BRAZIL, a republic of
South America, the largest political
division of that continent and the third largest of the western
hemisphere. It is larger than the continental
United
States excluding
Alaska,
and slightly larger than the great bulk of
Europe lying east of
France. Its extreme dimensions are 2629 m. from
Cape Orange (4° 21' N.) almost due south to the river Chuy (33° 45'
S. lat.), and 2691 m. from Olinda (Ponta de Pedra, 8° o' 57" S.,
34° so' W.) due west to the Peruvian frontier (about 73° 50' W.).
The most northerly point, the Serra Roraima on the
Venezuela and British
Guiana frontier (5° 10' N.), is
56 m. farther north than Cape Orange. The area, which was augmented
by more than 60,000 sq. m. in 1903 and diminished slightly in the
boundary
adjustment
with British Guiana (1904), is estimated to have been 3,228,452 sq.
M. in 1900 (A. Supan,
Die Bevolkerung der Erde, Gotha,
1904). A subsequent planimetric calculation, which takes into
account these territorial changes, increases the area to 3,270,000
sq. m.
Boundaries
Brazil is bounded N. by
Colombia, Venezuela and the Guianas, N.E.,
E. and S.E. by the
Atlantic, S. by
Uruguay,
Paraguay and '
Bolivia, and W. by
Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia,
Peru,
Ecuador and Colombia. Its territory touches
that of every South American nation, except
Chile, and with each one there has been a
boundary dispute at some stage in its political life. The Spanish
and Portuguese crowns attempted to define the limits between their
American colonies in 1750 and 1777, and the lines adopted still
serve in great part to separate Brazil from its neighbours. Lack of
information regarding the geographical features of the interior,
however, led to some indefinite descriptions, and these have been
fruitful sources of dispute ever since. The Portuguese were
persistent trespassers in early colonial times, and their land-
hunger took them far beyond the
limits fixed by
Pope Alexander VI. In the
boundary disputes which have followed, Brazil seems to have pursued
this traditional policy, and generally with success.
Beginning at the mouth of the
Arroyo del Chuy, at the southern extremity of a
long sandbank separating Lake Mirim from the Atlantic (33°45' S.
lat.), the boundary line between Brazil and Uruguay passes up that
rivulet and across to the most southerly tributary of Lake Mirim,
thence down the western shore of that lake to the Jaguarao and up
that river to its most southerly source. The line then crosses to
the hill-range called Cuchilla de Sant' Anna, which is followed in
a north-west direction to the source of the Cuareim, or Quarahy,
this river becoming the boundary down to the Uruguay. This line was
fixed by the treaty of 1851, by which the control of Lake Mirim
remains with Brazil. Beginning at the mouth of the Quarahy, the
boundary line between Brazil and Argentina ascends the Uruguay,
crosses to the source of the Santo Antonio, and descends that small
stream and the Iguassu to the
Parana, where it terminates. This line was
defined by the treaty of 1857, and by the decision of President
Cleveland in
1895 with regard to the small section between the Uruguay and
Iguassu rivers. The boundary with Paraguay was definitely settled
in 187 2. It ascends the Parana to the
great falls of Guayra, or Sete Quedas, and
thence westward along the water-parting of the Sierra de Maracayu
to the
cerro of that name, thence northerly along the
Sierra d'Amambay to the source of the Estrella, a small tributary
of the Apa, and thence down those two streams to the Paraguay. From
this point the line ascends the Paraguay to the mouth of the
Rio Negro, the outlet of
the BahiaNegra,where the Bolivian boundary begins. As regards the
Peruvian boundary, an agreement was reached in 1904 to submit the
dispute to the
arbitration of the president of Argentina
in case further efforts to reach an amicable settlement failed. The
provisional line, representing the Brazilian claim, begins at the
termination of the Bolivian section (the intersection of the 11th
parallel with the
meridian
of 72° 26' W. approx.) and follows a semicircular direction
north-west and north to the source of the Javary (or Yavary), to
include the basins of the Purus and Jurua within Brazilian
jurisdiction. The line follows the Javary to its junction with the
Amazon, and runs thence north
by east direct to the mouth of the Apaporis, a tributary of the
Yapura, in about 1° 30' S. lat., 69° 20' W. long., where the
Peruvian section ends. The whole of this line, however, was subject
to future adjustments, Peru claiming all that part of the Amazon
valley extending eastward to the
Madeira and lying between the Beni and the east
and west boundary line agreed upon by
Spain and
Portugal in 1750 and 1777, which is near the
7th parallel. With regard to the section between the Amazon and the
Apaporis river, already settled between Brazil and Peru, the
territory has been in protracted dispute between Peru, Ecuador and
Colombia; but a treaty of limits between Brazil and Ecuador was
signed in 1901 and promulgated in 1905. The boundary with Colombia,
fixed by treaty of April 24, 1907, follows the lower rim of the
Amazon basin, as defined by Brazil. The Colombian claim included
the left
bank of
the Amazon eastward to the Auahy or Avahy-parana channel between
the Amazon and Yapura, whence the line ran northward to the Negro
near the intersection of the 66th meridian. The Brazilian line ran
north and northwest from the mouth of the Apaporis to the 10th
meridian, which was followed to the water-parting south of the
Uaupes basin, thence north-east to the Uaupes river, which was
crossed close to the 69th meridian, thence easterly along the Serra
Tunaji and Isana river to Cuyari, thence northerly up the Cuyari
and one of its small tributaries to the Serra Capparro, and thence
east and south-east along this range to the Cucuhy rock (Pedra de
Cucuhy) on the left bank of the Negro, where the Colombian section
ends. Negotiations for the settlement of this controversy, which
involved fully one-third of the state of
Amazonas,
were broken off in 1870, but were resumed in 1905. The boundary
with Venezuela, which was defined by a treaty of 1859, runs
south-eastward from Cucuhy across a level country intersected by
rivers and channels tributary to both the Negro and
Orinoco, to the Serra Cupuy
watershed which separates
the rivers of the Amazon and Orinoco valleys. This watershed
includes the ranges running eastward and northward under the names
of Imeri, Tapiira-peco, Curupira, Parima and Pacaraima, the
Venezuelan section terminating at Mt. Roraima. On the 9th of
December 1905 protocols were signed at
Caracas accepting the line between Cucuhy and
the Serra Cupuy located in 1880, and referring the remainder, which
had been located by a Brazilian commission in 1882 and 1884, to a
mixed commission for verification.
The disputed boundary between Brazil and British Guiana, which
involved the possession of a territory having an estimated area of
12,741 sq. m., was settled by arbitration in 1904 with the king of
Italy as arbitrator, the
award being a
compromise division by which Great
Britain received about 7336 sq.
m. and Brazil about 5405. The definite boundary line starts from
Mt. Roraima and follows the water-parting east and south to the
source of the Ireng or Mahu river, which with the Takutu forms the
boundary as far south as 1° N. to enclose the basin of the
Essequibo and its
tributaries, thence it turns east and north of east along the Serra
Acaria to unite with the unsettled boundary line of Dutch Guiana
near the intersection of the 2nd parallel north with the 56th
meridian. Negotiations were initiated in 1905 for the definite
location of the boundary with Dutch Guiana. Running north-east and
south-east to enclose the sources of the Rio Paru, it unites with
the French Guiana line at 2° 10' N., 55° W., and thence runs
easterly along the water-parting of the Serra Tumuc-Humac to the
source of the Oyapok, which river is the divisional line to the
Atlantic coast. The boundary with French Guiana '(
see' Guiana), which had long been a
subject of dispute, was settled by arbitration in 1900, the award
being rendered by the government of
Switzerland. The area of the disputed
territory was about 34,750 sq. m.
A relief map of Brazil shows
two very irregular divisions of surface: the great river basins, or
plains, of the Amazon-Tocantins and La Plata, which are practically connected by
low elevations in Bolivia, and a huge, shapeless mass of highlands
filling the eastern projection of the continent and extending
southward to the plains of Rio Grande do Sul and westward to the
Bolivian frontier. Besides these there are a narrow coastal plain,
the low plains of Rio Grande do Sul,
and the Guiana highlands on the northern slope of the Amazon basin
below the Rio Negro.
The coastal plain consists in great part of sandy beaches,
detritus formations, and partially submerged areas caused by
uplifted beaches and obstructed river channels.
Mangrove swamps, lagoons and marshes, with
inland canals following the coast line for long distances, are
characteristic features of a large extent of the Brazilian coast.
Parts of this coastal plain, however, have an elevation of 100 to
200 ft., are rolling and fertile in character, and terminate on the
coast in a line of bluffs. In the larger depressions, like that of
the Reconcavo of
Bahia, there
are large alluvial areas celebrated for their fertility. This plain
is of varying width, and on some parts of the coast it disappears
altogether. In Rio Grande do Sul, where two large lakes have been
created by uplifted
sand beaches,
the coastal plain widens greatly, and is merged in an extensive
open, rolling grassy plain, traversed by ridges of low hills
(
cuchillas), similar to the neighbouring republic of
Uruguay. The western part of this plain is drained by the Uruguay
and its tributaries, which places it within the river Plate (La
Plata) basin.
The two great river basins of the Amazon-Tocantins and La Plata
comprise within themselves, approximately, three-fifths of the
total area of Brazil. Large areas of these great river plains are
annually flooded, the
flood-plains of the Amazon extending nearly
across the whole country and comprising thousands of square miles.
The Amazon plain is heavily forested and has a slope of less than
one
inch to the mile within
Brazilian territory - one competent authority placing it at about
one-fifth of an inch per mile. The La Plata basin is less heavily
wooded, its surface more varied, and its Brazilian part stands at a
much higher elevation.
Of the two highland regions of Brazil, that of the northern
slope of the Amazon basin belongs physically to the isolated
mountain system extending eastward from the Negro and Orinoco to
the Atlantic, the water-parting of which forms the boundary line
between the Guianas and Brazil. The culminating point is near the
western extremity of this chain and its
altitude is estimated at 8500 ft. The ranges
gradually diminish in elevation towards the east, the highest point
of the Tumuc-Humac range, on the frontier of French Guiana, being
about 2600 ft. The Brazilian plateau slopes southward and eastward,
traversed by broken ranges of low mountains and deeply eroded by
river courses. The table-topped hills of Almeyrin (or Almeirim) and
Erere, which lie near the lower Amazon and rise to heights of 800
and 900 ft., are generally considered the southernmost margin of
this plateau, though Agassiz and others describe them as remains of
a great
sandstone sheet which once covered the entire
Amazon valley. Its general elevation has been estimated to be about
2000 ft. It is a stony, semi-arid region, thinly wooded, having
good grazing
campos
in its extreme western section. Its semi-arid character is due to
the mountain
ranges on its northern frontier, which
extract the moisture from the north-east trades
and leave the Brazilian plateau behind them with a very limited
rainfall, except near the Atlantic coast. The more arid districts
offer no inducement for settlement and are inhabited only by a few
roving bands of Indians, but there were settlements of whites in
the grazing districts of the Rio
Branco at an early date, and a few hundreds of
adventurers have occupied the
mining districts of the east. In general,
Brazilian Guiana, as this plateau region is sometimes called, is
one of the least attractive parts of the republic.
The great Brazilian plateau, which is the most important
physical division of Brazil, consists of an elevated tableland moo
to 3000 ft. above the sea-level, traversed by two great mountain
systems, and deeply eroded and indented by numerous rivers. A thick
sandstone sheet once covered the greater part if not all of it,
remains of which are found on the elevated
chapadas of the
interior and on isolated elevations extending across the republic
toward its western frontier. These chapadas and elevations, which
are usually described as mountain ranges, are capped by horizontal
strata of sandstone and show the original surface, which has been
worn away by the rivers, leaving here and there broad flat-topped
ridges between river basins and narrower ranges of hills between
river courses. From the valleys their rugged, deeply indented
escarpments, stretching away to the
horizon, have the appearance of a continuous
chain of mountains. The only true mountain systems, however, so far
as known, are the two parallel ranges which follow the
contour of the coast, and the
central, or Goyana, system. The first consists of an almost
continuous range crossing the northern end of Rio Grande do Sul and
following the coast northward to the vicinity of Cape Frio, and
thence northward in broken ranges to the vicinity of Cape St Roque,
and a second parallel range running from eastern
Sao Paulo northeast and
north to the eastern margin of the
Sao Francisco basin in northern Bahia,
where that river turns eastward to the Atlantic. The first of these
is generally known as the Serra do Mar, or Coast Range, though it
is locally known under many names. Its culminating point is in the
Organ Mountains (Serra dos Orgaos), near
Rio de Janeiro, which reaches an
elevation of 7323 ft. The inland range, which is separated from the
Coast Range in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro by the valley of the
Parahyba do
Sul river, is known as the Serra da Mantiqueira, and from the
point where it turns northward to form the eastern rim of the Sao
Francisco basin, as the Serra do Espinhaco. This range is also
known under various local names. Its culminating point is toward
the western extremity of the Mantiqueira range where the Itatiaya,
or Itatiaia-assu, peak rises to an elevation of 8898 ft. (other
measurements give 9823 ft.), probably the highest summit in Brazil.
This range forms the true backbone of the maritime mountainous
belt and rises from the plateau
itself, while the Coast Range rises on its eastern margin and forms
a rim to the plateau. North of Cape Frio the Coast Range is much
broken and less elevated, while the Serra do Espinhaco takes a more
inland course and is separated from the coast by great
gently-sloping, semi-barren terraces. The second system - the
Central or Goyana - consists of two distinct chains of mountains
converging toward the north in the elevated
chapadao
between the Tocantins and Sao Francisco basins. The eastern range
of this central system, which crosses western
Minas Geraes from the
so-called Serra das Vertentes to the valley of the Paracatu, a
western tributary of the Sao Francisco, is called the Serra da
Canastra and Serra da Matta da Corde. Its culminating point is
toward its southern extremity in the Serra da Canastra, 4206 ft.
above sea-level. The western range, or what is definitely known of
it, runs across southern
Goyaz,
south-west to north-east, and forms the water-parting between the
Parana. and Tocantins-Araguaya basins. Its culminating point is in
the Montes Pyreneos, near the city of Goyaz, and is about 4500 ft.
above sea-level.
The great part of this immense region consists of
chapadoes, as the larger table-land areas are called,
chapadas or smaller sections of the same, and broadly
excavated river valleys. How extensive this work of erosion has
been may be seen in the Tocantins-Araguaya basin, where a great
pear-
shaped depression, approximately
100 to 500 m. wide, 700 m. long, and from moo to 1500 ft. deep, has
been excavated northward from the centre of the plateau. Southward
the Parana. has excavated another
great basin and eastward the Sao Francisco
another. Add to these the eroded river basins of the Xingu, Tapajos
and Guapore on the north and west, the Paraguay on the south-west,
and the scores of smaller rivers along the Atlantic coast, and we
may have some conception of the agencies that have been at work in
breaking down and shaping this great table-land, perhaps the oldest
part of the continent. The most southern of these
chapadoes, that of the Parana basin, in which may be
included the northern part of the Uruguay and eastern part of the
Paraguay basins, includes the greater part of the states of Rio
Grande do Sul,
Santa Catharina, Parana and Sao Paulo,
the southwestern corner of Minas Geraes, a part of southern Goyaz,
and the south-eastern corner of
Matto Grosso. The greatest elevation is on
its eastern or Atlantic margin where the average is about 3280 ft.
above sea-level. The plateau breaks down abruptly toward the sea,
and slopes gradually some hundreds of feet toward the south and
west. There has been considerable denudation toward the west, the
eastern tributaries of the Parana rising very near the coast. The
northern and western parts of this plateau have an average
elevation a little less than that of the Atlantic margin, and their
slopes are toward the south and east, those of Goyaz and Matto
Grosso being abrupt and deeply eroded. This great
chapadao
is in many respects the best part of Brazil, having a temperate
climate,- extensive areas of fertile soil, rich forests and a
regular rainfall. Its Atlantic slopes are heavily wooded, but the
western slopes exhibit
grass-covered
campos
between the river courses. The Sao Francisco
chapadao,
which has a general elevation of about 2600 ft., covers the greater
part of the states of Minas Geraes and Bahia, and a small part of
western
Pernambuco,
and might also be considered continuous with those of the
Parnahyba and
Tocantins-Araguaya basins. This region is more tropical in
character, partially barren, and has an uncertain rainfall, a large
part of the Sao Francisco basin and the upper Atlantic slope of its
eastern rim being subject to long-continued droughts. This region
is well wooded along the river courses of Minas Geraes, the lower
Atlantic slopes of Bahia, which are perhaps outside the plateau
proper, and on the weather side of some of the elevated ridges
where the rainfall is heavy and regular. It has extensive
campos and large areas of exposed rock and stony steppes,
but is richly provided with
mineral deposits. It breaks down less
abruptly toward the Atlantic, the slopes in Bahia being long and
gradual. The Parnahyba
chapadao covers the state of
Piauhy, the southern part of
Maranhao, and the western
part of
Ceara. Its general
elevation is less than that of the Sao Francisco region, owing to
the slope of the plateau surface toward the Amazon depression and
to denudation. It resembles the Sao Francisco region in its
uncertain rainfall and exposure to droughts, and in having large
areas of
campos suitable for grazing purposes. It is
thinly wooded, except in the north, where the climatic conditions
approach those of the Amazon valley. Its climate is more tropical
and its development has gone forward less rapidly than in the more
temperate regions of the south. The Amazonian
chapadao,
which includes the remainder of the great Brazilian plateau west of
the Sao Francisco and Parnahyba regions and which appears to be the
continuation of these tablelands westward, is much the largest of
these plateau divisions. It covers the greater part of the states
of Matto Grosso and Goyaz, a large part of southern
Para, the southern margin of Amazonas, and a
considerable part of western Maranhao. It includes the river basins
of the Tocantins-Araguaya, Xingu, Tapajos, and the eastern
tributaries of the Guapore-Madeira. A considerable part of it has
been excavated by these rivers to a level which gives their valleys
the elevation and character of lowlands, though isolated hills and
ranges with the characteristic overlying horizontal sandstone
strata of the ancient plateau show that it was once a highland
region. The southern margin of this plateau breaks down abruptly
toward the south and overlooks the Parana and Paraguay basins from
elevations of 2600 to 3000 ft. There is great diversity in the
character and appearance of this extensive region. It lies wholly
within the tropics, though its more elevated districts enjoy a
temperate climate. Its
chapadas are covered with extensive
campos, its shallow valleys with open woodlands, and its
deeper valleys with heavy forests. The rainfall is good, but not
heavy. The general slope is toward the Amazon, and its rivers
debouch upon the Amazonian plain through a succession of falls and
rapids.
There remains only the elevated valley of the Parahyba do Sul,
lying between the so-called Serra das Vertentes of southern Minas
Geraes and the Serra do Mar, and extending from the Serra da
Bocaina, near the city of Sao Paulo, eastward to Cape Frio and the
coastal plain north of that point. It includes a small part of
eastern Sao Paulo, the greater part of the state of Rio de Janeiro,
a small corner of
Espirito Santo, and a narrow
strip along the southern border of
Minas Geraes. It is traversed by two mountain chains, the Serra da
Mantiqueira and Serra do Mar, and the broad, fertile valley of the
Parahyba do Sul which lies between them, and which slopes gently
toward the east from a general elevation exceeding 2000 ft. in Sao
Paulo. This region is the smallest of the
chapadao
divisions of the great plateau, and might be considered either a
southward extension of the Sao Francisco or an eastward extension
of the Parana
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do Brazil, having an abundant rainfall, extensive forests of
valuable
timber, and large
areas of fertile soil. The mountain slopes are still masses of
dense forest, though their lower elevations and neighbouring
valleys have been cleared for cultivation and by dealers in
rosewood and other valuable
woods. This elevated valley is noted for its fertility and was once
the principal
coffee-producing
district of Brazil.
Outside the two great river systems of the Amazon and river
Plate (Rio de la Plata), which are treated under their respective
titles, the rivers of Brazil are limited to the numerous small
streams and three or four large rivers which flow eastward from the
plateau regions directly into the Atlantic. The Amazon system
covers the entire north-western part of the republic, the state of
Amazonas, nearly the whole of Para and the greater part of Matto
Grosso being drained by this great river and its tributaries. If
the Tocantins-Araguaya basin is included in the hydrographic
system, the greater part of Goyaz and a small part of Maranhao
should be added to this drainage area. The Tocantins is sometimes
treated as a tributary of the Amazon because its outlet, called the
Rio Para, is connected with that great river by a number of inland
channels. It is an entirely separate river, however, and the.
inland communication between them is due to the slight elevation of
the intervening country above their ordinary levels and to the
enormous volume of water brought down by the Amazon, especially in
the flood season. As the outlet of the Tocantins is so near to that
of the Amazon, and their lower valleys are conterminous, it is
convenient to treat them as parts of the same hydrographic
basin.
In the extreme north-east corner of the republic where the
Brazilian Guiana plateau slopes toward the Atlantic there is a
small area lying outside the drainage basin of the Amazon. Its
rivers flow easterly into the Atlantic and drain a
triangular-shaped area of the plateau lying between the northern
frontier and the southern and western watersheds of the Araguary,
whose extreme limits are about o° 30' N. lat. and 53° 50' W. long.
The more important of these rivers are the Araguary, Amapa,
Calcoene, Cassipore and Oyapok. The Araguary rises in the
Tumuc-Humac mountains, in about 2° 30' N. lat., 52° 10' W. long.,
and follows a tortuous course south and north-east to the Atlantic.
Its largest tributary, the Amapary, rises still farther west.
Little is known of the country through which it flows, and its
channel is broken by rapids and waterfalls where it descends to the
coastal plain. The Amapa is a short river rising on the eastern
slopes of the same range and flowing across a low, wooded plain,
filled with lagoons. The Calcoene and Cassipore enter the Atlantic
farther north and have a north-east course across the same plain.
All these small rivers are described as auriferous and have
attracted attention for this reason. The Oyapok, or Vicente
Pinzon, is the best-known of the
group and forms the boundary line between Brazil and French Guiana
under the arbitration award of 1900. It rises in about 2° 05' N.,
53° 48' W., and flows easterly and north-easterly to the Atlantic.
Its course is less tortuous than that of the Araguary.
The rivers of the great Brazilian plateau which flow directly to
the Atlantic coast may be divided into two classes: those of its
northward slope which flow in - a northerly and north-easterly
direction to the north-east coast of the republic, and those which
drain its eastern slope and flow to the sea in an easterly
direction. The former reach the coastal plain over long and gradual
descents, and are navigable for considerable distances. The latter
descend from the plateau much nearer the coast, and are in most
cases navigable for short distances only. In both classes
navigation is greatly impeded by sandbars at the mouths of these
rivers, while in the districts of periodical rainfall
it
is greatly restricted in the dry season. The more
important rivers of the first division, which are described in more
detail under the titles of the Brazilian states through which they
flow, are the following: the Gurupy, Tury-assu, Mearim, Itapicuru
and Balsas, in the state of Maranhao; the Parnahyba and its
tributaries in Piauhy; Jaguaribe in Ceara; and the Apody and
Piranhas in
Rio Grande
do Norte. Of these the Parnahyba is the most important, having a
total length of about 900 m., broken at intervals by rapids and
navigable in sections. It receives only one important tributary
from Maranhao - the Rio das Balsas, 447 m. long - and five from
Piauhy, the Urussuhy-assu, Gurgueia, Caninde, Poty and Longa.
