnote 16:
_Bertholettia excelsa._
Footnote 17:
Refusal to accept its own paper would of course have had the immediate
effect of dangerously depressing all Government issues.
Footnote 18:
There are in existence small copper coins, relics of the day long past
when less than a hundred reis would buy something, but they are not in
circulation because they have no purchasing power. The post office
sometimes presents them as change for some fraction of 100 reis, and
the recipient usually puts them into the hand of the first
_mendicante_ encountered outside.
Footnote 19:
Since 1916 half a dozen Federal or State loans have been made to
Brazil, successfully floated by New York financial houses.
Footnote 20:
Brazil Railways securities are listed in dollars because the company
which bought up or leased a number of European-constructed
enterprises, was, although financed entirely with French, Belgian and
British money, registered in the State of Maine.
Footnote 21:
Five years.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
166 between 15,000,000 “Foreign” and between 15,000,000 “Foreign” and
10,000 Brazilian 10,000,000 Brazilian
293 million pounds sterling, fifteen million pounds sterling, fifteen
hundred lives, is said to hundred livres, is said to
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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