Piauhy is wholly within its drainage basin, although the river
forms the boundary line between that state and Maranhao throughout
its entire length. All the rivers in this division are influenced
by the periodical character of the rainfall, their navigable
channels being greatly shortened in the dry season
(August-January). In Ceara the smaller rivers become dry channels
in the dry season, and in protracted droughts the larger ones
disappear also.
The rivers of the second division are included in a very great
extension of coast and are influenced by wide differences in
climate. Their character is also determined by the distance of the
Serra do Mar from the coast, the more southern rivers having short
precipitous courses. The more northern rivers are subject to
periodical variations in volume caused by wet and dry seasons, but
the greater distance of the coast range and the more gradual
breaking down of the plateau toward the sea, give them longer
courses and a greater extent of navigable water. North of the Sao
Francisco the watershed projecting from the plateau eastward toward
Cape St Roque, known as the Serra da Borborema in Parahyba and Rio
Grande do Norte where its direction becomes north-east, leaves a
triangular section of the easterly slope in which the river courses
are short and much broken by rapids. The rainfall, also, is limited
and uncertain. The largest of this group of small rivers is the
Parahyba do Norte,
belonging to the state of Parahyba, whose length is said to be less
than 200 m., only 5 or 6 m. of which are navigable for small
steamers. The Sao Francisco, which belongs to the inland plateau
region, is the largest river of the eastern coast of Brazil and
exists by virtue of climatic conditions wholly different from those
of the coast where it enters the Atlantic. The tributaries of the
lower half of this great river, which belong to the Atlantic coast
region, are small and often dry, but the upper river where the
rainfall is heavier and more regular receives several large
affluents. The river is navigable up to the Paulo Affonso falls,
192 m. from the coast, and above the falls there is a much longer
stretch of navigable water.
From the Sao Francisco to Cape Frio there are many short rivers
rising on the slopes of the plateau and crossing the narrow coastal
plain to the sea. There are also a few of greater length which rise
far back on the plateau itself and flow down to the plain through
deeply cut, precipitous courses. The navigable channels of these
rivers are restricted to the coastal plain, except where a river
has excavated for itself a valley back into the plateau. The more
important of these rivers are the Itapicuru, Paraguassu, Contas or
Jussiape, Pardo or Patype, and Jequitinhonha, of Bahia; the Mucury,
and Doce, of Espirito Santo; and the Parahyba do Sul of the state
of Rio de Janeiro. Of the Bahia group, the Jequitinhonha, sometimes
called the Belmonte on its lower course, is the longest and most
important, rising near Serro in the state of Minas Geraes and
flowing in a curving north-east direction for a distance of about
500 m., 84 of which are navigable inland from the sea. The Mucury
and Doce also rise in Minas Geraes, and are much broken in their
descent to the lower plains, the former having a navigable channel
of 98 m. and the latter of 138 m. The Parahyba, or Parahyba do Sul,
which enters the sea about 30 m. north of Cape S. Thome, is the
largest and most important of the Atlantic coast rivers south of
the Sao Francisco. It rises on an elevated tableland in the state
of Sao Paulo and flows across the state of Rio de Janeiro from west
to east, through a broad fertile valley producing coffee in its
most elevated districts and
sugar on its alluvial bottom-lands nearer the
sea. It has a total length of 658 m., 57 of which are navigable
between S. Fidelis and its mouth, and about 90 m. of its upper
course.
South of Cape Frio there are no large rivers along the coast
because of the proximity of the Serra do Mar - the coastal plain
being very narrow and in places disappearing altogether. There are
many short streams along this coast, fed by heavy rainfalls, but
they have no geographic importance and no economic value under
existing conditions. The largest of these and the only one of
commercial value is the
Ribeira de Iguape, which has its source on the
tablelands of Parana and after receiving several affluents west of
the Serra do Mar breaks through a depression in that range and
discharges into the Atlantic"some miles below
Santos on the southern boundary of the state of
Sao Paulo. This river has a navigable channel of 118 m. below
Xiririca, and communicates with an inland canal or waterway
extending for many miles along this coast and known as the Iguape,
or Mar Pequeno. In Rio Grande do Sul the Atlantic coastal plain
extends westward more than half-way across the state, and is well
watered by numerous streams flowing eastward to the Lagoa dos
Patos. Of these only two are of large size - the Guayba and
Camaquam. The first is formed by the confluence of the Jacuhy,
Cahy, Sinos and Gravatahy, and is known under this name only from
Porto Alegre to
the Ponta de Itapua, where it enters the Lagoa dos Patos. This
river system drains a large part of the northern mountainous region
of the state, and has a considerable extension of navigable
channels between the plateau margin and the lake. In the extreme
southern part of the state, the Lagoa Mirim empties into the Lagoa
dos Patos through a navigable channel 614 m. long, called the Rio
Sao Goncalo.
The Brazilian rivers of the
Rio de la Plata system are numerous and
important. Those of the Paraguay drain the south-western part of
Matto Grosso, and the tributaries of the Parana cover the western
slopes of the Serra do Mar from Rio Grande do Sul north to the
south-west part of Minas Geraes, and include the south-east part of
Matto Grosso and the south part of Goyaz within their drainage
basin. This is one of the most important fluvial systems of Brazil,
but its economic value is impaired by the great waterfalls of
Guayra, or Sete Quedas, and Uribu-punga, and by the rapids and
waterfalls in the majority of its affluents near their junction
with the main stream. Between the two great waterfalls of the
Parana there is an open channel of 276 m., passing through a rich
and healthy country, and receiving large tributaries from one of
the most fertile regions of Brazil. Though the Uruguay plays a less
important part, its relations to the country are similar to those
of the Parana, and its tributaries from the plateau region are
similarly broken by falls and rapids. The most noteworthy of these
are the great falls of the Iguassu, near the junction of that river
with the Uruguay. The Paraguay is in great part a
lowland river, with a sluggish
current, and is navigable by large river steamers up to
Corumba, and by smaller
steamers to
Cuyaba and the
mouth of the Jauru.
Compared with the number, length and volume of its rivers,
Brazil has very few lakes, only two of which are noticeable for
their
Lakes. size. There are a number of lakes in the
lowland region of the Amazon valley, but these are mainly overflow
reservoirs whose areas expand and contract with the rise and fall
of the great river. The coastal plain is also intersected by
lagoons, lakes and inland channels formed by uplifted beaches.
These inland channels often afford many miles of sheltered
navigation. The lakes formed in this manner are generally shallow,
and are sometimes associated with extensive swamps, as in southern
Bahia. The lakes of the
Alagoas coast, however, are long, narrow and
deep, occupying valleys which were deeply excavated when the land
stood at a higher level, and which were transformed into lakes by
the elevation of the coast. The largest of these are the Lagoa do
Norte, on whose margin stands the city of
Maceio, and the Lagoa do Sul, a few miles south
of that city. Both have outlets to the sea, and the former is
salt. There is a large number of
these lakes along the coasts of Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro,
some of them of considerable size. The two largest lakes of this
class are on the coast of Rio Grande do Sul and are known as the
Lagoa dos Patos and Lagoa Mirim. Both of these lakes lie nearly
parallel with the coast line, are separated from the ocean by broad
sand beaches filled with small lakes, and communicate with the
ocean through the same channel. The Lagoa dos Patos is about 124 m.
long with a maximum width of 37 m., and Lagoa Mirim is 108 m. long
with a maximum width of 15 m. Both are navigable, though
comparatively shallow and filled with sandbanks. So far as known,
there are no lakes of noteworthy size in the interior of the
country. There are a few small lakes in Maranhao and Piauhy, some
in Goyaz in the great valley of the Araguaya, and a considerable
number in Matto Grosso, especially in the Paraguay basin, where the
sluggish current of that river is unable to carry away the rainfall
in the rainy season.
The coast of Brazil is indented with a number of almost
landlocked bays, forming spacious and accessible harbours. The
larger and more important of these are Todos os Santos, on which is
located the city of Sao
Salvador or Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro or
Guanabara, beside which stands the capital of the republic. These
two are freely accessible to the largest ships afloat. The bays of
Espirito Santo,
Paranagua and Sao Francisco have similar
characteristics, but they are smaller and more difficult of access.
The first is the harbour for the city of Victoria, and the other
two for ports of the same name in southern Brazil. The port of
Pernambuco, or
Recife, is
formed by a stone
reef lying
across the entrance to a shallow bay at the mouth of two small
rivers, Beberibe and Capibaribe, and is accessible to steamers of
medium
draught. Santa
Catharina and Maranhao have well-sheltered harbours formed by an
island lying in the mouth of a large bay, but the latter is shallow
and difficult of access. Para, Parnahyba, Parahyba, Santos and Rio
Grande do Sul are river ports situated near the sea on rivers
having the same name; but, with the exception of Path and Santos,
they are difficult of access and are of secondary importance. There
are still other bays along the coast which are well adapted for
commercial purposes but are used only in the
coasting trade. Many of the Atlantic coast
rivers would afford excellent port facilities if obstructions were
removed from their mouths.
Brazil is a region which has been free from violent disturbances
since an early geological period. It has, indeed, been subject to
oscillations, but the movements have been regional in character and
have not been accompanied by the formation of any mountain chain or
any belt of intense folding. From the
Devonian onwards the beds lie flat or
dip at low angles. They are faulted
but not sharply folded. The mountain ranges of the east of Brazil,
from Cape St Roque to the mouth of the river Plate, are composed
chiefly of crystalline and metamorphic rocks. Some of the
metamorphic rocks may belong to the older Palaeozoic period, but
the greater part of the series is probably Archaean. Similar rocks
cover a large area in the province of Goyaz and in the south of the
Matto Grosso, and they form, also, the hills which border the basin
of the Amazon on the confines of Venezuela and Guiana. They
constitute, in fact, an incomplete rim around the basin of
sedimentary beds which occupies the Amazonian depression. In a
large part of this basin the covering of sedimentary deposits is
comparatively thin. The crystalline floor is exposed in the valleys
of the Madeira, Xingu, &c. Some of the rocks thus exposed are,
however, eruptive (e.g. in the Tapajoz), and probably do not belong
to the Archaean. The crystalline rocks are succeeded by beds which
have been referred to the
Cambrian and
Silurian systems. In the valley of the
Trombetas, one of the northern tributaries of the Amazon, fossils
have been found which indicate either the top of the
Ordovician
or the bottom of the Silurian. In the Maecuru, another northern
affluent,
graptolites of Ordovician age have been
discovered, and Silurian fossils are said to have been found in the
Maraca. Elsewhere the identification of the Silurian and older
systems does not rest on palaeontological evidence. Devonian beds
cover a much more extensive area. They
crop out in a band some 25 to 50 m. north of the
lower Amazon and in another band at a still greater distance south
of that river. These bands are often concealed by more recent
deposits, but it is clear that in this region the Devonian beds
form a basin or synclinal with the Amazon for its axis. Devonian
beds also lie upon the older rocks in the Matto Grosso and other
provinces in the interior of Brazil, where they generally form
plateaux of nearly horizontal strata. Fossils have been found in
many localities. They belong to either the lower or the middle
division of the Devonian system. The
fauna shows striking analogies with that of the
Bokkeveld beds of
South Africa on the one hand and of the
Hamilton group of
North America on
the other. The
Carboniferous system in Brazil
presents itself under two facies, the one marine and the other
terrestrial. In the basin of the Lower Amazon the Carboniferous
beds lie within the Devonian synclinal and crop out on both sides
of the river next to the Devonian bands. There is a lower series
consisting of sandstone and an upper series of
limestone. The former appears to be almost
unfossiliferous, the latter has yielded a rich marine fauna, which
belongs to the top of the Carboniferous or to the
Permo-carboniferous. In southern Brazil, on the other hand, in Rio
Grande do Sul, Parana, &c., the beds of this period are of
terrestrial origin, containing
coal seams and remains of plants. Some of the
plants are European forms, others belong to the Glossopteris
flora characteristic of
India and South
Africa. The beds are homotaxial with the
Karharbari series of India, and represent either the top of the
Carboniferous or the base of the
Permian of Europe. The only Mesozoic system
which is represented in Brazil by marine beds is the
Cretaceous,
and the marine facies, is restricted to the coasts and the basin of
the Amazon. In the province of
Sergipe, on the east coast, the beds are
approximately on the horizon of the Cenomanian; in the valley of
the Amazon they belong to the highest parts of the Cretaceous
system, and the fauna shows
Tertiary affinities. In the interior of
Brazil, the Palaeozoic beds are directly overlaid by a series of
red sandstones, &c., which appear to be of continental origin
and of which the age is uncertain. Tertiary beds cover a
considerable area, especially in the Amazonian depression. They
consist chiefly of sands and clays of aeolian and
freshwater origin. Of the
Pleistocene and
recent deposits the most interesting are the remains of extinct
animals (
Glyptodon,
Mylodon, Megatherium,
&c.) in the caves of the Sao Francisco.
From the above account it will appear that, excepting near the
coast and in the basin of the Amazon, there is no evidence that any
part of Brazil has been under the sea since the close of the
Devonian period. During the
Triassic and
Jurassic periods even the basin of the Amazon
appears to have been dry land. Eruptive rocks occur in the Devonian
and Carboniferous beds, but there is no evidence of volcanic
activity since the Palaeozoic epoch. The remarkable " stone reefs "
of the north-east coast are ancient beaches hardened by the
infiltration of carbonate of
lime.
They are quite distinct in their formation from the
coral reefs of the same
coast.
Climate
Brazil lies almost wholly within the torrid zone, less than
one-twelfth of its area lying south of the tropic of Capricorn. In
general terms, it is a tropical country, with sub-tropical and
temperate areas covering its three southern states and a great part
of the elevated central plateau. The forest-covered, lowland valley
of the Amazon is a region of high temperatures which vary little
throughout the year, and of heavy rainfall. There is no appreciable
change of seasons, except that produced by increased rainfall in
the rainy season. The average temperature according to Castelnau is
about 78°F., or 82.40° to 84.20° F. according to Agassiz. There is
an increase in the rainfall from August to October, and again from
November to March, the latter being the regular rainy season, but
the time varies considerably between the valley of the upper Amazon
and those of the upper Madeira and Negro. There is usually a short
dry season on the upper Amazon in January and February, which
causes two annual floods - that of November - December, and the
great flood of March - June. The subsidence of the latter usually
lasts until October. The average rainfall throughout the whole
Amazon valley is estimated by Reclus as " probably in excess of 2 '
metres " (78.7 in.), and the maximum rise of the great flood is
about 45 ft. The prevailing winds in the Amazon valley are easterly
and
westerly (or
south-westerly), the former warm and charged with moisture, the
latter dry and cold. The easterly winds, which are deflections of
the
trade winds,
blow upstream with great regularity and force, more especially in
the winter or dry season, and are felt as far inland as the mouths
of the Madeira and Negro. Above these they are less regular and are
attracted northward by the heated
llanos of Venezuela in
winter, or southward by the heated
campos of Matto Grosso
in summer. The cold south-westerly winds are felt when the sun is
north of the
equator, and
are most severe, for a few days, in the month of May, when a
tempo da friagem (cold period) causes much discomfort
throughout the upper Amazon region. There are winter winds from the
Andes, but in the summer season
there are cold currents of
air from
up-river (
ventos da cima) which are usually followed by
downpours of
rain.
The coastal plain as far south as Santos is a region of high
temperatures and great humidity. The year is usually divided into a
winter (
inverno) and summer (
verao),
corresponding approximately to a dry and wet season. The " dry "
season, however, is a season of moderate rainfall, except on the
north-east coast where arid conditions prevail. Another exception
is that of the Pernambuco coast, where the rainy season comes
between March and August, with the heaviest rainfall from May to
July, which is the time of the southern winter. Going southward
there is also a gradual decrease in the mean annual temperature,
the difference between Rio de Janeiro and the Amazon being about
5°. The north-east coast, which is sandy and barren, shows an
average mean annual temperature (at Fortaleza) of nearly 80° F.,
which is slightly higher than those of Maranhao and Path. At
Pernambuco the mean summer temperature is 79.5° and that of winter
76.8°, which are about 3° lower than the mean temperature of Bahia
in summer, and 5° higher than the Bahia mean in winter. South of
Bahia there is a gradual increase in the rainfall, that of Rio de
Janeiro exceeding 43 in. per annum. At Santos the rainfall is
exceptionally heavy and the mean temperature high, but below that
point the climatic conditions are considerably modified, the range
in temperature being greater, the mean annual temperature lower,
and the rainfall more evenly distributed throughout the year. The
winds are more variable, and the seasons are more sharply defined.
In Rio Grande do Sul the range in temperature is from 26° to 80°,
the climate being similar to that of Uruguay. At
Pelotas, a sea-level port on Lagoa dos Patos,
the mean annual temperature is about 63° and the annual rainfall
about 42 in. Extreme variations in temperature are often produced
by cold south-west storms from the
Argentine pampas, which sweep across southern Brazil as
far north as Cape Frio, the fall in temperature sometimes being 22°
to 27°. These storms usually last from two to three days and cause
much discomfort. Winter rains are more frequent in southern Brazil,
and violent storms prevail in August and September. At Blumenau, on
the Santa Catharina coast, the annual rainfall is 53 in.
The climatic conditions of the Brazilian plateau are widely
different from those of the coast in many respects. There is less
uniformity in temperature, and the elevated
chapadas are
generally hotter during the day and cooler at night than are
localities of the same
latitude on the coast. The Brazilian Guiana
plateau, lying immediately north of the equator, is in great part a
hot, stony
desert.
Geographically it belongs to the Amazon basin, as its western and
southern slopes are drained by tributaries of that great river.
Climatically, however, it is a region apart. It lies in the
north-east trade winds belt, but the mountain chain on its northern
frontier robs these winds of their moisture and leaves the greater
part of the Brazilian plateau rainless. Its eastern and western
extremities, however, receive more rain, the former being well
forested, while the latter is covered with grassy
cameos.
South of the Amazon valley and filling a great part of the eastern
projection of the continent, is another arid, semi-barren plateau,
lying within the southeast trade winds belt, and extending from
Piauhy southward to southern Bahia. It covers the state of Piauhy
and the western or inland parts of the states of Ceara, Rio Grande
do Norte, Parahyba, Pernambuco and Bahia. The year is divided into
a dry and wet season, the first from June to December, when rain
rarely falls, the streams dry up and the
cameos are burned
bare, and the second from January to May when the rains are
sometimes heavy and the
cameos are covered with luxuriant
verdure. The rains are neither regular nor certain, however, and
sometimes fail for a succession of years, causing destructive
seccas (droughts). The interior districts of Ceara,
Pernambuco and Bahia have suffered severely from these
seccas. The sun temperature is high on these barren
tablelands, but the nights are cool and refreshing. The prevailing
winds are the south-east trades, which have lost some of their
moisture in rising from the coastal plain. In summer, becoming
warmed by the heated surface of the plateau, they sweep across it
without a
cloud or drop of rain.
In winter the plateau is less heated, and cold currents of air from
the west and south-west cause precipitation over a part if not all
of this region. South and south-west of this arid plateau lie the
inhabited tablelands of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes,
where the climate is greatly modified by a luxuriant vegetation and
southerly winds, as well as by the elevation. Minas Geraes is
forested along its water courses and along its southern border
only; its sun temperature, therefore, is high and the rainfall in
its northern districts is comparatively light. Sao Paulo is partly
covered by open
cameos, and these also serve to
augment the maximum
temperature. In both of these states, however, the nights are cool,
and the mean annual temperature ranges from 68° to 77°, the
northern districts of Minas Geraes being much warmer than the
southern. In Sao Paulo and southern Minas Geraes there are
sometimes frosts. In the Parahyba valley, which extends across the
state of Rio de Janeiro, the mean temperature is somewhat higher
than it is in Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes, and the nights are
warmer, but the higher valleys of the Serra do Mar enjoy a
delightfully temperate climate. The rainfall throughout this region
is abundant, except in northern Minas Geraes, where the climatic
conditions are influenced to some extent by the arid eastern
plateau. South of Sao Paulo the tablelands of Parana, Santa
Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul enjoy a temperate climate, with an
abundant rainfall. There are occasional frosts, but
snow is never seen. Of Goyaz and Matto Grosso very
little can be said. The lower river valleys of the
Tocantins-Araguaya, Xingu, Tapajos and Paraguay are essentially
tropical, their climate being hot and humid like that of the
Amazon. The higher valleys of the Parana and its tributaries, and
of the rivers which flow northward, are sub-tropical in character,
having high sun temperatures and cool nights. Above these, the
chapadas lie open to the sun and wind and have a cool,
bracing
atmosphere
even where high sun temperatures prevail. The mean annual
temperature at Goyaz (city), according to a limited number of
observations, is about 77°. There is no absolutely dry season in
this part of the great Brazilian plateau, though the year is
customarily divided into a dry and wet season, the latter running
from September to April in Goyaz, and from November to April in
Matto Grosso. The prevailing winds are from the north-west in this
region, and westerly winds in the rainy season are usually
accompanied by rain.
Fauna
The indigenous fauna of Brazil is noteworthy not only for the
variety and number of its genera and species, but also for its
deficiency in the larger mammals. Of this, one of the best
authorities on the subject (H. W. Bates in
The Naturalist on
the River Amazons) says: " Brazil, moreover, is throughout
poor in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small size." It
is noteworthy, also, for the large number of species having
arboreal habits, the
density
and extent of the Amazon forests favouring their development rather
than the development of those of terrestrial habits. Of Quadrumana
there are about fifty species in Brazil, all arboreal, thirty-eight
of which inhabit the Amazon region. They belong mostly to the
Cebidae family, and are provided with prehensile tails.
The
Carnivora are
represented by six species of the
Felidae, the best known
of which is the onca, or
jaguar (
F. onca, L.), and the cougar,
or
puma (
F. concolor);
three species of the
Canidae, the South American
wolf (
C. jubatus), and two
small jackals (C.
brasiliensis and C.
vetulus);
and a few species of the Mustelina including two of the
otter, two
Galictis and
one
Mephitis. Of the plantigrades, Brazil has no bears,
but has the related species of
raccoon (
Nasua socialis and
N.
solitaria), popularly called
coatis. The
opossum (
Didelphis) is
represented by three or four species, two of which are so small
that they are generally called wood rats. The rodents are numerous
and include several peculiar species. Only one species of
hare is found in Brazil, the
Lepus brasiliensis, and but one also of the
squirrel (
Scyurus).
Of the amphibious rodents, the pi-
ea
(
Cavia aperea), mod, (C.
rupestris),
paca (
Coelogenys paca),
cutia (
Dasyprocta aguti) and
capybara (
Hydrochoerus capybara) are
noteworthy for their size and extensive range. Their flesh is used
as an article of food, that of the paca being highly esteemed. Of
the Muridae there are several genera and a large number of species,
some of them evidently importations from the Old World. Brazil has
three groups of animals similar to the common
rat - the
Capromydae, Loncheridae and
Psammoryctidae- the best known of which is the " tuco-tuco
" (
Ctenomys brasiliensis), a small burrowing animal of Rio
Grande do Sul which excavates long subterranean galleries and lives
on roots and bulbs. One of the characteristic orders of the
Brazilian fauna is that of the
Edentata, which comprises the
sloth,
armadillo and
ant-eater. These animals are found only in the
tropical regions of South
America. The range of the sloth is from the
Guianas south into Minas Geraes, the armadillo as far south as the
Argentine pampas and the ant-eater from the Amazon south to
Paraguay, though it is found in the Amazon region principally. The
sloth (
Bradypus) is an arboreal animal which feeds almost
exclusively on the foliage of the Cecropias. It includes two
recognized genera and half a dozen species, the best known of which
is
B. didactylus. The common name in Brazil is
preguica, which is equivalent to its English name. Of
armadillos, commonly called
tatu in Brazil, the largest
species is the
Dasypus gigas, but the best known is the
tatu-e'te' (D. octocinctus), which is highly esteemed for
its flesh. The ant-eaters (
Myrmecophaga) are divided into
three or four species, one of which (
M. jubata) is
exclusively terrestrial, and the others arboreal. The popular name
for the animal is
tamandud. The
M. jubata, or
tamandud bandeira, is sometimes found as far south as
Paraguay. Of the ruminants, Brazil has only four or five species of
Cervidae, which are likewise common to other countries of
South America. The largest of these is the
marsh deer (C.
paludosus), which in size resembles its European
congeners. The others are the C.
campestris, C. nemorivagus, C.
rufus and a small species or variety called C.
nanus
by the Danish naturalist Dr P. W.
Lund. The pachyderms are represented by three
species of the
peccary
(
Dicotyles) and two of the anta, or
tapir (
Tapirus). The former are found
over a wide range of country, extending into Bolivia and Argentina,
and are noted for their impetuous pugnacity. The tapir also has an
extensive range between the coast and the foothills of the Andes,
and from northern Argentina to south-eastern Colombia. It is the
largest of the Brazilian mammals, and inhabits densely forested
tracts near river courses. The two species are
T.
americanus, which is the larger and best known, and the
anta chure, found in Minas Geraes, which is said to be
identical with the
T. Roulini of Colombia. Perhaps the
most interesting mammal of Brazil is the
manati, or sea-cow (
Manatus
americanus), which inhabits the lower Amazon and sometimes
reaches a length of 15 to 20 ft. It is taken with the
harpoon and its oil is one of
the commercial products of the Amazon valley.
The avifauna of Brazil is rich in genera, species and
individuals, especially in species with brilliantly-coloured
plumage. It is estimated that more than half the birds of Brazil
are insectivorous, and that more than one-eighth are climbers. The
range in size is a wide one - from the tiny
humming-bird to the ema,
rhea, or American
ostrich. Although the order which includes
song-birds is numerous in species and individuals, it is noticeably
poor in really good songsters. On the other hand it is
exceptionally rich in species having strident voices and peculiar
unmusical calls, like the
pace. (Coracina scuttata) and the
araponga (Chasmorhynchus nudicollis). Two species of
vultures, twenty-three of falcons and eight of owls represent the
birds of
prey. The best known
vulture is the common
urubu
(Cathartes foetens, Illig), which is the universal
scavenger of the tropics.
The climbers comprise a large number of species, some of which,
like those of the
parrot
(
Psittacidae) and
woodpecker (
Picus), are particularly noticeable in every
wooded region of the country. One of the most striking species of
the former is the brilliantlycoloured
arara (Macrocercus,
L.), which is common throughout northern Brazil. Another
interesting species is the
toucan (
Ramphastos), whose enormous
beak, awkward flight and raucous
voice make it a conspicuous object in the great forests of northern
Brazil. In strong contrast to the ungainly toucan is the tiny
humming-
bird, whose beautiful
plumage, swiftness of flight and power of wing are sources of
constant wonder and admiration. Of this smallest of birds there are
fifty-nine well-known species, divided into two groups, the
Phaethorninae, which prefer the forest shade and live on
insects, and the
Trochilinae, which frequent open sunny
places where flowers are to be found. One of the Brazilian birds
whose habits have attracted much interest is the
Joao de
Barro (Clay John) or
oven
bird (
Furnarius rufus), which builds a house of reddish
clay for its
nest and attaches it to the branch of a
tree, usually in a
fork. The
thrush is represented by a number of species,
one of which, the
sabia (Mimus), has become the popular
song-bird of Brazil through a poem written by Gonsalves Dias. The
dove and
pigeon have also a number of native species, one
of which, the
pomba jurity (Peristera frontalis), is a
highly-appreciated table luxury. The gallinaceous birds are well
represented, especially in game birds. The most numerous of these
are the
perdiz (partridge), the best known of which is the
Tinamus maculosa which frequents the
campos of
the south, the
inhambd (Crypturus), capoeira
(Odontophorus), and several species of the
penelope family popularly known as the
jacutinga, j acu and
jacu-assu. The common
domesticated
fowl is not
indigenous. Among the wading and running birds, of which the
ema is the largest representative, there are many species
of both descriptions. In the Amazon lowlands are white herons
(
Ardea candidissima),
egrets (
A. egretta), bitterns (
A. exilis), blue
herons (
A. herodias),
scarlet ibises (
Ibis rubra), roseate spoonbills (
Platalea
ajaja); on higher ground the beautiful
peacock heron (
A. helias) which is easily
domesticated; and on the dry elevated
cameos the
ceriema (Dicholophus cristatus) which is prized for its
flesh, and the
jacamin (Psophia crepitans) which is
frequently domesticated. Prominent among the storks is the great
black-headed white
crane, called
the
jaburd (Mycteria americana), which is found along the
Amazon and down the coast and grows to a height of 42 ft. Of the
swimmers, the number of species is smaller, but some of them are
widely distributed and numerous in individuals. There are but few
species of ducks, and they are apparently more numerous in southern
Brazil than on the Amazon.
The reptilian fauna exhibits an exceptionally large number of
interesting genera and species. A great part of the river systems
of the country with their flooded areas are highly favourable to
the development of reptilian life. Most prominent among these is
the American
alligator,
of which there are, according to Netterer, two genera and eight
species in Brazil. They are very numerous in the Amazon and its
tributaries and in the Paraguay, and are found in all the rivers of
the Atlantic coast. Three of the Brazilian species are voracious
and dangerous. The largest of the Amazon species are the
jacare-assu (Caiman niger), jacare (C.
fissipes)
and
jacaretinga (C, sclerops). The Amazon is also the home
of one of the largest fresh-water turtles known, the
Emys
amazonica, locally called the
jurara-assu or
tartaruga grande. These turtles are so numerous that their
flesh and eggs have long been a principal food supply for the
Indian population of that region. Another Amazon species, the
E. tracaxa, is still more highly esteemed for its flesh,
but it is smaller and deposits fewer eggs in the sandy river
beaches. Lagartos (
Iguanas) and lizards are common
everywhere. The ophidians are also numerous, especially in the
wooded lowlands valleys, and the poisonous species, though less
numerous than others, include some of the most dangerous known -
the
rattlesnake
surucucd (Lachesis rhombeatus), and
jarardca
(Bothrops). The Amazon region is frequented by the
giboia (boa constrictor), and the central plateau by the
sucurid (Eunectes murinus), both distinguished for their
enormous size. The batrachians include a very large number of
genera and species, especially in the Amazon valley.
The fauna of the rivers and coast of Brazil is richer in species
and individuals than that of the land. All the rivers are richly
stocked, and valuable fishing grounds are to be found along the
coast, especially that of southern Bahia and Espirito Santo where
the
garoupa (Serranus) is found in large numbers. Some of
the small
fish along the coast are
highly esteemed for their flavour. Whales were once numerous
between Capes St Roque and Frio, but are now rarely seen. Of the
edible river fish, the best known is the
pirarucd (Sudis
gigas), a large fish of the Amazon which is salted and dried
for market during the low-water season. Fish is a
staple food of the Indian tribes of the Amazon
region, and their fishing season is during the period of low water.
The visit of Professor
Louis Agassiz to the Amazon
in 1865 resulted in a list of 1143 species, but it is believed that
no less than 1800 to 2000 species are to be found in that great
river and its tributaries.
In strong contrast to the poverty of Brazil in the larger
mammals is the astonishing profusion of
insect life in every part of the country. The
Coleoptera and
Lepidoptera are
especially numerous, both in species and individuals. A striking
illustration of this extraordinary profusion was given by'the
English naturalist H. W. Bates, who found 7000 species of insects
in the vicinity of only one of his collecting places on the Amazon
(Ega), of which 550 species were of butterflies. Within an hour's
walk of Path are to be found, he says, about 700 species of
butterflies, "whilst the total number found in the British Islands
does not exceed 66, and the whole of Europe supports only 321." (H.
W. Bates,
The Naturalist on the River Amazons.) One of the
rare species of the Amazon
Morphos (M. hecuba) measures 8 to 9 in. across its
expanded wings. Dipterous insects are also very numerous in
species, especially in those of sanguinary habits, such as the
mosquito,
ilium, maroim,
carapana, borochudo, &c. In some places these insects
constitute a veritable
plague,
and the infested regions are practically uninhabitable. The related
species of the
Oestridae family, which include the widely
disseminated
chigoe or
bicho do pe (Pulex
penetrans), and the equally troublesome
berne (Cutiterebra
noxialis), which is so injurious to animals, are equally
numerous. The most numerous of all, however, and perhaps the most
harmful to civilized man, are the termites and ants, which are
found everywhere in the uninhabited campo and forest regions, as
well as in the cultivated districts. Nature has provided several
species of animals, birds and
reptiles, to feed upon these insects, and
various poisonous and suffocating compounds are used to destroy
them, but with no great degree of success. It is not uncommon to
find once cultivated fields abandoned because of their ravages and
to see large
campos completely covered with enormous
ant-hills. The termites, or " white ants," are exceptionally
destructive because of their habit of tunnelling through the softer
woods of habitations and furniture, while some species of ants,
like the
sadba, are equally destructive to plantations
because of the rapidity with which they strip a tree of its
foliage.
Spiders are
represented by a very large number of species, some of which are
beautifully coloured. The largest of these is the
Mygale
with a body
2 in. in length and outstretched legs covering
7 in., a
monster strong
enough to capture and kill small birds. A large
Mygale
found on the island of Siriba, of the Abrolhos group, feeds upon
lizards, and has been known to attack and kill young chickens. One
of the most troublesome pests of the interior is a minute
degenerate spider of the genus
Ixodes, called
carrapato, or
bush-tick,
which
breeds on the ground and then
creeps up the grass blades and bushes where it
waits for some passing man or beast. Its habit is
to
bury its head in its victim's
skin and remain there until gorged with blood, when it drops off.
Scorpions are common, but are considered less poisonous than some
European species.
Flora
Brazil not only is marvellously rich in botanical species, but
included at the beginning of the 10th century the largest area of
virgin forest on the surface of the earth. The flora falls
naturally into three great divisions: that of the Amazon basin
where exceptional conditions of heat and moisture prevail; that of
the coast where heat, varying rainfall, oceanic influences and
changing seasons have greatly modified the general character of the
vegetation; and that of the elevated interior, or
sertao,
where dryer conditions, rocky surfaces, higher sun temperatures and
large open spaces produce a vegetation widely different from those
of the other two regions. Besides these, the flora of the Paraguay
basin varies widely from that of the inland plateau, and that of
the Brazilian Guiana region is essentially distinct from the
Amazon. The latter region is densely forested from the Atlantic to
the Andes, but with a varying width of about 200 m. on the coast to
about 900 m. between the Bolivian and Venezuelan
llanos,
and thus far civilization has made only a very slight 'impression
upon it. Even where settlements have been located, constant effort
is required to keep the vegetation down. Along the coast, much of
the virgin forest has been cut away, not only for the creation of
cultivated plantations, but to meet the commercial demand for
Brazil-wood and
furniture woods.
The chief characteristic of the Amazonian forest, aside from its
magnitude, is the great diversity of genera and species. In the
northern temperate zone we find forests of a single species, others
of three or four species; in this great tropical forest the habit
of growth is solitary and an
acre of ground will contain hundreds of
species - palms, myrtles, acacias, mimosas, cecropias, euphorbias,
malvaceas, laurels, cedrellas, bignonias, bombaceas, apocyneas,
malpigias, lecythises, swartzias, &c. The vegetation of the
lower river-margins, which are periodically flooded, differs in
some particulars from that of the higher ground, and the same
variation is to be found between the forests of the upper and lower
Amazon, and between the Amazon and its principal tributaries. The
density of the forest is greatly augmented by the
cipos,
or lianas, which overgrow the largest trees to their tops, and by a
profusion of epiphytes which cover the highest branches. As a rule
the trees of the Amazon forest are not conspicuously high, a few
species rarely reaching a height of 200 ft. The average is probably
less than one-half that height. This is especially true of the
flood plains where the annual inundations prevent the formation of
humus and retard forest growth.
The largest of the Amazon forest trees are the
massaranduba
(Mimusops data), called the
cow-tree because of its milky
sap, the
samadma (Eriodendron samauma) or
silk-
cotton tree, the
pdu d'arco (Tecoma
speciosa), pdu d'alho (Catraeva tapia), bacori (Symphonea
coccinea), sapucaia (Lecythis ollaria), and
castanheira or brazil-
nut
tree (
Bertholletia excelsa). The Amazon region has a
comparatively narrow frontage on the Atlantic. In Maranhao, which
belongs to the coast region, open spaces or
campos appear,
though the state is well wooded and its forests have the general
characteristics of the lower Amazon. South-east of the Parnahyba
the coast region becomes dryer and more sandy and the forests
disappear. The coast and
tide-water rivers are fringed with mangrove, and
the sandy plain reaching back to the margin of the inland plateau
is generally bare of vegetation, though the carnahuba
palm (
Copernicia cerifera)
and some species of low-growing trees are to be found in many
places. The higher levels of this plain are covered with shrubs and
small trees, principally mimosas. The slopes of the plateau, which
receive a better rainfall, are more heavily forested, some
districts being covered with
deciduous trees, forming
catingas in
local parlance. This dry, thinly-wooded region extends south to the
states of Parahyba, where a more regular rainfall favours forest
growth nearer the coast. Between Parahyba and southern Bahia
forests and open plains are intermingled; thence southward the
narrow coastal plain and bordering mountain slopes are heavily
forested. The sea-coast, bays and tide-water rivers are still
fringed with mangrove, and on the sandy shores above Cape Frio grow
large numbers of the
exotic cocoa-nut palm. Many species of
indigenous palms abound, and in places the forests are
indescribably luxuriant. These are made up, as Prince Max zu
Neuwied found in southern Bahia
in 1817, " of the genera
Cocos, Melastoma, Bignonia, Rhexia, Mimosa, Inga, Bombax, Ilex,
Laurus, Myrthus, Eugenia, Jacaranda, Jatropha, Visinia, Lecythis,
Ficus, and a thousand other, for the most part, unknown
species of trees." Further inland the higher country becomes more
open and the forests are less luxuriant.
Giant cacti and spiny scrub abound. Then come the
catinga tracts, and, beyond these, the open
campos of the elevated plateau, dotted with clumps of low
growing bushes and broken by tracts of
carrasco, a thick,
matted, bushy growth 10 to 12 ft. in height. Formerly this coast
region furnished large quantities of Brazil-wood (
Caesalpinia
echinata), and the river valleys have long been the principal
source of Brazil's best cabinet-wood - rosewood (
Dalbergia
nigra), jacaranda (
Machaeriumfirmum,Benth.),vinhatico
(Plathymenia foliosa, Benth.), peroba (
Aspidosperma
peroba), cedro, &c. The exotic
mangabeira (mango)
is found everywhere along the coast, together with the
bamboo, orange,
lemon,
banana, cashew, &c.
Of the great inland region, which includes the arid campos of
the north, the partially-wooded plateaus of Minas Geraes, Goyaz and
Matto Grosso, the temperate highlands of the south, and the
tropical lowlands of the Paraguay basin, no adequate description
can be given without taking each section in detail, which can be
done to better advantage in describing the individual states. In
general, the
carrasco growth extends over the whole
central plateau, and heavy forests are found only in the deep river
valleys. Those opening northward have the characteristic flora of
the Amazon basin. The Paraguay basin is covered with extensive
marshy tracts and open woodlands, the palms being the conspicuous
feature. The vegetation is similar to that of Paraguay and the
Chaco, and aquatic plants are
specially numerous and luxuriant. On the temperate uplands of the
southern states there are imposing forests of South American
pine (
Araucaria brasiliensis), whose bare
trunks and
umbrella-like
tops give to them the appearance of open woodland. These forests
extend from Parana into Rio Grande do Sul and smaller tracts are
also found in Minas Geraes. Large tracts of
Ilex
paraguayensis, from which
mate, or Paraguay-
tea, is gathered, are found in this same
region.
The economic plants of Brazil, both indigenous and exotic, are
noticeably numerous. Coffee naturally occupies first place, and is
grown wherever frosts are not severe from the Amazon south to
Parana. The states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Geraes
are the largest producers, but it is also grown for export in
Espirito Santo, Bahia and Ceara. The export in 1905 was 10,820,604
bags of 132 lb each, with an official
valuation of £21,420,330. Sugar
cane, another exotic, has an
equally wide distribution, and cotton is grown along the coast from
Maranhao to Sao Paulo. Other economic plants and fruits having a
wide distribution are
tobacco,
maize,
rice,
beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, cacao (
Theobroma cacao),
mandioca or
cassava
(
Manihot utilitissima), aipim or sweet mandioca (
M.
aipi), guavas (
Psidium guayava, Raddi), oranges,
lemons, limes, grapes, pineapples,
mamdo (Carica papaya),
bread-fruit
(
Artocarpus incisa),
jack
fruit (
A.
integrifolia), and many others less known outside the tropics.
Among the palms there are several of great economic value, not only
as food producers but also for various domestic uses. The fruit of
the
pupunha or
peach
palm (
Guilielma speciosa) is an important food among the
Indians of the Amazon valley, where the tree was cultivated by them
long before the discovery of America. Humboldt found it among the
native tribes of the Orinoco valley, where it is called
pirijao. The ita palm,
Mauritia, flexuosa (a
fanleaf palm) provides an edible fruit, medullary
meal, drink, fibre, roofing and timber, but is
less used on the Amazon than it is on the lower Orinoco. The
assai (Euterpe oleracea) is another highly-prized palm
because of a beverage made from its fruit along the lower Amazon. A
closely-related species or variety (
Euterpe edulis) is the
well-known palmito or
cabbage palm found over the greater part of
Brazil, whose terminal phylophore is cooked and eaten as a
vegetable. Another highly
useful palm is the
carnauba or
carnahuba (Copernicia
cerifera) which supplies fruit, medullary meal, food for
cattle, boards and timber, fibre,
wax and
medicine. The fibre of the
piassava
(Leopoldinia piassava, or
Attalea funifera) is widely
used for cordage, brushes and brooms. There are many other palms
whose fruit, fibre and wood enter largely into the domestic economy
of the natives, but the list given shows how important a service
these trees rendered to the aboriginal inhabitants of tropical
America, and likewise how useful they still are to the people of
tropical Brazil. Another vegetable product of the Amazon region is
made from the fruit of the
Paullinia sorbilis, Mart., and
is known by the name of
guarand. It is largely consumed in
Bolivia and Matto Grosso, where it is used in the preparation of a
beverage which has excellent medicinal properties. The Brazilian
flora is also rich in medicinal and aromatic plants, dye-woods, and
a wide range of
gum and
resin-producing shrubs and trees.
The best known of these are
sarsaparilla,
ipecacuanha,
cinchona,
jaborandi and
copaiba;
vanilla, tonka beans and
cloves; Brazil-wood and
anatto (
Bixa orellana); india-
rubber and balata. India-rubber
is derived principally from the
Hevea guayanensis,
sometimes called the
Siphonia elastica, which is found on
the Amazon and its tributaries as far inland as the foothills of
the Andes. Other rubber-producing trees are the
manicoba
(Jatropha Glasiovii) of Ceara, and the
mangabeira
(Hancornia speciosa), of the central upland regions.
Population
The first explorers of Brazil reported a numerous Indian
population, but, as the sea-coast afforded a larger and more easily
acquired food supply than did the interior, the Indian population
was probably numerous only in a comparatively small part of this
immense territory, along the sea-coast. Modern explorations have
shown that the unsettled inland regions of Brazil are populated by
Indians only where the conditions are favourable. They are to be
found in wooded districts near rivers, and are rarely found on the
elevated
campos. The immediate result of European
colonization was the enslavement and extermination of the Indians
along the coast and in all those favoured inland localities where
the whites came into contact with them. The southern districts and
the Amazon and its tributaries were often raided by slave-
hunting expeditions, and their
Indian populations were either decimated, or driven farther into
the inaccessible forests. But there is no record that the inland
districts of western and north-western Brazil were treated in this
manner, and their present population may be assumed to represent
approximately what it was when the Europeans first came. According
to the
census of 1890 the
Indian population was 1,295,796, but so far as the migratory tribes
are concerned the figures are only guesswork. A considerable number
of these Indians have been gathered together in
aldeas
under the charge of government tutors, but the larger part still
live in their own villages or as nomads.
Down to the beginning of the 19th century the white colonists
were almost exclusively Portuguese. The
immigration from countries other than
Portugal during the first half of that century was small, but
before its close it increased rapidly, particularly from Italy.
Fully nine-tenths of these immigrants, including those from the
mother country, were of the
Latin race. The introduction of African slaves
followed closely upon the development of agricultural industries,
and continued nominally until. 1850, actually until 1854, and
according to some authors until. 1860. About 1826 it was estimated
that the negro population numbered 2,500,000 or three times the
white population of that period. The unrestricted intermixture of
these three races forms the principal basis of the Brazilian
population at the beginning of the 10th century. Brazil has never
had a " colour line," and there has never been any popular
prejudice against race
mixtures. According to the census of 1872 the total population was
9,930,478, of which 1,510,806 were slaves; the race enumeration
gave 3,787,289 whites, 1,959,452 Africans, 386,955 Indians, and
3,801,782 mixed bloods. The Indian population certainly exceeded
the total given, and the white population must have included many
of mixed blood, the habit of so describing themselves being common
among the better classes of South American mestizos. The census of
1890 increased the total. population to 14,333,915, which,
according to an unofficial analysis (
Statesman's Year
Book, 1905), was made up of 6,302,198 whites, 4,638,495 mixed
bloods, 2,097,426 Africans, and 1,295,79& Indians. This
analysis, if correct, indicates that the vegetative increase of the
whites has been greater than that of the Africans and mixed races.
This is not the conclusion of many observers, but it may be due to
the excessive
infant mortality
among the lower classes, where an observance of the simplest
sanitary laws is practically unknown. The census of the 31st of
December 1900 was strikingly defective; it was wholly discarded for
the city of Rio de Janeiro, and had to be completed by office
computations in the returns from several states. The compilation of
the returns was not completed and published until May 1908,
according to which the total population was 17,318,556, of which
8,825,636 were males and 8,492,920 females. Not including the city
of Rio de Janeiro, whose population was estimated at 691,565 in
conformity with a special municipal census of 1906, the total
population was 16,626,991, of which 15,572,671 were Roman
Catholics, 177,727 Protestants, 876,593 of other faiths. The
returns also show a total of 3,038,500 domiciles outside the
federal capital, which gives an average of 5.472 to the
domicile. These returns will
serve to correct the exaggerated estimate of 22,315,000 for 1900
which was published in Brazil and accepted by many foreign
publications.
The racial character of the people is not uniform throughout the
republic, the whites predominating in the southern states, the
Indians in Amazonas and, probably, Matto Grosso, and the mixed
races in the central and northern coast states. The excess of
whites over the coloured races in the southern states is due to
their smaller slave population and to the large number of
immigrants attracted to them.
Slavery was not abolished until the 13th of May
1888, but a number of successful colonies had already been founded
in these states. Other colonies were founded in Bahia, Espirito
Santo and Rio de Janeiro during the same period, but they were
unsuccessful, partly because of the competition of slave labour.
Since the abolition of slavery immigration has poured a large
number of labourers into the coffee-producing states, and with
beneficial results. This strengthening of the white population of
the South with fresh European blood must eventually divide Brazil
into two distinct sections: the white states of the south, and the
mixed or coloured states of the north. The introduction of European
immigrants dates from 1818 when a Swiss
colony was located at Nova Friburgo, near Rio de
Janeiro, and it was continued under the direction and with the aid
of the imperial government down to the creation of the republic.
Since then the state governments have assumed charge of
immigration, and some of them are spending large sums in the
acquisition of labourers. The old system of locating immigrants in
colonies, or colonial nuclei, which involved an enormous outlay of
money with but slight benefit to the country, has been superseded
by a system of locating the immigrants on the large plantations
under formal contracts. In some of the coffee districts these
contracts have resulted very profitably to the
Italian labourers. The total number of
colonists and immigrants entering Brazil between 1804 and 1902,
inclusive, according to official returns, was 2,208,353. The
arrivals fluctuate greatly in number from year to year, influenced
by the prevailing economic conditions in the country. At first the
Portuguese outnumbered all other nationalities in the immigration
returns, but since the abolition of slavery the Italians have
passed all competitors and number more than one-half the total
arrivals. Of the 700,211 immigrants located in the state of Sao
Paulo from 1827 to the end of 1896, no less than 493,535 were
Italians, and their aggregate throughout the republic was estimated
in 1906 at more than 1,100,000. The German immigration, of which so
much has been written for political ends, has been greatly
over-estimated; trustworthy estimates in 1906 made the German
contingent in the population vary from 350,000 to 500,000. They are
settled chiefly in colonies in the southern states, and form a most
desirable body of settlers.
Divisions and Towns.-The republic is divided into
twenty states and one
federal district, which are
the same as the provinces and " municipio neutro " of the empire.
Their names also remain unchanged, except that of the federalized
district in which the national capital is located, which is called
the " districto federal." The republic has no territories, although
Amazonas, Matto Grosso, Para and Goyaz cover an immense region of
uninhabited and only partially explored territory. The states are
subdivided into
cornarcas, or judicial districts, and into
municipios, or townships, which is the smallest autonomous
division. The constitution provides for the
autonomy of the municipalities in order to
safeguard the permanence of representative institutions. The
parochia, or parish, an ecclesiastical division, is often
used for administrative purposes, but it has no political
organization. The names, areas, and populations of the states,
together with the names and populations of their capitals, are as
follows:
Communications.-Railway construction in Brazil
dates from 1852, when work was initiated on the Maua railway
running from the head of the bay of Rio de Janeiro to the foot of
the Serra where
Petropolis is situated. The road is 10 m.
long, and its first section was opened to traffic on April 30,
1854, and its second December 16, 1856. The mountain section, 52 m.
long, which uses the Riggenbach system from the terminal to
Petropolis, was constructed between 1881 and 1883. The development
of railway construction in Brazil has been impeded to a great
extent by two unfavourable conditions-by the chain of mountains or
plateau escarpments which follow the coast line and obstruct
communication with the interior, and by the detached positions of
the settlements along the Atlantic, which compel 1 The areas are
reduced from the planimetrical calculations made at Gotha and used
by A. Supan in
Die Bevolkerung der Erde (1904). They are
corrected to cover all boundary changes to 1906.
The census of 1890 is the last one of which complete returns are
published. That of 1900 was notoriously inaccurate in many
instances.
The census returns are for municipalities, and not for cities
proper. As a
municipality covers a large extent of
country, the population given is larger than that of the urban
parishes, and is therefore not strictly correct according to
European practice.
4 The Brazilian official titles are given for the state
capitals: Belem for Para; Sao Luiz for Maranhao; Sao Salvador for
Bahia; and Recife for Pernambuco.
The capital of Minas Geraes in 1890 was
Ouro Preto; it has since been transferred to
Bello
Horizonte, or Cidade de
Minas, which has an estimated population of
25,000.
Since the naval revolt of 1893-1894 the name of the capital of
Santa Catharina has been changed from Desterro to Florianopolis in
honour of President Floriano Peixoto.
|
States.
|
Area, 1
Sq. miles.
|
Population 2
|
State Capitals.
P
|
Population,'
Census
1890.
|
|
Census
1890.
|
Census
1900.
|
|
Alagoas.. .
|
22,584
|
511,440
|
649,273
|
Mace16
|
31,498
|
|
Amazonas. .
|
742,123
|
147,915
|
249,756
|
Manaos
|
38,720
|
|
Bahia. ... .
|
164,650
|
1,919,802
|
2,117,956
|
Sao Salvador 4.
|
174,412
|
|
Ceara
|
40,253
|
805,687
|
849,127
|
Fortaleza. .. .
|
40,902
|
|
Espirito Santo
|
17,313
|
135,997
|
209,783
|
Victoria.. .
|
16,887
|
|
Federal District .
|
538
|
522,651
|
691,565
|
Rio de Janeiro.. .
|
522,651
|
|
Goyaz. .. .
|
288,549
|
227,572
|
255,284
|
Goyaz 4..
|
17,181
|
|
Maranhao.. .
|
177,569
|
430,854
|
499,308
|
S. Luiz do Maranhao 4 .
|
29308
|
|
Matto Grosso
|
532,370
|
92,827
|
118,025
|
Cuyaba. .. .
|
17,815
|
|
Minas Geraes
|
221,961
|
3, 18 4, 0 99
|
3,594,47 1
|
Ouro Preto 5. ..
|
59,249
|
|
Para
|
443,922
|
328,455
|
445,356
|
Belem 4
|
50,064
|
|
Parahyba. .. .
|
28,855
|
457,232
|
490,784
|
Parahyba. .. .
|
18,645
|
|
Parana. .. .
|
85,455
|
249,491
|
327,136
|
Curityba. .. .
|
24,553
|
|
Pernambuco.. .
|
49,575
|
1,030,224
|
1,178,150
|
Recife 4. .. ..
|
111,556
|
|
Piauhy.. .
|
116,529
|
267,609
|
334,328
|
Therezina. .. .
|
31,523
|
|
Rio de Janeiro
|
26,635
|
276,884
|
274,317
|
Nictheroy. .. .
|
34,269
|
|
Rio Grande do Norte
|
22,196
|
268,273
|
1,149,070
|
Natal.. .
|
13,725
|
|
Rio Grande do Sul .
|
91,337
|
897,455
|
926,035
|
Porto Alegre.. .
|
52,421
|
|
Santa Catharina .
|
28,633
|
283,769
|
320,289
|
Desterro 6..
|
30,687
|
|
Sao Paulo. .. .
|
112,312
|
1,384,753
|
2,282,279
|
Sao Paulo. .. .
|
64,934
|
|
Sergipe
|
15,093
|
310,926
|
356,264
|
Aracaju
|
16,336
|
|
Brazil. .
|
3, 228 ,45 2
|
1 4,333,9 1 5
|
17,318,556
|
|
|
the building of lines from many widely separated points on the
coast into a sparsely populated
hinterland. A majority of the ports, from
which these roads are built, are small and difficult of access, and
the coasting trade is restricted to vessels carrying the Brazilian
flag. The only ports having a rich
and well-populated country behind them are Rio de Janeiro and
Santos, and these are the terminals of long lines of railway which
are being slowly extended farther into the interior.
|
Administered by the state (6) .
Leased to private parties (15) .
Private lines (24)
With national interest guarantees (12)
Without such guarantees (12)
|
.
|
2228
2174
|
4402
|
|
1290
8 15
|
The total mileage under traffic at the beginning of 1905 was
10,600 m., divided into 94 separate lines. There were also 745 m.
under construction, 1740 m. under survey, and about 1600 m.
projected. Of the 94 lines under traffic, 45 were operating by
virtue of national and 49 by provincial and state concessions. They
were grouped in the official reports of 1905 as follows Government
lines (21): Private and state lines operated by virtue of state
concessions, with and without interest guarantees (49) .
10,600 The policy of the national government has been gradually
to
lease all its lines except
the Estrada de Ferro Central do Brazil, which is retained for
sentimental reasons. This great railway runs from the city of Rio
de Janeiro westward to the city of Sao Paulo and northward into the
interior of Minas Geraes, with a total length at the beginning of
1905 of 1002 m., and an extension of about 104 m. to Pirapora, on
the Sao Francisco river. It was formerly known as the " E. de F.
Dom
Pedro II.," in honour
of the sovereign who encouraged its construction. The main line has
a
gauge of 63 in. (1.60 m.) and
affords an outlet for a number of inland
metre-gauge lines. The first two sections of this
great railway, which carry it across the coast range, were opened
to traffic in 1858 and 1864. The series of
trunk lines terminating at the port of Santos are
owned by private companies and are formed by the Sao Paulo,
Paulista and Mogyana lines, the first owned by an English company,
and the other two by Brazilian companies. The Mogyana carries the
system entirely across the state of Sao Paulo into the western
districts of Minas Geraes. The principal trunk lines (the Sao Paulo
and Paulista) have a broad gauge, while their extensions and
feeders have a narrow gauge. The comparatively short lines
extending inland from the ports of Sao Salvador (Bahia),
Pernambuco, Maceio, Victoria and Paranagua serve only a narrow zone
along the coast. To encourage the investment of private capital in
the construction of railways, the general railway law of 1853
authorized the national government to grant guarantees of interest
on the capital invested. Under this law companies were organized in
England for building the Sao
Paulo railway, and the lines running fromBahia and Pernambuco
toward the Sao Francisco river. Political considerations also led
to the construction of similar lines in the states of Rio Grande do
Norte, Parahyba, Alagoas, Sergipe, Espirito Santo, Parana., Santa
Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul. The result was that the national
treasury became burdened with a heavy annual interest charge,
payable abroad in
gold, which did
not tend to diminish, and had a long period to run before the
expiration of the contracts. The government finally determined to
take over these guaranteed lines from the foreign companies owning
them, and a statement issued in October 1902 showed that 1335 m.
had been acquired at a cost of £14,605,000 in bonds, the interest
on which is £584,200 a year against an aggregate of £831,750 in
interest guarantees which the government had been paying. In
addition to this economy it was calculated that the lines could be
leased for £132,000 a year. The
loan finally issued in
London to cover the purchase of these railways
aggregated £16,619,320. All but three of these lines had been
leased in 1905.
The use of tramways for the transportation of passengers in
cities dates from 1868, when the first section of the Botanical
Garden line of Rio de Janeiro was
opened to traffic. The line was completed with its surplus earnings
and continued under the control of the American company which built
it until 1882, when it was sold to a Brazilian company.
Subsequently the tramways of the city have been mostly concentrated
in the hands of a single Canadian company. All the large cities of
Brazil are liberally provided with tramways, those of the city of
Sao Paulo, where electric
traction is used, being noticeably good. The
substitution of
electricity for animal traction was begun
in Sao Salvador in 1906. Mules are universally employed for animal
traction, and narrow gauge lines with single-
mule trams are generally used where the traffic is
light.
Brazil is lamentably deficient in steamship communication
considering its importance in a country where the centres of
population are separated by such distances of coasts and river.
Previous to the creation of the republic, the coastwise service was
performed by two national companies (now united), and partially by
foreign lines calling at two or more ports. A considerable number
of foreign sailing vessels also carried on an important coasting
trade. The coastwise service centres at Rio de Janeiro, from which
port the Lloyd Brazileiro sends steamers regularly south to
Montevideo, and north to Para and
Manaos, calling at the more important
intermediate ports. From Montevideo river steamers are sent up the
Parana and Paraguay rivers to Corumba and Cuyaba, in the state of
Matto Grosso. The company receives a heavy
subsidy from the national government. Parts of
this coastwise traffic are covered by other companies, two of which
receive subsidies. There were also six lines of river steamers
receiving subsidies from the national government in 1904, and the
aggregate paid to these and the coastwise lines was 2,830,061
milreis. The largest of the river lines is the Amazon
Steam Navigation Co. (an English
corporation), whose service covers the
main river and several of its principal
tributaries. Two subsidized companies maintain services on the Sao
Francisco river - one below the Paulo Affonso falls, and the other
above, the latter covering 854 m. of navigable channel between
Joazeiro and Pirapora. Besides these there are other companies
engaged in the coasting and river traffic, either with subsidies
from the state governments, as feeders for railway lines, or as
private unsubsidized undertakings.
The
telegraph lines,
which date from 1852, are owned and operated by the national
government, with the exception of the lines constructed by private
railway companies, and the
cable
lines of the Amazon and the coast. The government lines extend from
Para to the Argentine and Uruguayan frontiers, where they connect
with the telegraph systems of those republics, and from Rio de
Janeiro westward across country, in great part unsettled, to the
capitals of Goyaz and Matto Grosso. At Para connexion is made with
the cable laid in the
bed of the
Amazon to Manaos, which is owned and operated by a subsidized
English company. At
Vizeu, Para,
connexion is made with a French cable to
the West Indies and the United States,
and at Pernambuco with two cable lines to Europe. A coastwise cable
runs from Para to Montevideo with double cables between Pernambuco
and Montevideo. There were in 1903 a total of 15,150 m. of land
lines, with 29,310 m. of wire and 1102 telegraph offices. The
government maintains reciprocal rates with most of the private
railway lines.
The Brazilian
postal service is under the general
supervision of the minister of communications and public works, and
is administered by a director-general. Owing to the size of the
country and the sparsely-populated state of a large part of the
interior, the transportation of the mails is attended with much
difficulty and expense. Although the postal rates are high, the
service is not self-sustaining, the receipts for 1904 being 7, 01
8,344 milreis, against a total expenditure of 10,099,545 milreis.
There were 2847 post offices (
agendas), of which 2166 were
of the 4th or lowest grade. Brazil is a member of the Postal Union,
and like Argentina exacts higher nominal rates of postage upon
outgoing
mail than those agreed
upon to cover the depreciation in her own currency. The letter rate
was at first 200 reis (nearly 52d.), but it has been increased to
300 reis, which is equivalent to 8d. at par and 42d. at 15d.
exchange. An inland
parcel
post was in operation long before the overthrow of the monarchy,
and a similar service with Portugal has been successfully
maintained for a number of years, notwithstanding the difficulties
interposed by customs regulations. National and international money
order systems are also in operation.
The constitution of Brazil provides that the coastwise trade
shall be carried on by national vessels, but this provision did not
go into effect until 1896. And even then, because of the
insufficient number of Brazilian vessels it was provided in the
regulations that foreign vessels could be enrolled in that trade by
using the Brazilian flag and employing a certain proportion of
Brazilians on the
crew. One of the
purposes of this restrictive provision was that of creating a
national merchant marine, but the disinclination of Brazilians for
maritime pursuits has been a serious obstacle to its realization.
In 1901 the merchant
navy included
228 steamers of 91,465 tons
net, and
343 sailing vessels of 76,992 tons net. These vessels are all
engaged in the coasting and river trade of the country. Efforts
have been made, however, to engage in foreign trade, and subsidies
were offered for a passenger and
freight service to the United States. On the
23rd of February 1906 the government completed a new contract with
the Lloyd Brazileiro Company for its coastwise and river service,
and included clauses providing for a line to the United States.
This foreign service (monthly) began in August 1906.
Although the coast of Brazil shows a large number of bays and
tide-water river channels which are apparently suitable for
commercial ports, a close examination of them reduces the number of
good ports to less than a dozen. The others are either difficult of
access, or are rendered practically useless by dangerous reefs,
sand bars and shoals. Important improvements have been undertaken
in some of these ports. Those at Santos and Manaos, for example,
have produced good results. In many cases, as at Rio de Janeiro,
Santos and Manaos, the cost and maintenance of the new port-works
are met by an additional tax on merchandise, though the immediate
expenditures are met by advances from the national treasury, and at
Rio de Janeiro by a foreign loan.
Commerce
The imports, exports and domestic trade of Brazil 2105 4093
Miles.
are by reason of their magnitude and peculiar character the most
important in South America, though the per
capita
aggregate is less than that of Argentina. Although an agricultural
country, Brazil does not produce all its own
bread and
meat,
and the imports of
wheat, wheat
flour, rice, fish, jerked
beef and preserved meats,
lard,
butter, beans, potatoes, packed fruits and
vegetables, Indian
corn and other
food-stuffs, are surprisingly large. Since the creation of the
republic, extreme protective measures have caused the creation of a
large number of cotton factories and other manufactures, but these
are able to supply only a part of the
consumption, and the importation of cotton
and woollen fabrics, silks, readymade clothing, boots and shoes,
&c., is large. Modern industrial development in some of the
states has greatly increased the importation of machinery, electric
supplies, materials for construction, coal, &c. Kerosene oil
also figures among the principal imports, and beef cattle are
imported for consumption by some cities. The exports cover a wide
range of agricultural,
pastoral and natural productions, including
coffee, rubber, sugar, cotton, cocoa,
Brazil nuts,
mate (Paraguay tea),
hides, skins, fruits, gold, diamonds,
manganese ore, cabinet woods and medicinal
leaves, roots and resins. Coffee and rubber, however, represent
from 80 to 90% of the official valuation of all exports. High
import duties are imposed by the national government and export
duties by the states. The exchange of domestic products between the
states is greatly restricted through lack of cheap transportation
facilities, and by the suicidal
imposition of import and export duties by
the states, either for revenue or for the protection of home
industries.
|
Average
|
|
|
|
Value of
|
Imports in
|
Exports in
|
|
Year.
|
the Milreis
in Pence.
|
Pounds Ster.
|
Pounds Ster.
|
|
1901
|
11 33
|
21,377,270
|
40,621,993
|
|
1902
|
11.93
|
23,279,418
|
36,437,456
|
|
1903
|
11.99
|
24,207,811
|
36,883,175
|
|
1904
|
12.22
|
25,915,423
|
39,430,136
|
|
1905
|
15.94
|
29,830,050
|
44,643,113
|
|
1906
|
16.17
|
33,204,041
|
53,059,480
|
According to a summary for the six years 1901 to 1906, derived
from official sources and published in the annual
Retrospecto of the
Jornal do Commercio, of Rio de
Janeiro, the values of the imports and exports for those years
(exclusive of
coin), reduced to
pounds
sterling at the
average rate of exchange (or value of one milreis) for each year,
were as follows: - Nearly 761% of the exports of 1906 were of
coffee and rubber, the official valuations of these being: coffee 2
45,474,5 2 5 milreis gold (27,615,884), and rubber (including
manigoba and mangabeira), 12 4,941,433 milreis gold
(£14,055,911).
Brazil is essentially an agricultural country. No other country
has been able to equal Brazil in the production of coffee, and
under better labour conditions the country might compete with the
foremost in the production of cane sugar, cotton and tobacco.
Besides these it might easily excel in producing many of the
tropical fruits for which there is a commercial demand. During the
colonial period sugar cane was cultivated from Parahyba S. to the
vicinity of Santos, and sugar was the principal export of the
colony. Before the middle of the 19th century coffee became one of
the leading exports, and its cultivation in the states of Sao
Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Geraes has been so increased since
that time that it represents over four-fifths in value of the total
export of agricultural produce. The principal sugar-producing
states are Alagoas, Sergipe, Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro,
and the production is between 200,000 and 300,000 tons, the greater
part of which is consumed in the country. Cotton has been widely
cultivated since early colonial days, principally in the northern
Atlantic states. Tobacco is also widely cultivated, and the product
of some states, such as Bahia, Minas Geraes and Goyaz, has a high
local reputation for its excellence. Caca.0 (cocoa) is cultivated
extensively in the Amazon Valley and along the coast as far south
as southern Bahia, and forms one of the leading exports. In 1906
Sao Paulo offered premiums for its cultivation in the state. Rice
has been cultivated in places, but without much success, although
the quality produced compared favourably with the imported article.
Indian corn grows luxuriantly everywhere, but it does not mature
well in the humid regions of the Amazon region and the coast. The
product of the elevated inland regions is good, but the
costs of transportation and the
small profits afforded have prevented its extensive cultivation,
and it is imported from the La Plata republics for consumption
along the coast. Much has been said in regard to the production of
wheat, and efforts have been made in various places to promote its
cultivation. It was once cultivated in Rio Grande do Sul with some
success, and it has been grown in Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo, but
in no case have the returns been sufficient to give it a permanent
standing among the productions of the country. The great majority
of the people are unused to wheaten bread, using the coarse flour
of the mandioca root instead, consequently the demand for wheat and
flour is confined to the large cities, which can obtain them from
Argentina more cheaply than they can be produced in the country.
One of the most common and important productions of Brazil is
mandioca (Manihot), of which there are two well-known
species,
M. utilissima and
M. aipi. The first
named, which is poisonous in its native state, is the
cassava of Spanish America. From it is made
farinha de
mandioca, which is the bread of the common people of Brazil,
and
tapioca. The
poison is extracted by soaking
the bruised or grated roots in water, after which the coarse flour
is roasted. Mandioca was cultivated by the natives before the
discovery of America, and the wide area over which it has been
distributed warrants the conclusion that the discovery of its value
as a food and the means of separating its poisonous properties must
have occurred at a very remote period. The peanut, or
ground-nut (
Arachis
hypogaea), is another widely-cultivated plant, dating from
pre-Columbian times. Very little attention has thus far been given
to the cultivation of fruit for exportation, the exceptions being
bananas for the Argentine and Uruguayan markets, and oranges and
pineapples for European markets. The coast region from Ceara. to
Rio de Janeiro is adapted to the cultivation of a great variety of
fruits of a superior quality. Ceara., Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro are
celebrated for their oranges, and Pernambuco for its delicious
pineapples. Tangerines, lemons, limes, grapes, guavas, figs,
cashews or caws (
A nacardium occidentale), mangabas
(
Hancornia speciosa), joboticabas (
Eugenia cauli
ora and
E. jaboticaba, Mart.), cocoa-nuts, mangos,
fruitas de conde (Anona
squamosa), plantains, &c., are produced in abundance and
with little labour. In some parts of southern Brazil the fruits and
vegetables of the temperate zone do well, but within the tropics
they thrive well only at a considerable elevation above sea-level.
Apples, peaches, quinces, raspberries, strawberries, &c., are
produced under such conditions, but the flavour of their kind grown
in colder climates is usually wanting. The vegetable productions
are less numerous, but they include sweet potatoes, cabbages,
cauliflower,
lettuce, beans,
peas, onions,
garlic,
tomatoes, okra, radishes, cucumbers, couve, chuchu (
Sechium
edule), and aipim (
Manihot aipi). The white
potato, known as " batata inglez
" (English potato), is grown in elevated localities, but it
deteriorates so greatly after the first planting that fresh
imported
seed is necessary every
second or third year.
The pastoral industries, which date from early colonial times,
have suffered many vicissitudes, and their development has failed
to keep pace with the country's growth in population. Horses are
used to some extent for
riding, but very little for
carriage and draught purposes, consequently
there has been no great incentive for their breeding. They are
largely used and raised in Rio Grande do Sul, but in the warmer
regions of the north only to a limited extent. The hardier mules
are generally employed for draught, carriage, and
saddle purposes in every part of the country,
and their breeding is a lucrative industry in the southern states.
Cattle-raising is the principal industry in Rio Grande do Sul, and
receives considerable attention in Minas Geraes, Matto Grosso,
Santa Catharina, Parana, Piauhy and Rio Grande do Norte. It was
estimated that there were 30,000,000 head of cattle in the republic
in 1904, but the estimate was unquestionably too large. A very
large part of the jerked beef consumed in Brazil is imported from
Argentina and Uruguay, and some beef cattle also are imported.
These importations at Rio de Janeiro in 1906 were 12,464,170
kilograms of jerked beef and 12 ,575 head of cattle. In the Rio
Branco region of Amazonas and in Piauhy, where the national
government has long been the owner of extensive cattle ranges, the
industry is in a state of decadence. This is partly due to such
pests as the
vampire bat and bush
ticks (
carrapatos), and partly to the
unprogressiveness of the cattlemen. Cattle-raising was once a
flourishing industry on the island of Marajo, at the mouth of the
Amazon, and it is followed to some extent at Alemquer and other
points along the Amazon, but the cattle are small, and commonly in
bad condition. In southern Bahia the industry has been nearly
extinguished through increasing aridity and droughts, but in the
state of Rio de Janeiro the planters are increasing their herds.
Minas Geraes produces
cheese,
butter and
milk, as well as beef
cattle for neighbouring cities. Matto Grosso classifies
cattle-raising as a principal industry, but under present
conditions the accessible markets are too small for any large
development. In Rio Grande do Sul, where it has attained its
greatest development, about 400,000 beeves are slaughtered annually
for the manufacture of jerked beef (
xarque), beef extract,
&c. Little attention has been given to
sheep in Brazil except in the southern states,
and even there the flocks are small. They were to be found in
Ceara. and Piauhy in colonial times, and small flocks are still to
be seen in the latter state, but no use is made of their
wool, and the
market for mutton is extremely limited because of popular
prejudices. Woollen manufactures have been established in Rio de
Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. The exportation of wool
amounted to 1,130,160 Ib in 1906. Goats have been found highly
profitable in many of the middle Atlantic states, where the long
dry seasons render the campos unsuitable for cattle pasturage. The
export of
goat skins from these
states is large.
Swine do well
in all parts of the country, especially in Minas Geraes, Sao Paulo,
Rio de Janeiro, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, and domestic pork and
lard are' slowly supplanting the heavily-taxed foreign
products.
Although the coast and river
fisheries of Brazil are numerous and
valuable, cured fish is one of the staple imports, and foreign
products are to be found even along the Amazon. In the Amazon
valley fish is a principal article of food, and large quantities of
pirarucu (Sudis gigas) are caught during the season of low
water and prepared for storage or market by drying in the sun. This
and the collection of turtle eggs for their oil, or butter, are
chiefly Indian industries, and contribute largely to the support of
the native population of that region. Along the coast the best
known fisheries are among the Abrolhos islands and in the shallow
waters of Espirito Santo, where the garoupa, pargo and vermelho
(species of
Serranus) abound in great numbers.
The extractive or forest industries of Brazil were among the
first to engage
the attention of Europeans, and have
always been considered a principal source of colonial and national
wealth. The varied uses of india-rubber in modern times, however,
have given them a greatly enhanced importance and value. Of the
exports of 1905, 36% were of this class, while those of the
pastoral and mining industries combined were not quite 61%. In 1906
the percentages were 31 and 6.67, showing a considerable loss for
the former and a slight gain for the latter. The principal products
of this class are india-rubber, mate, Brazil nuts, vegetable wax,
palm fibre, cabinet woods, and medicinal leaves, roots, resins,
&c. Before the discovery of the cheaper
aniline colours, dye-woods were among the most
valuable products of the country; in fact, Brazil derives her name
from that of a dye-wood (Brazil-wood-Caesalpinia
echinata), known as
bresill, brasilly, bresilji,
braxilis, or
brasile long before the discovery of
America (see Humboldt's
Geographie du nouveau continent,
tom. ii. p. 214), which for many generations was the most highly
prized of her natural productions. Of the total exports of this
group (1905) very nearly 90% was of india-rubber, which percentage
was reduced to 85 in the following year. The exportation for 1906
was 69,761,123 lb of Hevea, 5,871,968 lb of manicoba, and 1,440,131
lb of mangabeira rubber, the whole valued at 12 4,9 1,433 milreis
gold. The dried leaves and smaller twigs of mate (Paraguayan
tea-hlex
paraguayensis) are exported to the southern
Spanish American republics, where (as in Rio Grande do Sul) the
beverage is exceedingly popular. The export in 1906 amounted to
127,417,950 lb, officially valued at 16,502,881 milreis gold. The
collection of Brazil nuts along the Amazon and its tributaries is
essentially a poor man's industry, requiring no other plant than a
boat. The
harvest comes in January and February, in the
rainy season, and the nut-gatherers often come one or two hundred
miles in their boats to the best forests. The nuts are the fruit of
the
Bertholletia excelsa, one of the largest trees of the
Amazon forest region, and are enclosed, sixteen to eighteen in
number, in a hard, thick pericarp. Another nut-producing tree is
the
sapucaia (Lecythis ollaria), whose nuts are enclosed
in a larger pericarp, and are considered to be better flavoured
than those first described. The crop is a variable one, the export
in 1905 having been 198,226 hectolitres, while that of 1906 was
96,770 hectolitres. It could undoubtedly be largely increased.
Vegetable wax, which is an excellent substitute for beeswax, is a
product of the
carnahuha palm (
Copernicia
cerifera), and is an important export from Ceara. Palm, or
piassava fibre, derived from the
piassava palm, is used in
the manufacture of brooms, brushes, &c. It is found as far
south as southern Bahia, and the export could be very largely
increased. The export of cabinet woods is not large, considering
the forest area of Brazil and the variety and quality of the woods.
This is principally due to the cost and difficulties of
transporting timbers to the coast. The export is confined
principally to rosewood. Of the medicinal plants, the best-known
products are ipecacuanha., sarsaparilla, copaiba, jaborandi and
cinchona, but this is only a part of the list. Besides these, tonka
beans, anatto, vanilla, and
castor-oil seeds form a part of the
exports.
The mineral exports are surprisingly small. Gold was discovered
by the Portuguese soon after their settlement of the coast in the
16th century, but the washings were poor and attracted little
attention. The richer deposits of Minas Geraes were discovered
about 1693, and those of Matto Grosso early in the following
century. Abandoned placer mines are to be found in every part of
the unsettled interior, showing how thoroughly it had been explored
by goldhunters in those early days. Some good mines, like Morro
Velho and the abandoned Gongo Soco, have been developed in Minas
Geraes, but the great majority are small and not very productive.
Diamonds were discovered in Minas Geraes, near the town now called
Diamantina, during the
first half of the 18th century, the dates given ranging from 1725
to 1746, but the productiveness of the district has greatly
decreased. Diamonds have also been found in Bahia, Goyaz and
Parana.. Other
precious
stones found in Brazil are the
topaz,
ruby,
aquamarine,
tourmaline,
chrysoberyl,
garnet and
amethyst. Among the minerals are
silver,
platinum,
copper,
iron,
lead, manganese,
chromium, quicksilver,
bismuth,
arsenic and
antimony, of which only iron and manganese
have been regularly mined. The copper deposits of Minas Geraes are
said to be promising. Manganese is mined in Minas Geraes for
export. Iron ores have been found in most of the states, and are
especially abundant in Minas Geraes. The Ypanema mine and
ironworks, near Sorocaba, Sao Paulo, which belong to the national
government, have been in operation since 1810, and small
charcoal forges were in
operation in colonial times and supplied the mines with a
considerable part of the iron needed by them. Many of the richer
deposits have never been developed because of a lack of
fuel and limestone. Bituminous coal
of an inferior quality is mined to a limited extent in Rio Grande
do Sul, and another mine has been opened in Santa Catharina. These
coal deposits extend from Rio Grande do Sul north into the state of
Sao Paulo. Salt, which does not figure in the list of exports, is
produced along the coast between Pernambuco and Cape St Roque. The
annual production is about 240,000 tons.
|
1905.
Milreis, gold.
Coffee. 190,404,576
Cotton 10, 290, 790
|
1906.
Milreis, gold.
245,474,525
14, 726,492
|
|
Cacau. 9,240,313
|
12,323,922
|
|
Tobacco. 7,335,163
|
8,283,150
|
|
Sugar. 3,608,476
|
5,3 88 ,596
|
|
Bran' 1,490,312
|
I, 128,761
|
|
Cotton seed.. 964,074
|
1,084,742
|
|
Mandioca flour. 692,079
|
789,913
|
|
Fruits. 606,678
|
714,332
|
|
Castor-oil seeds. 214,016
|
333,250
|
|
224,846,477
|
290,247,683
|
|
Natural and Forest.
|
|
|
Rubber :
|
|
|
Mangabeira. 1,286,672
|
1,376,014
|
|
Manitoba.. 7,418,559
|
7,335,870
|
|
Hevea (Para). 119,434,947
|
116,229,549
|
|
Mate (Paraguay to a) 11,088,108
|
16,502,881
|
|
Brazil nuts 2,064,049
|
1,190,177
|
|
Palm wax (Carnah uba) 1,847,273
|
3,733,478
|
|
Cabinet woods. 390,070
|
318,873
|
|
Piassava fibre. 336,668
|
347,323
|
|
Medicinal leaves, roots,
resins, &c.. 191 ,53 4
|
263,137
|
|
143,331,142
|
147,297,302
|
|
Salted hides .
|
7,010,498
|
9,691,180
|
|
Dry hides .
|
5,330,440
|
7,675,715
|
|
Skins
|
4, 11 7, 590
|
4,639,512
|
|
Horse hair .
|
307,505
|
403,541
|
|
Horns .
|
276,172
|
277,488
|
|
Wool .
|
142,414
|
354,045
|
|
Beef extract, &c.
|
81,607
|
110,925
|
|
17,266,226
|
23,152,406
|
|
Mineral Products.
|
|
|
Gold, in bars .
|
3,734,469
|
4,379,160
|
|
Manganese ore .
|
2,958,462
|
1,594,486
|
|
Monazite sand .
|
889,231
|
881,289
|
|
Precious stones .
|
633,916
|
1,480,260
|
|
8,216,078
|
8,335,195
|
|
Miscellaneous.
|
|
|
Old metals 2. .
|
.. 263,506
|
382,073
|
|
Sundry products
|
2,177,512
|
2,225,163
|
|
2, 4 41,018
|
2,607,236
|
|
Total, all products
|
.. 396,827,679
|
471,639,822
|
To illustrate the comparative productiveness and relationship of
these sources of national wealth and industry, the following
official returns of export for the years 1905 and 1906 are arranged
in the four general classes previously discussed, the values being
in Brazilian gold milreis, worth 2s. 3d. or 54.6 cents to the
milreis
Agricultural. Pastoral and Animal.
Manufactures.-Before the establishment of the republic very
little attention had been given to manufacturing industries beyond
what was necessary to prepare certain crude products for market.
Sugar and
rum were essentially
plantation products down
to the last ten years of the empire, when central usines using
improved machinery and methods were introduced as a means of saving
the sugar plantations from ruin. The crude methods of preparing
jerked beef were also modified to some extent by better equipped
abattoirs and establishments for preparing beef extract, preserved
meats, &c. There were also mills for crushing the dried mate
leaves,
cigar and 1 The "
bran " exported is from imported
wheat and cannot be considered a national product.
2 The " old metals " consist of old iron,
brass, &c., derived from railway material,
machinery, &c., all imported, and should not be considered a
Brazilian product.
The " sundry products " would probably be included in the four
general classes were the items given.
cigarette factories, small
chocolate factories,
hat factories, brick and
tile yards,
potteries, tanneries, saddleries, and
many other small industries common to all large communities.
Considerable protection was afforded to many of these industries by
the customs
tariff of that
time, but protection did not become an acknowledged national policy
until after 1889. After that time the duties on imports were
repeatedly and largely increased, both as a means of raising larger
revenues and as an encouragement to manufacturing enterprise.
Although the protective tariffs thus imposed have resulted in a
large increase in manufacturing industries, some of them have been
antagonistic to the productive interests of the country, as in the
case of
weaving mills which
use imported yarns. Other industries are carried on entirely with
imported materials, and are national only in name. Among these are
flour mills, factories for the cutting of wire nails and making
hollow ware from sheet iron, and factories for the manufacture of
umbrellas, boots and shoes, &c.
The greatest progress has been made in the manufacture of cotton
fabrics, principally of the plainer and coarser grades used by the
common people. There were 155 of these factories in 1895, but in
1905 only 108 were in operation, with 715,000 spindles, and about
37, 00 o operatives. Nearly one-half of these were weaving mills,
using imported
yarn. The factories
are widely distributed, and some are favoured by state legislation
in addition to the national tariff. The largest and best equipped
of them are located in the federal states of Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo, though the greater part of the raw cotton used comes from
the northern states and pays high freight rates. The manufacture of
woollen blankets, cashmeres, flannels, &c., had also undergone
noteworthy development and is carried on in fifteen factories,
located principally in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo.
Biscuit-making is
represented by a large number of factories, for the most part in
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and there are a number of breweries
of the most modern type in the same two states. The manufacture of
boots and shoes has also received much attention, but the materials
used are for the most part imported. Among other manufactures are
butter and cheese, canned fruits and vegetables,
glass and earthenware,
printing and wrapping paper, furniture,
matches, hats, clothing, pharmaceutical products, soaps and - p
erfumery,
ice, artificial drinks,
cigars and cigarettes,
fireworks anc candles.
Government
The overthrow of the monarchy by a military revolt in Rio de
Janeiro on 15th November 1889, resulted in the creation of a
federal republic under the name of United States of Brazil (Estados
Unidos do Brazil). The constitution under which the republic is
governed was drafted by a constituent assembly convened on the 15th
of November 1890, and was adopted on the 24th of February 1891. The
supreme powers of the nation are vested in three partially
independent branches of government - executive, legislative, and
judicial - represented by the president and his cabinet, a national
congress of two chambers, and a supreme tribunal. The states
forming the federation consist of the twenty provinces and
municipal district of the empire, but the number may be increased
or diminished by the states concerned with the approval of the
national congress. The states are self-governed, and have exclusive
control of the public lands, mines, industries, and all local
affairs. They have the sole right also to impose duties on exports
and taxes upon real estate, industries and professions, and
transfers of property. Among other things they are charged with the
supervision and support of primary education, with the maintenance
of order, and with the organization and support of a system of
state courts. Both the national and state governments exercise the
right to impose
stamp and
consumption taxes, and the municipalities likewise are permitted to
impose
licence and
consumption taxes. The national government reserves for itself the
exclusive right to direct the foreign affairs of the republic, to
maintain an army and navy, to impose duties on imports, to regulate
foreign commerce, to collect port dues, to issue money and create
banks of issue, and to maintain
a postal and national telegraph service. It also supervises
secondary and superior education, issues
patents, and provides federal courts for the
trial of cases amenable to federal laws. The national government is
forbidden to interfere in the peculiar affairs of the states except
to repel foreign invasion, to maintain a republican form of
government, to re-establish order at the request of a state, or to
enforce federal laws and sentences. The states are forbidden,
likewise, to tax federal property, to tax inter-state commerce, to
impose duties of their own on foreign imports, or to resist the
execution of judicial sentences originating in other states. The
separation of church and state is provided for by the constitution,
and both the nation and the states are forbidden to establish,
subsidize or restrict the exercise of any religious worship.
Foreigners are eligible to Brazilian citizenship, and the right of
suffrage is conferred upon
all male citizens over twenty-one years of age, except beggars,
illiterates, the rank and
file of
the armed forces, members of monastic orders, &c., bound by
private vows, and all unregistered citizens.
The executive power of the nation is vested in a president,
elected for a term of four years by a direct vote of the
electors. He must be a native
Brazilian over thirty-five years of age, in the full enjoyment of
his political rights, and is ineligible for the next succeeding
term. A vice-president is elected at the same time and under the
same conditions, who is president of the
senate ex officio, and succeeds to the
presidency in case the
office becomes vacant during the last two years of the presidential
term. Should the vacancy occur during the first two years of the
term, a new election must be held. The president receives a
salary of 120,000 milreis and the
vice-president of 36,000 milreis. The president is advised and
assisted by a cabinet of six ministers, viz. foreign affairs;
finance;
agriculture, industry and commerce; 1
communications (
Viacao) and public works; 1 war; and
marine. The ministers are appointed and removed by the president,
take no part in the sessions of congress, and are responsible to
the president alone for their advisory acts. The president
sanctions and promulgates, or vetoes, or ignores the laws and
resolutions voted by congress, and issues decrees and regulations
for their execution. His
veto may
be over-ridden by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and permitting
ten days to pass without signing an act is considered as
acquiescence and it is promulgated by congress. The president is
charged with the duties (among others) of commanding the armed
forces. of the republic, appointing the
prefect of the national capital, designating
members of the supreme tribunal and diplomatic representatives for
the approval of the senate, to negotiate
treaties, &c.,
ad referendum to
congress, and maintain relations with foreign powers, to declare
war in case of invasion and to declare
martial law in case of grave internal
disorder, and to advise congress at the opening of the annual
session of the progress and
state of public affairs. He may be impeached before the senate for
his official acts and suspended from office, or tried by the
supreme tribunal for criminal offences.
The legislative power is vested in a national congress of two
chambers, elected by direct suffrage, and convened on the 3rd of
May each year. The regular annual sessions are of four months'
duration, but they may be extended to complete necessary
legislation. The senate consists of sixty-three members (three from
each state and the federal district) elected for a period of nine
years, one-third of each delegation being renewed every three
years. The senators must be not less than thirty-five years of age,
and are exempt from all legal processes not previously authorized
by the senate during their term of office, except in cases of
arrest in flagrante
delicto for a capital
crime. The chamber of deputies contains 212
members, the membership being distributed among the states on a
basis of one for each 70,000 of population, but with a minimum
representation of four for each state. The deputies are elected by
direct suffrage for the legislative session of three years, and
have the same immunities from legal process as the senators. The
chamber has the right of initiative in the organization of the
annual
budget laws and those
relative to the numerical strength of the army and navy. The
members of both houses receive a
per diem subsidy.
The judicial system of the republic consists of a supreme
federal tribunal of fifteen judges in the national capital, and a
district tribunal in the capital of each state, which forms a
federal judicial district. The judges are appointed for life and
can be removed only by judicial sentence and
impeachment. One member of the supreme
tribunal holds the position of 1 Previous to 1907 these two
departments were united in one under the designation of " Industry,
Communications and Public Works." The division was decreed December
29, 1906.
solicitor-general of the republic.
The judges and solicitor-general are appointed by the president
with the approval of the senate, but the tribunal chooses its own
presiding officers and secretaries and, nominally, is independent
of executive control. The supreme tribunal has original and
appellate jurisdiction, but its power to pass on the
constitutionality of federal laws and executive acts seems to fall
short of that of the United States Supreme Court. It has authority,
however, to review the acts and laws of state governments and to
decide upon their constitutionality. The district federal court has
but one
judge (
juiz de
seccao) and a
solicitor of the republic, and has original
jurisdiction in federal causes. Each state has its own local laws
and courts, independent of federal control, but subject to the
review of the supreme tribunal, and with rights of appeal to that
tribunal in specified cases. The federal district, which has a
municipal council instead of a legislature, has a system of
municipal and higher courts peculiar to itself. Limited judicial
powers are exercised by chiefs of
police, and by certain department commissions,
or boards, of an executive character. The members of the army and
navy are governed by special laws, enjoy immunities from civil
process, and are subject to the jurisdiction of military courts.
The civil code of the republic is based upon
Roman law.
Army
The nominal strength of the army in 1906 was 29,489, including
the officers of the general and subordinate staffs and the officers
and cadets of the military schools. This total represents the
nominal strength of the army in times of peace. Its actual
strength, however, is about 15,000 men, some of the regimental and
battalion organizations
being skeletons. Its organization consists of 40 battalions of
infantry with one transport
and one
depot company, 14
regiments of
cavalry of 4
squadrons each, 6 regiments of field
artillery with 24 batteries and 6 battalions
of heavy artillery with 24 batteries, and two battalions of
engineers. Efforts to organize a national guard have been
unsuccessful, although officers have been appointed and the
organization perfected, on paper. The police force, however, is
organized on a military footing and armed, and is available for
service in case of necessity. It is credited with 20,000 men.
According to law military service is obligatory, but the government
has been unable to enforce it.
Impressment is commonly employed to fill
the ranks, and in cases of emergency the
prison population is drawn upon for recruits.
The president is nominally commander-in-chief of the army, but the
actual command is vested in a general staff in the national
capital, and in the general commanding each of the seven military
districts into which the republic is divided. The most important of
these districts is that of Rio Grande do Sul, where a force of
11,226 men is stationed. The principal war
arsenal is in Rio de Janeiro. The
rifle used by the infantry is a
modified Mauser of the German 1888 model. Military instruction is
given at the Eschola Militar of Rio de Janeiro. The military
organization is provided with an elaborate code and systems of
military courts, which culminate in a supreme military tribunal
composed of 15 judges holding office for life, of which 8 are
general army officers, 4 general naval officers and 3 civil
judges.
Navy
The naval strength of the republic consisted in 1906 of a
collection of armoured and wooden vessels of various ages and types
of construction, of which three armoured vessels (including the two
designed for
coast
defence), four protected cruisers, five destroyers and
torpedo-cruisers, and half a
dozen torpedo boats represented what may be termed the effective
fighting force. The loss of the armoured
turret ship "Aquidaban" by a magazine explosion
in the bay of Jacarepagua, near Rio de Janeiro, in 1905, had left
Brazil with but one fighting vessel (the " Reachuelo ") of any
importance. Many of the wooden and iron vessels listed in the
Naval Annual, 1906, though obsolete and of no value
whatever as fighting machines, are used for river and harbour
service, and in the suppression of trifling insurrections. The
Annual describes 21 vessels of various types, and mentions
23 small gunboats used for river and harbour service. Besides these
there are a number of practice boats (small school-ships),
transports,
dispatch boats
and launches. A considerable part of the armament is old, but the
more modern vessels are armed with Armstrong rifled guns. The naval
programme of the
republic for 1905 provided for the prompt construction of 3
battleships of the largest displacement, 3 armoured cruisers, 6
destroyers, 12 torpedo boats and 3 submarine boats; and by 1909 the
reorganization of the navy was far advanced. The principal naval
arsenal is located at Rio de Janeiro. The government possesses dry
docks at Rio de Janeiro. The naval school, which has always enjoyed
a high reputation among Brazilians, is situated on the island of
Enxadas in the bay of Rio de Janeiro. There are smaller arsenals at
Para, Pernambuco, Sao Salvador and Ladario (Matto Grosso) and a
shipbuilding yard of
considerable importance at the Rio de Janeiro arsenal.
Education
Education is in a backward condition, and it is estimated that
80% of the population can neither read nor write. The lowest rate
of illiteracy is to be found in the southern half of the republic.
Public instruction is, by constitutional provision, under secular
control, but religious denominations are permitted to have their
own schools. Primary instruction is free but not compulsory, and
the schools are supported and supervised by the states. An
incomplete return in 1891 gave 8 793 schools and 376,399 pupils.
Secondary and higher education are under both federal and state
control, the former being represented by lyceums in the state
capitals, and by such institutions as the Gymnasio Nacional
(formerly Collegio Dom Pedro II.) in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the
states also maintain normal schools of an inferior type, that of
Sao Paulo being the best and most modern of the number. Higher, or
superior, instruction is confined almost exclusively to
professional schools - the medical schools of Rio de Janeiro and
Bahia, the law schools of Sao Paulo and Pernambuco, the
polytechnic of Rio de
Janeiro, and the school of mines of Ouro Preto. There are many
private schools in all the large cities, from the primary schools
maintained by the church and various corporations and religious
associations to schools of secondary and collegiate grades, such as
the
Protestant mission
schools of Petropolis, Piracicaba, Juiz de Fora, Sao Paulo and
Parana, the Lyceu de Artes e Officios (night school) of Rio de
Janeiro, and the
Mackenzie College of Sao Paulo. Perhaps the
best educational work in Brazil is done in these private schools.
In addition to these there are a number of seminaries for the
education of priests, where special attention is given to the
classics and
belles-lettres.
Religion
The revolution of 1889 and the constitution adopted in 1891 not
only effected a radical change in the form of government, but also
brought about the separation of church and state. Before that time
the
Roman Catholic Church had been
recognized and supported by the state. Not only are the national
and state governments forbidden by the constitution to establish or
subsidize religious worship, but its freedom is guaranteed by a
prohibition against
placing obstructions upon its exercise. The relations of the state
with the disestablished church since 1889 have been somewhat
anomalous, the government having decided to continue during their
lives the stipends of the church functionaries at the time of
disestablishment. The census of 1890 divided the population into
14,179,615 Roman Catholics, 1 43,743 Protestants, 3300 of all other
faiths, 7257 of no religious profession, and 600,000
unchristianized Indians. The increase of population through
immigration is overwhelmingly
Catholic, and the nation must, therefore,
continue Roman Catholic whether the church is subsidized by the
state or not. The moral character of churchmen in Brazil has been
severely criticized by many observers, and the ease with which
disestablishment was effected is probably largely due to their
failings. The church had exercised a preponderating influence in
all matters relating to education and the social life of the
people, and it was felt that no sweeping reforms could be secured
until its domination had been broken. The immediate results of
disestablishment were civil marriage, the civil registry of births
and deaths, and the secularization of cemeteries; but the church
retains its influence over all loyal churchmen through the
confessional, the
last rites of the church, and their sentiment against the
profanation of holy ground. Formerly Brazil constituted an
ecclesiastical province under the
metropolitan jurisdiction of an
archbishop residing at
Bahia, with 11
suffragan
bishops, 12 vicars-general
and about 2000 curates. In 1892 the diocese of Rio de Janeiro was
made an archbishopric, and four new dioceses were created. Three
more have been added since, making twenty dioceses in all. In 1905
the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro was made a
cardinal. The church has eleven seminaries for
the education of priests, and maintains a large number of private
schools, especially for girls, which are patronized by the better
classes. The church likewise exercises a far-reaching influence
over the people through the beneficent work of its lay orders, and
through the hospitals and asylums under its control in every part
of the country. A Misericordia
hospital is to be found in almost every town
of importance, and
recolhimentos for
orphan girls in all the large cities. In no
country have these
charities received more generous
support than in Brazil. The Protestant contingent consists of a
number of small congregations scattered throughout the country, a
few Portuguese Protestants from the
Azores, a part of the German colonists settled
in the central and southern states, and a large percentage of the
North Europeans and Americans temporarily resident in Brazil. The
Positivists are few in number, but their congregations are made up
of educated and influential people.
Art, Science and Literature
The Brazilian people have the natural taste for art,
music and literature so common
among the Latin nations of the Old World. The
emperor Dom Pedro II. did much to encourage
these pursuits, and many promising young men received their
education in Europe at his personal expense. Still earlier in the
century (1815) the
regent Dom
John VI. brought out a
number of French artists to educate his subjects in the
fine arts, and the
Escola Real de Sciencias, Artes e Officios was founded in
the following year. From this beginning resulted the
Academia
de Bellas Artes of a later date, to which was added a
conservatory of music in 1841. The institution is now called the
Escola Nacional de Bellas Aries. Free instruction in the fine arts has
been given in this school. The higher results of artistic training,
however, are less marked than a widespread dilettantism. The
Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes (1839-1896) is the best known of
those who have adopted music as a profession, his
opera Il Guarani having been produced at
most of the European capitals. The most prominent among Brazilian
painters is Pedro Americo, and in
sculpture Rodolpho Bernardelli has done good
work. In science Brazil has accomplished very little, although many
eminent foreign naturalists have spent years of study within her
borders. Joao Barbosa Rodrigues has done some good work in
botany, especially in the study
of the palms of the Amazon, and
Joao Baptista
de Lacerda has made important biological investigations at the
national museum of Rio de Janeiro. There are several scientific
societies and institutions in the country, but they rarely
undertake original work. The most active are the geographical
societies, but very little has been done in the direction of
scientific exploration. Some interesting results have been obtained
from the boundary surveys, from Dr E. Cruls's exploration of a
section of the Goyaz plateau in 1892 in search of a site for the
future capital of the republic, and from some of the river and
railway surveys. In 1875 a geological commission was organized
under the direction of Professor
Charles Frederick Hartt, but it
was disbanded two years later. In 1906 Congress resolved to
undertake a national geological survey under the direction of Mr
Orville A.
Derby, one of
Professor Hartt's assistants. The coal resources of the southern
states were investigated in 1904, under the auspices of the
national government, by Dr J. C. White, of the U.S. Geological
Survey, who found strata of fairly good coal at depths of 100 to
200 ft. extending from Rio Grande do Sul north to Sao Paulo. The
more important contributions to our present knowledge of Brazil,
however, have been obtained through the labours of foreign
naturalists. Beginning with the German mineralogist W. L. von
Eschwege, who spent nineteen
years in Brazil (1809-1828), the list includes A. de Saint-Hilaire
(1816 1820 and 1830), J. B. von Spix and C. F. von Martins
(1817-1820), Prince Max zu Neuwied (1815-1817), P. W. Lund
(1827-1830, and 1830 to 1880, the year of his death), George
Gardner (1836-1841), A. R.
Wallace (1848-1852), H. W. Bates (1848-1859), Hermann Burmeister
(1850-1852), Louis Agassiz (1865-1866), Charles Frederick Hartt
(1865-1866, 1872 and 1875-1878) and Karl von den Steinen (1884-1885
and 1887-1888). These explorations cover every branch of natural
science and resulted in publications of inestimable scientific
value. There should also be mentioned the monumental work of C. F.
P. von Martius on the
Flora Braziliensis, and the
explorations of Agassiz and Lund. Among other scientists of a later
date who have published important works on Brazil are the American
geologists O. A. Derby and J. C. Branner, the Swiss naturalist E.
A. Goeldi, the German botanist J. Huber, the German ethnologist H.
von. Ihring, and the German geographer Fried. Katzer. The
In- stituto Historico e Geographico
Brazileiro, though devoted chiefly to historical research, has
rendered noteworthy service in its encouragement of geographical
exploration and by its publication of various scientific memoirs.
The Museu Nacional at Rio de Janeiro, which has occupied the
imperial palace of Sao Christovao since the overthrow of the
monarchy, contains large collections of much scientific value, but
defective organization and apathetic direction have rendered them
of comparatively slight service. The Observatorio Nacional at Rio
de Janeiro is another prominent public institution. The botanical
gardens of Brazil are developing into permanent exhibitions of the
flora of the regions in which they are located. That of Rio de
Janeiro is widely celebrated for its avenues of royal palms, but it
has also rendered an important service to the country in the
dissemination of exotic plants.
Brazilian literature has been seriously prejudiced by
partisan politics and
dilettantism. The colonial period was one of strict repression, the
intellectual life of the people being jealously supervised by the
church to protect itself against
heresy, and their progress being restricted by
the Portuguese
crown to protect
its
monopoly of the
natural resources of the country. The arrival of Dom John VI. in
1808 broke down some of these restrictions, and the first year of
his residence in Rio de Janeiro saw the establishment of the first
printing press in Brazil and the publication of an official
gazette. There was no freedom
of the press, however, until 1821, when the abolition of the
censorship and the constitutional struggle in Portugal gave rise to
a politicaldiscussion that marked the opening of a new era in the
development of the nation, and aroused an intellectual activity
that has been highly productive in journalistic and polemical
writings. In no country, perhaps, has the press exercised a more
direct and powerful influence upon government than in Brazil, and
in no other country can there be found so high a percentage of
journalists in official life. Some of the political writers have
played an important part in moulding public opinion on certain
questions, as in the case of A. C. Tavares Bastos, whose
Cartas
do Solitario were highly instrumental in causing the Amazon to
be thrown open to the world's commerce and also in preparing the
way for the abolition of slavery; and in that of Joaquin]. Saldanha
Marinho, whose discussions in 1874-1876 of the relations between
church and state prepared the way for their separation. The
personal element is conspicuous in the Brazilian journalism, and
for a considerable period of its history libellous attacks on
persons, signed by professional sponsors, popularly called
testas de ferro (iron heads), were admitted at so much a
line in the best
newspapers.
The singular adaptability of the Portuguese language to poetical
expression, coupled with the imaginative temperament of the people,
has led to an unusual production and appreciation of
poetry. The percentage of
educated men who have written little volumes of lyrics is
surprisingly large, and this may be accounted for by the old
Portuguese custom of reciting poetry with musical
accompaniment. The
most popular of the Brazilian poets are
Thomaz Antonio Gonzaga, Antonio
Gonsalves Dias and Bernardo
Guimaraes. Among the dramatists and novelists
may be mentioned Joaquim Manoel de Macedo, Jose Martiniano de
Alencar, Bernardo Guimaraes, A. de Escrangnolle Taunay and J. M.
Machado de Assis. Jose M. de Alencar is usually described as the
greatest of Brazilian novelists. The most popular of his romances
are
Iracema and
0 Guarany. In historical
literature Brazil has produced one writer of high standing -
Francisco Adolpho Varnhagen (Visconde de Porto Seguro), whose
Historia Geral do Brazil is a standard authority on that
subject. The two English authorities, Robert Southey's
History
of Brazil, covering the colonial period, and John Armitage's
History of Brazil, covering the period between the arrival
of the
Braganza family
(1808) and the
abdication of Dom Pedro I. (1831), have been
translated into Portuguese. Another Brazilian historian of
recognized merit is Joao Manoel Pereira da Silva, whose historical
writings cover the first years of the empire, from its foundation
to 1840. Among the later writers Joao Capistrano de Abren has
produced some short historical studies of great merit. In the field
of philosophic
speculation,
Auguste Comte has had many disciples in
Brazil.
Finance
The national revenue is derived largely from the duties on
imports, the duties on exports having been surrendered to the
states when the republic was organized. Other sources of revenue
are stamp taxes on business transactions, domestic consumption
taxes (usually payable in stamps) on manufactured tobaccos,
beverages, boots and shoes, textiles, matches, salt, preserved
foods, hats, pharmaceutical preparations, perfumeries, candles,
vinegar, walking sticks and
playing cards, and
taxes on
lotteries,
passenger tickets, salaries and dividends of joint-stock companies.
Formerly import duties were payable in currency, but in 1899 it was
decided to collect 10% of them in gold to provide the government
with specie for its foreign remittances. The revenues and
expenditures have since then been calculated in gold and currency
together, to the complete mystification of the average
citizen, and the gold
percentage of the duties on imports has been increased to 35 and
50% (in 1907), the higher rate to apply to specified articles and
rule when exchange on London is above 14 pence per milreis, and the
lower when it is below. The service of the
national debt absorbs a very large part
of the expenditure, about 45% of the estimates for 1907 being
assigned to the department of finance. The department of industry,
communications and public works takes the next highest proportion,
but about half its expenditures are met by special taxes, as in the
case of port works and railway inspection, and by the revenues of
the state railways, telegraph lines and post office. The
depreciation and unstable character of the paper currency render it
difficult to give a clear statement of receipts and expenditures
for a term of years, the sterling equivalents often showing a
decrease, through a fall in the value of the milreis, where there
has been an actual increase in currency returns. This was most
noticeable between 1889 and 1898, when exchange, which represents
the value of the milreis, fell from a maximum of 274 pence (27d.
being the par value of the milreis) to a minimum of 58 pence. Since
1898 there has been an upward movement of exchange, the average
rate for 1905 having been very nearly 16 pence. In this period the
increase in the sterling equivalents would be proportionately
greater than that of the currency values. The gold and currency
receipts and expenditures for the six years 1900 to 1905,
inclusive, according to official returns, were as follows: -
Reducing gold to a currency basis at 15d. per milreis (the official
valuation adopted in 1906), the budget for 1907 provided for a
revenue of 353,590,593 milreis and an expenditure of 409,482,284
milreis, showing a deficit of 55,891,691 milreis. These deficits
were common enough under the monarchy, but they have become still
more prominent under the republic. According to the " Retrospecto
Commercial " for 1906 of the
Jornal do Commercio (Rio de
Janeiro, March 5, 1907), the aggregate deficits for the eleven
years 1891 to 1904 were 692,000,000 milreis, or, say,
£43,250,000.
The natural result of such a regime is increasing indebtedness.
In 1888, a year before the republic was proclaimed, the internal
and external national debts amounted to £74,000,000 sterling, with
the currency at par. Ten years later, when the currency had fallen
to 51 pence per milreis, the government found itself unable to meet
the interest obligations on its debt and railway guarantees, and an
arrangement was made with its creditors in London for the issue of
a 5% funding loan to an amount not to exceed £10,000,000, and the
suspension of all
amortization for thirteen years. On the
other hand the government agreed to withdraw currency, which had
reached a total of 788,364,614 1-milreis,
pari passu with
the issue of the loan, the milreis being computed at 18 pence. The
purpose of this condition was in order to improve the value of the
paper milreis in order to increase the specie value of the
revenues. The scheme came into operation in June 1898, and not only
was a complete suspension of payments avoided but the financial
situation was greatly improved. The government even withdrew more
of its currency issues than required by the agreement, and the
value of the milreis steadily improved. At the same time the
government carried out the forced conversion of the national loans
into lower interestbearing issues, which greatly reduced the annual
interest charges. These measures would have put the financial
affairs of the nation on a solid footing in a very few years had
the government been able to keep its expenditure within its income.
The naval revolt of 1893-1894, however, had aroused the spirit of
militarism in the ruling classes, and the effort to perfect the
organization and equipment of the army, strengthen the
fortifications of Rio de Janeiro, and increase the navy, have kept
expenditures in excess of the revenues. The purchase of guaranteed
railways owned by foreign companies likewise added largely to the
bonded indebtedness, though the onus was in existence in another
form. The result of these measures was a large addition to the
public debt, which on 31st December 1906 was approximately as
follows (
apolices being the name given to bonds inscribed
to the holder): - External debt: Loans of 1883, 1888 and 1889
Oestede Minas R. R. loan .
Loan of 1898 .
Funding loan of 1898. Railway rescission loan of 1901 Port works
loan of 1903. .
£ 6 9,77 8 ,933 5 Pp Internal debt, funded: 5% apolices, Law of
1827 42% „ „ 1879 6% „ „ 1897 ° I O 5 0 „ 9 3 Total, funded
558,476,600 (at 1 5d. £34,904,787) Internal debt, not funded: Paper
money. .. .. .. Savings bank and other deposits!
In paper. In gold, 19,053,861 r (say) Floating indebtedness
(a/es current, bills, &c.) Total, not funded, approx.
(at 15d. £59,118,895 stg.) Approximate total indebtedness..
£163,802,675 In addition to these, the government was still
responsible for interest guarantees on fourteen railways, or
sections of existing lines, with an aggregate capital of about
£4,900,000 held in Europe and 12, 0 55,44 0 milreis held in Brazil,
on which the national treasury paid in interest £191,324 and
1,398,493 milreis.
|
Year.
|
Average Rate
of Exchange.
|
Revenue.
|
Expenditure.
|
|
Gold
|
Currency
|
Gold
|
Currency
|
|
Pence.
|
|
Milreis.
|
Milreis.
|
Milreis.
|
Milreis.
|
|
1900
|
9.50
|
49,955,522
|
263,687,253
|
41,892,150
|
372,753,986
|
|
1901
|
I I.38
|
44,041,302
|
239,284,702
|
40,493,241
|
261,629,212
|
|
1902
|
11 97
|
42,904,844
|
266,584,912
|
34,574,643
|
236,458,862
|
|
1903
|
12
|
45,121,815
|
327,370,063
|
48,324,642
|
291,198,960
|
|
1904
|
12.28
|
50,566,572
|
342,782,191
|
48,476,413
|
352,292,147
|
|
1905
|
15.89
|
64,207,004
|
243,335,396
|
51,606,272
|
265,699,281
|
The paper currency of Brazil consists of both treasury issues
and
bank-notes, the
latter issued under government supervision. Its fluctuations in
value have been not only a serious inconvenience in commercial
transactions, but also the cause of heavy loss to the people. Under
the provisions of the funding loan of 1898 a scheme for the
withdrawal of the paper money was carried into effect, and by the
end of December 1906 the amount in circulation had been reduced
from 788,364,614 2-milreis (the outstanding circulation 31st August
1898) to 664,792,960 2-milreis. Two funds were created for the
redemption and
guarantee
of paper issues, the latter receiving 5% of the import duties
payable in gold. Up to 1906 the Caixa da Amortisacdo (redemption
bureau), which has charge of the
service of the internal funded debt, superintended the redemption
of the currency, but in that year (December 6, 1906) a Caixa de
Conyers-do (conversion bureau) was created for this special
service. It is modelled after the Argentine Conversion office, and
is authorized to issue notes to
bearer against deposits of gold at the rate of
15 pence per milreis although exchange was above 17d. when the
scheme was proposed. The notes are to be redeemable in gold at £
26,478,500 3,388,100 7,331,600 8,613,717 1 5,4 6 7, 01 5 16
8,500,000 Milreis 483,546,600.20, 54 8,000.3 7,082,000 17,300,000
Milreis 66 4, 792,960 246,812,407 34,296,950 945,902,317 sight, the
Caixa de ,Conversao to keep the gold paid in for that express
purpose. The coffee producers of Sao Paulo and other states found
that the appreciation in value of the milreis was reducing their
profits, and they advocated this measure (at first with a valuation
of 12d.) to check the upward movement in exchange. Metallic money
is limited to
nickel and
bronze coins, but in 1906 the
government was authorized to purchase
bar silver for the coinage of pieces of the
denomination of two
milreis, one milreis and 500 reis (2-milreis). Gold is the nominal
standard of value, the monetary unit being the gold milreis worth
2s. 21d. at par. The to-milreis gold piece weighs 8.9648 grammes,
916 fine, and contains 8.2178 grammes of pure gold. There is no
gold in circulation, however, and gold duties are paid with gold
cheques purchased at certain banks with paper money. The banking
facilities of the republic have undergone many changes under the
new regime. A fruitful cause of disaster has been the practice of
issuing agricultural and industrial loans under government
authorization. Commercial business at the principal ports is
largely transacted through foreign banks, of which there are a
large number.
In addition to the indebtedness of the national government, the
individual states have also incurred funded debts of their own. The
aggregate of these debts in 1904 was £20,199,440, and the several
loans made during the next two years, including those of the
municipalities of Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Bahia and Manaos, add
fully two and a half millions more to the total. (A. J. L.)
History Brazil was discovered
in February 1499 (o.s.) by Vicente Yanez Pinzon, a
companion of
Columbus. He descried the
land near Cape St
Augustine, and sailed along the coast as
The Portu- far as the river Amazon, whence he proceeded to
the
geese in mouth of the Orinoco. He made no settlement,
but
Brazil. took possession of the country in the name of
the Spanish government, and carried home, as specimens of its
natural productions, some drugs, gems and Brazil-wood. Next year
the Portuguese commander, Pedro Alvares Cabral, appointed by his
monarch to follow the course of
Vasco da Gama in the East, was driven by
adverse winds so far from his track, that he reached the Brazilian
coast, April 24, and anchored in Porto Seguro (16° S. lat.) on
Good Friday. On
Easter day an
altar was erected, mass celebrated in presence of
the natives, the country declared an apanage of Portugal, and a
stone cross erected in
commemoration of the event. Cabral
despatched a small vessel to
Lisbon to announce his discovery, and, without
forming any settlement, proceeded to India on the 3rd of May. On
the arrival of the news in Portugal, Emanuel invited
Amerigo
Vespucci to enter his service, and despatched him with three
vessels to explore the country. The navigator's first voyage was
unsuccessful; but, according to his own account, in a second he
discovered a safe port, to which he gave the name of AllSaints and
where he erected a small fort. Vespucci's narrative is, however,
suspected of being apocryphal (see Vespucci, Amerigo) The poor and
barbarous tribes of Brazil, and their country, the mineral riches
of which were not immediately discovered, offered but few
attractions to a government into the coffers of which the wealth of
India and Africa was flowing. For nearly
thirty
years the kings of Portugal paid no further attention to their
newly-acquired territory than what consisted in combating the
attempts of the Spaniards to occupy it, and dispersing the private
adventurers from France who sought its shores for the purposes of
commerce. The colonization of Brazil was prosecuted, however, by
subjects of the Portuguese monarchy, who traded thither chiefly for
Brazil-wood. The government also sought to make criminals of some
use to the state, by placing them in a situation where they could
do little harm to society, and might help to uphold the dominion of
their nation.
The first attempt on the part of a Portuguese monarch to
introduce an organized government into his dominions was made
First by
John
III. He adopted a plan which had been
organiza- found
to succeed well in Madeira and the Azores,
tion in
dividing the country into hereditary captaincies, and Sao Vicente
Piratininga, in the present province of Sao Paulo. Martim Affonso
de Sousa, having obtained a grant, fitted out a considerable
armament and proceeded to explore the country in person. He began
to survey the coast about Rio de Janeiro, to which he gave that
name, because he discovered it on the 1st of January 1531. He
proceeded south as far as La Plata, naming the places he surveyed
on the way from the days on which the respective discoveries were
made. He fixed upon an island in 241° S. lat., called by the
natives Guaibe, for his settlement. The Goagnazes, or prevailing
tribe of Indians in that neighbourhood, as soon as they discovered
the intentions of the new-comers to fix themselves permanently
there, collected for the purpose of expelling them. Fortunately,
however, a shipwrecked Portuguese, who had lived many years under
the protection of the principal chief, was successful in concluding
a treaty of perpetual
alliance between his countrymen and the
natives. Finding the spot chosen for the new town inconvenient, the
colonists removed to the adjoining island of Sao Vicente, from
which the captaincy derived its name. Cattle and the sugar-cane
were at an
early period introduced from
Madeira, and here the other captaincies supplied themselves with
both.
Pero Lopes de Sousa received the grant of a captaincy, and set
sail from Portugal at the same
time as his brother, the founder of Sao Vicente. He chose to have
his fifty leagues in two
allotments. That to which
he gave the name of Santo Amaro adjoined Sao Vicente, the two towns
being only three leagues asunder. The other division lay much
nearer to the line between Parahyba and Pernambuco. He experienced
considerable difficulty in founding this second colony, from the
strenuous opposition of a neighbouring tribe, the Petiguares; at
length he succeeded in clearing his lands of them, but not long
afterwards he perished by shipwreck.
Rio de Janeiro was not settled till a later period; and for a
considerable time the nearest captaincy to Santo Amaro, sailing
along the coast northwards, was that of Espirito Santo. It was
founded by Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, who having acquired a large
fortune in India, sank it in this scheme of colonization. He
carried with him no less than sixty fidalgos. They named their town
by anticipation, Our Lady of the Victory (Victoria); but it cost
them some hard fighting with the Goagnazes to justify the
title.
Pedro de Campo Tourinho, a nobleman and excellent navigator,
received a grant of the adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro. This,
it will be remembered, is the spot where Cabral first took
possession of Brazil. The Tupinoquins at first offered some
opposition; but having made peace, they observed it faithfully,
notwithstanding that the oppression of the Portuguese obliged them
to forsake the country. Sugar-works were established, and
considerable quantities of the produce exported to the mother
country.
Jorge de Figueiredo, Escrivam da Fazenda, was the first
donatory of the captaincy Ilheos, 140 m. south of Bahia. His office
preventing him from taking possession in person, he deputed the
task to Francisco Romeiro, a Castilian. The Tupinoquins, the most
tractable of the Brazilian tribes, made peace with the settlers,
and the colony was founded without a struggle.
The coast from the Rio Sao Francisco to Bahia was granted to
Francisco Pereira Coutinho; the bay itself, with all its creeks,
was afterwards added to the grant. When Coutinho formed his
establishment, where
Villa Velha
now stands, he found a noble Portuguese living in the neighbourhood
who, having been shipwrecked, had, by means of his fire-arms,
raised himself to the rank of chief among the natives. He was
surrounded by a patriarchal establishment of wives and children;
and to him most of the distinguished families of Bahia still trace
their lineage. The regard entertained by the natives for Caramuru
(signifying
man of fire) induced them to extend a
hospitable welcome to his countrymen, and for a time everything
went on well. Coutinho had, however, learned in India to be an
oppressor, and the Tupinambas were the fiercest and most powerful
of the native tribes. The Portuguese were obliged to abandon their
settlement; but several of them returned at a later period, with
Brazil. granting them to such persons as were willing to
undertake their settlement, with unlimited powers of jurisdiction,
both civil and criminal. Each captaincy extended along fifty
leagues of coast. The boundaries in the interior were undefined.
The first settlement made under this new system was that of
Caramuru, and thus a European community was established in the
district.
Some time before the period at which these captaincies were
established, a factory had been planted at Pernambuco. A ship from
Marseilles took it,
and left seventy men in it as a
garrison; but she was captured on her return,
and carried into Lisbon, and immediate measures were taken for
reoccupying the place. The captaincy of Pernambuco was granted to
Don Duarte Coelho Pereira as the
reward of his services in India. It extended along the coast from
the Rio Sao Francisco, northward to the Rio de Juraza. Duarte
sailed with his wife and children, and many of his kinsmen, to take
possession of his new colony, and landed in the port of Pernambuco.
To the town which was there founded he gave the name of Olinda. The
Cabetes, who possessed the soil, were fierce and pertinacious; and,
assisted by the French, who traded to that coast, Coelho had to
gain by inches what was granted him by leagues. The Portuguese
managed, however, to
beat off
their enemies; and, having entered into an alliance with the
Tobayanes, followed up their success.
Attempts were made about this time to establish two other
captaincies, but without success. Pedro de Goes obtained a grant of
the captaincy of Parahyba between those of Sao Vicente and Espirito
Santo; but his means were too feeble to enable him to make head
against the
aborigines, and the colony was broken up
after a painful struggle of
seven years. Jo -do de Barros, the
historian, obtained the captaincy of Maranhao. For the sake of
increasing his capital, he divided his grant with Fernao, Alvares
de Andrade and Aires da Cunha. They projected a scheme of conquest
and colonization upon a large scale. Nine hundred men, of whom one
hundred and thirteen were horsemen, embarked in ten ships under the
command of Aires da Cunha. But the vessels were wrecked upon some
shoals about one hundred leagues to the south of Maranhao; the few
survivors, after suffering immense hardships, escaped to the
nearest settlements, and the undertaking was abandoned.
By these adventures the whole line of Brazilian coast, from the
mouth of La Plata to the mouth of the Amazon, had become studded at
intervals with Portuguese settlements, in all of which law and
justice were administered, however inadequately. It is worthy of
observation, that Brazil was the first colony founded in America
upon an agricultural principle, for until then the precious metals
were the exclusive attraction. Sufficient capital was attracted
between the year 1531 (in which De Sousa founded the first
captaincy) and the year 1548 to render these colonies an object of
importance to the mother country. Their organization, however, in
regard to their means of defence against both external aggression
and internal violence, was extremely defective. Their territories
were surrounded and partly occupied by large tribes of savages.
Behind them the Spaniards, who had an establishment at
Asuncion, had penetrated
almost to the sources of the waters of Paraguay, and had succeeded
in establishing communication with Peru. Orellana, on the other
hand, setting out from Peru, had crossed the mountains and sailed
down the Amazon. Nor had the French abandoned their hopes of
effecting an establishment on the coast.
The obvious remedy for these evils was to concentrate the
executive power, to render the petty chiefs amenable to one
tribunal, and to confide the management of the defensive force to
one hand. In order to this the powers of the several captains were
revoked, whilst their property in their grants was reserved to
them. A governor-general was appointed, with full powers, civil and
criminal. The judicial and financial functions in each province
were vested in the
Ouvidor, whose authority in the college
of finance was second only to that of the governor. Every colonist
was enrolled either in the
Milicias or
Ordenanzas. The former were obliged to serve beyond the
boundaries of the province, the latter only at home. The chief
cities received municipal constitutions, as in Portugal. Thome de
Sousa was the first person nominated to the important post of
governorgeneral. He was instructed to build a strong city in Bahia
and to establish there the seat of his government. In pursuance of
his commission he arrived at Bahia in April 1549, with a fleet of
six vessels, on board of which were three hundred and twenty
persons in the king's pay, four hundred convicts and about three
hundred free colonists. Care had been taken for the spiritual wants
of the provinces by associating six
Jesuits with the expedition.
Old Caramuru, who still survived, rendered the governor
essential service by gaining for his countrymen the
goodwill of the natives. The
new city, to which the name of Sao Salvador was given, was
established on the heights above the Bay
of
All Saints (Todos os Santos), from which its later name of
Bahia is taken. Within four months one hundred houses were built,
and surrounded by a mud wall. Sugar plantations were laid out in
the vicinity. During the four years of Sousa's government there
were sent out at different times supplies of all kinds. Female
orphans of noble families were given in marriage to the officers,
and portioned from the royal estates, and orphan boys were sent to
be educated by the Jesuits. The capital
rose rapidly in importance, and the captaincies
learned to regard it as a common head and centre of wealth.
Meanwhile the Jesuits undertook the moral and religious culture of
the natives, and of the scarcely less
savage colonists. Strong opposition was at first
experienced from the
gross ignorance of
First
Jes u
it the Indians, and the depravity of the
Portuguese,
missions. fostered by the licentious
encouragement of some abandoned priests who had found their way to
Brazil. Over these persons the Jesuits had no authority; and it was
not until the arrival of the first
bishop of Brazil in 1552, that anything like an
efficient check was imposed upon them. Next year Sousa was
succeeded by Duarte da Costa, who brought with him a reinforcement
of Jesuits, at the head of whom was Luis de Gran, appointed, with
Nobrega the chief of the first mission, joint provincial of
Brazil.
Nobrega's first act was one which has exercised the most
beneficial influence over the social system of Brazil, namely, the
establishment of a college on the then unreclaimed plains of
Piratininga. It was named Sao Paulo, and has been at once the
source whence knowledge and civilization have been diffused through
Brazil, and the
nucleus of a
colony of its manliest and hardiest citizens, which sent out
successive swarms of hardy adventurers to people the interior. The
good intentions of the Jesuits were in part frustrated by the
opposition of Costa the governor; and it was not until 1558, when
Mem de Sa was sent out to supersede him, that their projects were
allowed free scope. Rio de Janeiro was first occupied by French
settlers.
Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon, a bold and
skilful seaman, having visited Brazil, saw at once the advantages
which might accrue
Settle- to his country from a settlement
there. In order to secure the interest of Coligny, he gave out that
his projected colony was intended to serve as a place of refuge for
the persecuted
Huguenots. Under the patronage of that
admiral, he arrived at Rio de
Janeiro in 1558 with a
train of
numerous and respectable colonists. As soon, however, as he thought
his power secure, he threw off the
mask, and began to harass and oppress the
Huguenots by every means he could devise. Many of them were forced
by his tyranny to return to France; and ten thousand Protestants,
ready to embark for the new colony, were deterred by their
representations. Villegagnon, finding his force much diminished in
consequence of his treachery, sailed for France in quest of
recruits; and during his absence the Portuguese governor, by order
of his court, attacked and dispersed the settlement. For some years
the French kept up a kind of bush warfare; but in 1567 the
Portuguese succeeded in establishing a settlement at Rio.
Mem de Sa continued to hold the reins of government in Brazil
upon terms of the best understanding with the clergy, and to the
great advantage of the colonies, for fourteen years. On the
expiration of his power, which was nearly contemporary with that of
his life, an attempt was made to divide Brazil into two
governments; but this having failed, the territory was reunited in
1578, the year in which Diego Laurenco da Veiga was appointed
governor. At this time the colonies, although not yet independent
of supplies from the mother country, were in a flourishing
condition; but the usurpation of the crown of Portugal by
Philip II. changed the
aspect of affairs. Brazil, believed to be inferior to the Spanish
possessions in mines, was consequently abandoned in comparative
neglect for the period intervening between 1578 and 1640, during
which it continued an apanage of Spain.
No sooner had Brazil passed under the Spanish crown, than
English adventurers directed their hostile enterprises against its
shores. In 1586 Witherington plundered Bahia;
E and i n
1591 Cavendish made an abortive attack on Santos;
French
in 1595
Lancaster
attacked Olinda. These exploits, however, were transient in their
effects. In 1612 the French attempted to found a permanent colony
in the island of Marajo, where they succeeded in maintaining
themselves till 1618. This attempt led to the erection of Maranhao
and Para into a separate
Estado. But it was on the part of
the Dutch that the most skilful and pertinacious efforts were made
for securing a footing in Brazil; and they alone of all the rivals
of the Portuguese have left traces of their presence in the
national spirit and institutions of Brazil.
The success of the
Dutch East India
Company led to the establishment of a similar one for the West
Indies, to which a monopoly of the trade to America and Africa was
granted. This body despatched in 1624 a fleet against Bahia. The
town yielded almost without a struggle. The fleet soon after
sailed, a
squadron being
detached against
Angola, with
the intention of taking possession of that colony, in order to
secure a supply of slaves. The fall of Bahia for once roused the
Spaniards and Portuguese to joint action, and a great expedition
speedily sailed from
Cadiz and
Lisbon for Bahia. Once more, though strongly garrisoned, the town
was retaken without any serious fighting in May 1625. The honours
bestowed upon the Indian chiefs for their assistance in this war
broke down in a great measure the barrier between the two races;
and there is at this day a greater admixture of their blood among
the better classes in Bahia than is to be found elsewhere in
Brazil. In 1630 the Dutch attempted again to effect a settlement;
and Olinda, with its port, the Recife-Olinda, was destroyed, but
the Recife was fortified and held, reinforcements They had extended
their limits southwards till they reached the Spanish settlements
of La Plata. They had reduced to slavery numerous tribes of the
natives. They were rich in cattle, and had commenced the discovery
of the mines. When, therefore, the inhabitants of Sao Paulo saw
themselves about to be transferred, as a dependency of Portugal,
from one master to another, they conceived the idea of erecting
their country into an independent state. Their attempt, however,
was frustrated by Amador Bueno, the person whom they had selected
for their king. When the people shouted " Long live King Amador,"
he cried out " Long live
John
IV.," and took refuge in a
convent. The multitude, left without a leader,
acquiesced, and this important province was secured to the house of
Braganza.
Rio and Santos, although both evinced a desire of independence,
followed the example of the Paulistas. Bahia, as capital of the
Brazilian states, felt that its ascendancy depended upon the union
with Portugal. The government, thus left in quiet possession of the
rest of Brazil, had time to concentrate its attention upon the
Dutch conquests. The crown of Portugal was, however, much too weak
to adopt energetic measures. But the Brazilian colonists, now that
the mother country had thrown off the Spanish yoke, determined even
without assist ance from the homeland to rise in revolt against
foreign
Revolt g g
against
domination. The departure of Count
Maurice, moreover, had seriously weakened the
position of the Dutch, for his successors had neither his
conciliatory manners nor his capacity. Joao Fernandes Vieyra, a
native of Madeira, organized the insurrection which broke out in
1645. This insurrection gave birth to one of those wars in which a
whole nation, destitute of pecuniary resources, military
organization and skilful leaders, but familiar with the country, is
opposed to a handful of soldiers advantageously posted and well
officered. But home difficulties and financial necessities
prevented
the West India Company
from sending adequate reinforcements from
Holland. In 1649 a rival company was started in
Portugal known as the Brazil Company, which sent out a fleet to
help the colonists in Pernambuco. Slowly the Dutch lost ground and
the outbreak of war with England sounded the knell of their
dominion in Brazil. In 1654 their capital and last stronghold fell
into the hands of Vieyra. It was not, however, till 1662 that
Holland signed a treaty with Portugal, by which all territorial
claims in Brazil were abandoned in exchange for a
cash indemnity and certain commercial privileges.
After this, except some inroads on the frontiers, the only foreign
invasion which Brazil had
French to suffer was from
France. In 1710 a squadron, commanded by Duclerc, disembarked 1000
men, and attacked Rio de Janeiro. After having lost half of /7"'
his men in a battle, Duclerc and all his surviving companions were
made prisoners. The governor treated them cruelly. A new squadron
with 6000 troops was entrusted to the famous admiral
Duguay
Trouin to revenge this injury. They arrived at Rio on the 12th
of September 1711. After four days of hard fighting the town was
taken. The governor retreated to a position out of it, and was only
awaiting reinforcements from Minas to retake it; but, Duguay Trouin
threatening to burn it, he was obliged on the 10th of October to
sign a
capitulation, and pay to the French
admiral 610,000 crusados, Soo cases of sugar, and provisions for
the return of the fleet to Europe. Duguay Trouin departed to Bahia
to obtain fresh spoils; but having lost in a
storm two of his best ships, with an important
part of the money received, he renounced this plan and returned
directly to France.
After this the Portuguese governed their colony undisturbed. The
approach of foreign traders was prohibited, while the regalities
reserved by the crown drained the country of a great proportion of
its wealth.
The important part which the inhabitants of Sao Paulo have
played in the history of Brazil has been already adverted to. The
establishment of the Jesuit college had attracted settlers to its
neighbourhood, and frequent marriages had taken place between the
Indians of the district and the colonists. A hardy and enterprising
race of men had sprung from this mixture, and supplies being sent
by sea from Holland. The pp g y Dutch were unable, however, to
extend their power beyond the limits of the town, until the arrival
of Count
John Maurice of Nassau-
Siegen in 1636. His first step
was to introduce a regular government among his countrymen; his
second, to send to the African coast one of his officers, who took
possession of a Portuguese settlement, and thus secured a supply of
slaves. In the course of eight years, the limited period of his
government, he succeeded in asserting the Dutch supremacy along the
coast of Brazil from the mouth of Sao Francisco to Maranhao. The
Recife was rebuilt and adorned with splendid residences and gardens
and received from its founder the name of Mauritstad. He promoted
the amalgamation of the different races, and sought to conciliate
the Portuguese by the confidence he reposed in them. His object was
to found a great empire; but this was a project at variance with
the wishes of his employers - an association of merchants, who were
dissatisfied because the wealth which they expected to see flowing
into their coffers was expended in promoting the permanent
interests of a distant country. Count Maurice resigned his post in
1644. His successors possessed neither his political nor his
military talents, and had to contend with more difficult
circumstances.
In 1640 the revolution which placed the house of Braganza on the
throne of Portugal restored Brazil to masters more inclined to
promote its interests and assert its possession than the Spaniards.
It was indeed high time that some exertion should be made. The
northern provinces had fallen into the power of Holland; the
southern, peopled in a great measure by the hardy descendants of
the successive colonists who had issued on all sides from the
central establishment of Sao Paulo, had learned from their habits
of unaided and successful enterprise to court independence. They
had ascended the waters of the Paraguay to their sources.
who, first searching whether their new country were rich in
metals, soon began adventurous raids into the interior, making
excursions also against the remote Indian tribes with a view to
obtaining slaves, and from the year 1629 onwards repeatedly
attacked the Indian reductions of the Jesuits in Paraguay, although
both provinces were then nominally subject to the crown of Spain.
Other bands penetrated into Minas and still farther north and
westward, discovering mines there and in Goyaz and Cuyaba. New
colonies were thus formed round those districts in which gold had
been found, and in the beginning of the 18th century five principal
settlements in Minas Geraes had been elevated by royal charter to
the privileges of towns. In 1720 this district was separated from
Sao Paulo, to which it had previously been dependent. As early as
1618 a code of laws for the regulation of the mining industry had
been drawn up by
Philip
III., the executive and judicial functions in the mining
districts being vested in a
provedor, and the fiscal in a
treasurer, who received the royal fifths and superintended the
weighing of all the gold, rendering a yearly account of all
discoveries and produce. For many years, however, these laws were
little more than a dead letter. The same infatuated passion for
mining speculation which had characterized the Spanish settlers in
South America now began to actuate the Portuguese; labourers and
capital were drained off to the mining districts, and Brazil, which
had hitherto in great measure supplied Europe with sugar, sank
before the competition of the English and French. A new source of
wealth was now opened up; some adventurers from Villa do Principe
in Minas, going north to the Seria Frio, made the discovery of
diamonds about the year 1710, but it was not till 1730 that the
discovery was for the first time announced to the government, which
immediately declared them
regalia. While the population of Brazil
continued to increase, the moral and intellectual culture of its
inhabitants was left in great measure to
chance; they grew up with those robust and
healthy sentiments which are engendered by the absence of false
teachers, but with a repugnance to legal ordinances, and encouraged
in their ascendancy over the Indians to habits of violence and
oppression. The Jesuits from the first moment of their landing in
Brazil had constituted themselves the protectors of the natives,
and though strenuously opposed by the colonists and ordinary
clergy, had gathered the Indians together in many
aldeas,
over which officials of their order exercised spiritual and
temporal authority. A more efficacious stop, however, was put to
the persecution of the Indians by the importation of large numbers
of negroes from the Portuguese possessions in Africa, these being
found more active and serviceable than the native tribes.
The Portuguese government, under the administration of Carvalho,
afterwards marquis of Pombal, attempted to extend to Brazil the
bold spirit of innovation which directed all his efforts. The proud
minister had been resisted
p in his plans of
reform at home by the Jesuits, and, determining to attack the power
of the order, first deprived them of all temporal power in the
state of Maranhao and Para. These ordinances soon spread to the
whole of Brazil, and a pretext being found in the suspicion of
Jesuit influence in some partial revolts of the Indian troops on
the Rio Negro, the order was expelled from Brazil under
circumstances of great severity in 1760. The Brazilian Company
founded by Vieyra, which so materially contributed to preserve its
South American possessions to Portugal, had been abolished in 1721
by
John V.; but such an
instrument being well suited to the bold spirit of Pombal, he
established a chartered company again in 1755, to trade exclusively
with Maranhao and Para; and in 1759, in spite of the remonstrance
of the British Factory at Lisbon, formed another company for
Parahyba and Pernambuco. Pornbal's arrangements extended also to
the interior of the country, where he extinguished at once the now
indefinite and oppressive claims of the original donatories of the
captaincies, and strengthened and enforced the regulations of the
mining districts. The policy of many of Pombal's measures is more
than questionable; but his admission of all races to equal rights
in the eye of the law, his abolition of feudal privileges, and the
firmer organization of the powers of the land which he introduced,
powerfully co-operated towards the development of the capabilities
of Brazil. Yet on the death of his king and patron in 1777, when
court intrigue forced him from his high station, he who had done so
much for his country's institutions was reviled on all hands.
The most important feature in the history of Brazil during the
first thirty years following the retirement of Pombal was the
conspiracy of Minas in
1789. The successful issue of the recent revolution of the English
colonies in North America had filled the minds of some of the more
educated youth of that province; and in imitation, a project to
throw off the Portuguese yoke was formed, - a cavalry officer,
Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tiradentes (tooth-drawer), being the chief
conspirator. But the plot being discovered during their inactivity,
the conspirators were banished to Africa, and Tira-dentes, the
leader, was hanged. Thenceforward affairs went on prosperously; the
mining districts continued to be enlarged; the trading companies of
the littoral provinces were abolished, but the impulse they had
given to agriculture remained.
Removed from all communication with the rest of the world except
through the mother country, Brazil remained unaffected by the first
years of the great revolu 4 tionary war in Europe. Indirectly,
however, the fate of this isolated country was decided by the
consequences of
the French Revolution. Brazil is the
only instance of a colony becoming the seat of the government of
its own mother country, and this was the work of
Napoleon. When he resolved
upon the invasion and conquest of Portugal, the prince regent,
afterwards Dom John VI., having no means of resistance, decided to
take refuge in Brazil. He created a regency in Lisbon, and departed
for Brazil on the 29th of November 1807, accompanied by the queen
Donna Maria I., the royal family, all the
great officers of state, a
large part of the
nobility
and numerous retainers. They arrived at Bahia on the 21st of
January 1808, and were received with enthusiasm. The regent was
requested to establish there the seat of his government, but a more
secure
asylum presented itself
in Rio de Janeiro, where the royal fugitives arrived on the 7th of
March. Before leaving Bahia, Dom John took the first step to
emancipate Brazil, opening its ports to foreign commerce, and
permitting the export of all Brazilian produce under any flag, the
royal monopolies of diamonds and Brazil-wood excepted. Once
established in Rio de Janeiro, the government of the regent was
directed to the creation of an administrative machinery for the
dominions that remained to him as it existed in Portugal. Besides
the ministry which had come with the regent,
Reorgan- the council of state, and the departments
of the four
ization on ministries of home,
finances, war and marine then
Portu- existing, there were
created in the course of one year a supreme court of justice, a
board of patronage and administration of the property of the church
and military orders, an inferior court of appeal, the court of
exchequer and royal
treasury, the royal
mint, bank of
Brazil, royal printing-office,
powder-mills on a large scale, and a supreme
military court. The maintenance of the court, and the salaries of
so large a number of high officials, entailed the imposition of new
taxes to meet these expenses. Notwithstanding this the expenses
continued to augment, and the government had recourse to the
reprehensible measure of altering the money standard, and the whole
monetary system was soon thrown into the greatest confusion. The
bank, in addition to its private functions, farmed many of the
regalia, and was in the practice of advancing large sums
to the state, transactions which gave rise to extensive corruption,
and terminated some years later in the breaking of the bank.
Thus the government of the prince regent began its career in the
new world with dangerous errors in the financial system; yet the
increased activity which a multitude of new customers and the
increase of circulating medium gave to the trade of Rio, added a
new stimulus to the industry of the whole nation.
Iv. 15 a guese royal family in Brazil, 1807. Numbers of
English artisans and shipbuilders, Swedish ironfounders, German
engineers and French manufacturers sought fortunes in the new
country, and diffused industry by their example.
In the beginning of 1809, in
retaliation for the occupation of Portugal,
an expedition was sent from Para to the French colony of Guiana,
and after some fighting this part of Guiana was incorporated with
Brazil. This conquest was, however, of short duration; for, by the
treaty of
Vienna in 1815, the
colony was restored to France. Its occupation contributed to the
improvement of agriculture in Brazil; it had been the policy of
Portugal up to this time to separate the productions of its
colonies, to reserve sugar for Brazil, and spices to the East
Indies, and to prohibit the cultivation of these in the African
possessions. Now, however, many plants were imported not only from
Guiana but from India and Africa, cultivated in the Royal Botanic
Garden, and thence distributed. The same principle which dictated
the conquest of French Guiana originated attempts to seize the
Spanish colonies of Montevideo and
Buenos Aires, Portugal being also at war
with Spain. The chiefs of these colonies were invited to place them
under the protection of the Portuguese crown, but these at first
affecting
loyalty to Spain
declined the offer, then threw off the mask and declared themselves
independent, and the Spanish governor, Elio, was afterwards
defeated by Artigas, the leader of the
independents.
The inroads made on the frontiers of Rio Grande and Sao Paulo
decided the court of Rio to take possession of Montevideo;
Brazil de- a force of 5000 troops was sent thither from
Portugal, together with a Brazilian corps; and the irregulars
integral of Artigas, unable to withstand disciplined troops, were
forced, after a total defeat, to take refuge beyond the river
Uruguay. The Portuguese took. g y g possession of the city of
Montevideo in January 1817, and the territory of
Misiones was afterwards
occupied. The importance which Brazil was acquiring decided the
regent to give it the title of kingdom, and by
decree of the 16th January 1815, the Portuguese
sovereignty
thenceforward took the title of the
United Kingdom
of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves. Thus the old colonial
government disappeared even in name. In March 1816 the queen Donna
Maria I. died, and the prince regent became king under the title of
Dom John VI.
Although Brazil had now become in fact the head of its own
mother country, the government was not in the hands of Brazilians,
but of the Portuguese, who had followed the court. The discontent
arising among Brazilians from this cause was heightened by a decree
assigning a heavy tax on the chief Brazilian custom houses, to be
in operation for forty years, for the benefit of the Portuguese
noblemen who had suffered during the war with France. The amiable
character of the king preserved his own popularity, but the
government was ignorant and profligate, justice was ill
administered,
negligence and disorder reigned in all its
departments. Nor was the discontent less in Portugal on account of
its anomalous position. These causes and the
fermentation of
liberal principles produced by the French Revolution originated a
conspiracy in Lisbon in 1817, which was, however, discovered in
time to prevent its success. A similar plot and rebellion took
place in the province of Pernambuco, where the inhabitants of the
important commercial city of Recife (Pernambuco) were jealous of
Rio and the sacrifices they were compelled to make for the support
of the luxurious court there. Another conspiracy to establish a
republican government was promptly smothered in Bahia, and the
outbreak in Pernambuco was put down after a republic had been
formed there for ninety days. Still the progress of the republican
spirit in Brazil caused Dom Joao to send to Portugal for bodies of
picked troops, which were stationed throughout the provincial
capitals. In Portugal the popular discontent produced the
revolution of 1820, when representative government was proclaimed -
the Spanish constitution of 1812 being provisionally adopted. In
Rio, the Portuguese troops with which the king had surrounded
himself as the defence against the liberal spirit of the
Brazilians, took up arms on the 26th of February 1821, to force him
to accept the system proclaimed in Portugal. The prince Dom Pedro,
heir to the crown, who now for the first time took part in public
affairs, actively exerted himself as a negotiator between the king
and the troops, who were joined by bodies of the people. After
attempting a compromise the king finally submitted, took the oath
and named a new ministry. The idea of free government filled the
people with enthusiasm, and the principles of a representative
legislature were freely adopted, the first care being for the
election of deputies to the
Cortes of Lisbon to take part in framing the new
constitution. As the king could not abandon Portugal to itself he
determined at first to send the prince thither as regent, but Dom
Pedro had acquired such popularity by his conduct in the
revolution, and had exhibited such a thirst for
glory, that the king feared to
trust his adventurous spirit in Europe, and
decided to go himself. The Brazilian deputies on arriving in Lisbon
expressed dissatisfaction with the Cortes for having begun the
framing of the constitution before their arrival, for Brazil could
not be treated as a secondary part of the monarchy. Sharp
discussions and angry words passed between the Brazilian and
Portuguese deputies, the news of which excited great discontent in
Brazil. An insulting decree was passed in the Cortes, ordering the
prince Dom Pedro to come to Europe, which filled the Brazilians
with alarm; they foresaw that without a central authority the
country would fall back to its former colonial state subject to
Portugal. The provisional government of Sao Paulo, influenced by
the brothers Andrada, began a movement for independence by asking
the prince to disobey the Cortes and remain in Brazil, and the
council of Rio de Janeiro followed with a similar representation,
to which the prince assented. The Portuguese troops of the capital
at first assumed a coercive attitude, but were forced to give way
before the ardour and military preparations of the Brazilians, and
submitted to embark for Portugal. These scenes were repeated in
Pernambuco, where the Portuguese, after various conflicts, were
obliged to leave the country; in Bahia, however, as well as in
Maranhao and Para, the Portuguese prevailed. In
independ- Rio the agitation for independence
continued. The
of two brothers Andrada were called
to the ministry
razil' y 1822. and the municipal
council conferred upon the prince regent the title of Perpetual
Defender of Brazil. With great activity he
set off to the
central provinces of Minas
and Sao Paulo to suppress disaffected movements and direct the
revolution. In Sao Paulo, on the 7th of September 1822, he
proclaimed the independence of Brazil. On his return to Rio de
Janeiro on the 12th of October he was proclaimed constitutional
emperor with great enthusiasm.
The Cortes at Lisbon chose Bahia as a centre for resisting the
independence, and large forces were sent thither. But the city was
vigorously besieged by the Brazilians by land, and finally the
Portuguese were obliged to re-embark on the 2nd of July 1823. A
Brazilian squadron, under command of Lord Cochrane, attacked the
Portuguese vessels, embarrassed with troops, and took several of
them.
Taylor, another
Englishman in Brazilian service, followed the vessels across the
Atlantic, and even captured some of the ships in sight of the land
of Portugal. The troops in Montevideo also embarked for Portugal,
and the
Banda Oriental remained
a part of Brazil with the title of the
Provincia
Cisplatina. Before the end of 1823 the authority of the new
emperor and the independence of Brazil were undisputed throughout
the whole country.
Republican movements now began to spread, to suppress which the
authorities made use of the Portuguese remaining in the country;
and the disposition of the emperor to consider these as his firmest
supporters much influenced the course of his government and his
future destiny. The two Andradas, who imagined they could govern
the young emperor as a sovereign of their own creation, encountered
great opposition in the constitutional assembly, which had been
opened in Rio in May 1823, to discuss the project of a new
constitution. In July the emperor resolved to dismiss them and form
a new ministry, but against this the brothers raised a violent
opposition. In November the emperor put an end to the angry debates
which ensued in the assembly by dissolving it, exiling the Andradas
to France, and convoking a new assembly to deliberate on a proposed
constitution more liberal than the former project. The
proclamation of a
republic in the provinces of Pernambuco and Ceara, with the
rebellion of the Cisplatina province, favoured by Buenos Aires and
its ultimate loss to Brazil, were the result of the
coup
d'Nat of November 1823. The Brazilians were universally
discontented - on one side fearing
absolutism if they supported the emperor, on
the other anarchy if he fell. Knowing the danger of an undefined
position, the emperor caused the councils to dispense with their
deliberations, and adopt, as the constitution of the empire, the
project framed by the council of state. Accordingly, on the 25th of
March 1824, the emperor swore to the constitution with great
solemnity and public rejoicings. By this stroke of policy he saved
himself and Brazil. Negotiations were opened in London between the
Brazilian and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, treating for the
recognition of the independence of Brazil; and on the 25th of
August 1825 a treaty was signed by which the Portuguese king, Dom
John VI., assumed the title of emperor of Brazil, and immediately
abdicated in favour of his son, acknowledging Brazil as an
independent empire, but the treaty obliged Brazil to take upon
herself the Portuguese debt, amounting to nearly two millions
sterling.
The rebellion of the Banda Oriental was followed by a
declaration of war with Buenos Aires which had supported it, and
operations by sea and land were conducted against that republic in
a feeble way. Meanwhile the well-deserved popularity of the emperor
began to decline. He had given himself up to the influence of the
Portuguese; the most popular men who had worked for the
independence were banished; and a continual change of ministry
showed a disposition on the part of the sovereign to prosecute
obstinately measures of which his advisers disapproved. His
popularity was regained, however, to some extent, when, on the
death of his father, he was unanimously acknowledged king of
Portugal, and especially when he abdicated that crown in favour of
his daughter, Donna Maria; but his line of policy was not altered,
and
commercial treaties entered into
with European states conceding them favours, which were popularly
considered to be injurious to Brazilian trade, met with bitter
censure.
During the year 1827 the public debt was consolidated, and a
department was created for the application of a sinking fund.
The year 1828 was a calamitous one for Brazil. It began with the
defeat of the Brazilian army by the Argentine forces, and this
entirely through the incapacity of the commander-in-chief; and
misunderstandings, afterwards compensated by humbling
money-payments on the part of Brazil, arose with the United States,
France and England on account of merchant vessels captured by the
Brazilian squadron blockading Buenos Aires. Financial
embarrassments increased to an alarming extent; the emperor was
compelled by the British government to make peace with Buenos Aires
and to renounce the Banda Oriental; and to fill the sum of
disasters Dom Miguel had treacherously usurped the crown of
Portugal. It was under these unlucky auspices that the elections of
new deputies took place in 1829. As was expected the result was the
election everywhere of ultraliberals opposed to the emperor, and in
the succeeding year people everywhere exhibited their disaffection.
During the session of 1830 the chambers adopted a criminal code in
which punishment by death for political offences was abolished. It
was openly suggested in the journals to reform the constitution by
turning Brazil into independent federal provinces, governed by
authorities popularly elected, as in the United States. Alarmed at
length at the ground gained by this idea in the provinces, the
emperor set off to Minas to stir up the former enthusiasm in his
favour from recollections of the independence, but was coldly
received. On his return to Rio in March 1831 scenes of disorder
occurred, and great agitation among the
Liberal party. Imagining himself sure of
a brilliant destiny in Europe if he lost his Brazilian crown, the
emperor attempted to risk a decisive attack against the Liberals,
and to form a new ministry composed of men favourable to
absolutism.
This'step caused excited public meetings in the capital,
o which were joined in by the troops, and deputations
i., x831. went to ask the emperor to dismiss the unpopular
ministry. He replied by dissolving the ministry without naming
another, and by abdicating the crown in favour of the heir
apparent, then only five years of age. Dom Pedro immediately
embarked in an English ship, leaving the new emperor Dom Pedro II.
and the princesses Januaria, Francisca and Paula. The subsequent
career of this unfortunate prince belongs to the history of
Portugal.
A provisional and afterwards a permanent regency, composed of
three members, was now formed in Brazil, but scenes of disorder
succeeded, and discussions and struggles between the
republican
party and the government, and a reactionary third party in
favour of the restoration of Dom Pedro, occupied the succeeding
years. In 1834 a reform which was well received consisted in the
alteration of the regency, from that of three members elected by
the legislative chambers, to one regent chosen by the whole of the
electors in the same manner as the deputies; and the councils of
the provinces were replaced by legislative provincial assemblies.
Virtually, this was a republican government like that of the United
States, for no difference existed in the mode of election of the
regent from that of a president. The ex-minister Feijoo was chosen
for this office. With the exception of Para, and Rio Grande the
provinces were at peace, but these were in open rebellion; the
former was reduced to obedience, but in the latter, though the
imperial troops occupied the town, the country was ravaged by its
warlike inhabitants. The regent was now accused of conniving at
this rebellion, and the opposition of the chamber of deputies
became so violent as to necessitate his resignation. Araujo
Lima, minister of the home
department, who strove to give his: government the character of a
monarchical reaction against the principles of
democracy, was chosen by a large majority in
his stead. The experiment of republican government had proved so
discreditable, and had so wearied the country of cabals, that men
hitherto known for their sympathy with democratic principles became
more monarchical than the regent himself; and under this influence
a movement to give the regency into the hands of the princess Donna
Januaria, now in her 18th year, was set on foot. It was soon
perceived, however, that if the empire could be governed by a
princess of eighteen it could be managed better by the emperor
himself, who was then fourteen.
A bill was accordingly presented to the legislature dispensing
with the age of the emperor and declaring his majority, which after
a noisy discussion was carried. The majority of the emperor Dom
Pedro II. was proclaimed on the 23rd of July 1840. Several
ministries, in which various parties predominated for a time, now
governed the country till 1848, during which period the rebellious
province of Rio Grande was pacified, more by negotiation than force
of arms. In 1848 hostilities were roused with the British
government through the neglect shown by the Brazilians in putting
in force a treaty for the abolition of the slave trade, which had
been concluded as far back as 1826; on the other hand the governor
of Buenos Aires, General Rosas, was endeavouring to stir up
revolution again in Rio Grande. The appearance of
yellow fever in 1849,
until then unknown in Brazil, was attributed to the importation of
slaves. Public opinion declared against the traffic; severe laws
were passed against it, and were so firmly enforced that in 1853
not a single disembarkation took place. The ministry of the
Visconde de Olinda in 1849 entered into alliances with the
governors of Montevideo, Paraguay and the states of
Entre Rios and
Corrientes, for the
purpose of maintaining the integrity of the republics of Uruguay
and Paraguay, which Rosas intended to reunite to Buenos Aires, and
the troops of Rosas which besieged Montevideo were forced to
capitulate. Rosas then declared war formally against Brazil. An
army of Correntine, Uruguayan and Brazilian troops, under General
Urquiza, assisted by a Brazilian naval squadron, advanced on Buenos
Aires, completely routed the forces of Rosas, and crushed for ever
the power of that
dictator. From 1844 Brazil was free from
intestine commotions, and
had resumed its activity. Public works and education were advanced,
and the finances rose to a degree of prosperity previously unknown.
In 1855 the emperor of Brazil sent a squadron of eleven men-of-war
and as many transports up the Parana to adjust several questions
pending between the empire and was that of the right of way by the
Paraguay river to the interior Brazilian province of Matto Grosso.
This right had been in dispute for several years. The expedition
was not permitted to ascend the river Paraguay, and returned
completely foiled in its main purpose. Though the discord resulting
between the states on account of this failure was subsequently
allayed for a time by a treaty granting to Brazil the right to
navigate the river, every obstacle was thrown in the way by the
Paraguayan government, and indignities of all kinds were offered
not only to Brazil but to the representatives of the Argentine and
the United States. In 1864 the ambitious dictator of Paraguay,
Francisco Solano Lopez, without previous declaration of war,
captured a Brazilian vessel in the Paraguay, and rapidly followed
up this
outrage by an armed
invasion of the provinces of Matto Grosso and Rio Grande in Brazil,
and that of Corrientes in the Argentine Republic. A triple alliance
of the invaded states with Uruguay ensued, and the tide of war was
soon turned from being an offensive one on the part of Paraguay to
a defensive struggle within that republic against the superior
number of the allies. So strong was the natural position of
Paraguay, however, and so complete the subjection of its
inhabitants to the will of the dictator, that it was not until the
year 1870, after the republic had been completely drained of its
manhood and resources, that the long war was terminated by the
capture and death of Lopez with his last handful of men by the
pursuing Brazilians. From its duration and frequent battles and
sieges this war involved an immense sacrifice of life to Brazil,
the army in the field having been constantly maintained at between
20,000 and 30,000 men, and the expenditure in maintaining it was
very great, having been calculated at upwards of fifty millions
sterling. Large deficits in the financial budgets of the state
resulted, involving increased
taxation and the contracting of loans from
foreign countries.
Notwithstanding this the sources of public wealth in Brazil were
unaffected, and commerce continued steadily to increase. A grand
social reform was effected in the law passed in September 1871,
which enacted that from that date every child born of slave parents
should be free, and also declared all the slaves belonging to the
state or to the imperial household free from that time. The same
law provided an emancipation fund, to be annually applied to the
ransom of a certain number of
slaves owned by private individuals.
Under the long reign of Dom Pedro II. progress and material
prosperity made steady
advancement in Brazil. Occasional political
outbreaks occurred, but none of very serious nature except in Rio
Grande do Sul, where a long
guerrilla warfare was carried on against the
imperial authority. The emperor occupied himself to a far greater
extent with the economic development of his people and country than
with active political life. Unostentatious in his habits, Dom Pedro
always had at
heart the true
interests of the Brazilians. Himself a highly-educated man, he
sincerely desired to further the cause of education, and devoted a
large portion of his time to the study of this question. His
extreme liberalism prevented his opposing the spread of Socialist
doctrines preached far and wide by
Benjamin Constant. Begun about 1880,
this propaganda took deep root in the educated classes, creating a
desire for change and culminating in the military conspiracy of
November 1889, by which monarchy was replaced by a republican form
of government.
At first the revolutionary propaganda produced no personal
animosity against the emperor, who continued to be treated by his
people with every
mark of respect
and
affection, but this
state of things gradually changed. In 1864 the princess Isabella,
the eldest daughter of the emperor and empress, had married the
Comte d'Eu, a member of the
Orleans family. The marriage was never popular
in the country, owing partly to the fact that the Comte d'Eu was a
reserved man who made few intimate friends and never attempted to
become a favourite. Princess Isabella was charitable in many ways,
always ready to take her full share of the duties falling upon her
as the future empress, and thoroughly realizing the
responsibilities of her position; but she was greatly influenced by
the clerical party and the priesthood, and she thereby incurred the
hostility of the Progressives. When Dom Pedro left Brazil for the
purpose of making a tour through Europe and the United States he
appointed Princess Isabella to act as regent, and she showed
herself so swayed in political questions by Church influence that
Liberal feeling became more and more anti-dynastic. Another
incident which gave strength to the opposition was the sudden
abolition of slavery without any
compensation to slave-owners. The
planters, the principal possessors of wealth, regarded the measure
as unnecessary in view of the act which had been passed in 1885
providing for the gradual freeing of all slaves. The arguments used
were, however, of no avail with the regent, and the decree was
promulgated on the r3th of May 1888. No active opposition was
offered to this measure, but the feelings of unrest and discontent
spread rapidly.
Towards the close of 1888 the emperor returned and was received
by the populace with every demonstration of affection and esteem.
Even among the advocates of republi canism there was no intention
of dethroning Dom of Pedro, excepting a few
extreme members of the party, who now gained the upper hand. They
argued that it would be much more difficult to carry out a success
ful coup d'etat when the good-natured, confiding emperor
had been succeeded by his more suspicious and energetic daughter.
Discontented officers in the army and navy rallied to this idea,
and a conspiracy was organized to depose the emperor and declare a
republic. On the 14th of November 1889 the palace was quietly
surrounded, and on the following morning the emperor and his family
were placed on board ship and sent off to Portugal. A provisional
government was then formed and a proclamation issued to the effect
that the country would henceforth be known as the United States of
Brazil, and that in due time a republican constitution would be
framed. The only voice raised in protest was that of the minister
of war, and he was shot at and severely wounded as a consequence.
Dom Pedro, completely broken down by the ingratitude of the people
whom he had loved so much and laboured for so strenuously, made no
attempt at resistance. The republican government offered to
compensate him for the property he had held in Brazil as emperor,
but this proposal was declined. His private possessions were
respected, and were afterwards still held by Princess Isabella.
The citizen named as president of the provisional government was
General
Deodoro da Fonseca, who owed
his advancement to the personal friendship and assistance of Dom
Pedro. Second in authority was placed General Floriano Peixoto, an
officer also under heavy obligations to the deposed monarch, as
indeed were nearly all of those who took active part in the
conspiracy.
Though the overthrow of the imperial dynasty was totally
unexpected throughout, the new regime was accepted without any
disturbances. Under the leadership of General Deodoro da Fonseca a
praetorian system of government, in which the military element was
all-powerful, came into existence, and continued till February
1891, when a national congress assembled and formulated the
constitution for the United States of Brazil. The former provinces
were converted into states, the only right of the
federal
government to interfere in their administration being for the
purposes of national defence, the maintenance of public order or
the enforcement of the federal laws. The constitution of the United
States of America was taken as a model for drawing up that of
Brazil, the republic of Paraguay,the most important of which P P
and the general terms were as far as possible adhered to (see
above, section
Government). General da Fonseca and General
Floriano Peixoto were elected to fill the offices of president and
vice-president until the 15th of November 1894. This implied the
continuance of praetorian methods of administration. The older
class of more conservative Brazilians, who had formerly taken part
in the administration under the emperor, withdrew altogether from
public life. Many left Brazil and went into voluntary exile, while
others retired to their estates. In the absence of these more
respectable elements, the government fell into the hands of a gang
of military adventurers and unscrupulous politicians, whose only
object was to exploit the national resources for their own benefit.
As a consequence, deep-rooted discontent rapidly arose. A
conspiracy, of which Admiral Wandenkolk was the prime instigator,
was discovered, and those who had taken part in it were banished to
the distant state of Amazonas. Disturbances then broke out in Rio
Grande do Sul, in consequence of disputes between the official
party and the people living in the country districts. Under the
leadership of Gumercindo Saraiva the country people broke into open
revolt in September 1891. This outbreak was partially suppressed,
but afterwards it again burst into
flame with great vigour. In view of the
discontent, conspiracies and revolutionary movements, President da
Fonseca declared himself dictator. This act, however, met with such
strong opposition that he resigned office on the 23rd of November
1891, and Vice-President Floriano Peixoto assumed the
presidency.
Floriano Peixoto had been accustomed all his life to use harsh
measures. For the first year of his term of office he kept
seditious attempts in check, but discontent grew apace. Nor was
this surprising to those who knew the corruption in the
administration. Concessions and subsidies were given broadcast for
worthless undertakings in order to benefit the friends of the
president. Brazilian credit gave way under the
strain, and evidences were not wanting at the
beginning of 1893 that an outburst of public opinion was not far
distant. Nevertheless President Peixoto made no effort to reform
the methods of administration. Meanwhile, the revolution in Rio
Grande do Sul had revived; and in July 1893 the federal government
was forced to send most of the available regular troops to that
state to hold the insurgents in check.
On the 6th of September prevailing discontent took definite
.shape in the form of a naval revolt in the Bay of Rio de
Janeiro.
Admiral Custodio de Mello took command of the naval forces, and
demanded the resignation of the president.
civil General
Peixoto replied by organizing a defence
1893. against any
attack from the squadron. Admiral Mello, finding that his demands
were not complied with, began a
bombardment of the city, but did not effect
his purpose of compelling Peixoto to resign. The foreign ministers
then arranged a compromise between the contending parties,
according to which President Peixoto was to place no artillery in
the city, while Admiral Mello was to refrain from bombarding the
town, which was thus saved from destruction. .Shortly afterwards
the cruiser " Republica " and a transport ran the
gauntlet of the government
forts at the entrance of the bay, and proceeded south to the
province of Santa Catharina, taking possession of Desterro, its
capital. A provisional government was proclaimed by the insurgents,
with headquarters at Desterro, and communication was opened with
Gumercindo Saraiva, the leader of the insurrection in Rio Grande do
Sul. It was proposed that the army of some io,000 men under his
command should advance northwards towards Rio de Janeiro, while the
insurgent squadron threatened the city of Rio. In November Admiral
Mello left Rio de Janeiro in the armoured cruiser " Aquidaban " and
went to Desterro, the naval forces in Rio Bay being left in charge
of Admiral Saldanha da Gama, an ardent monarchist, who had thrown
in his lot with the insurgent cause. All was, apparently, going
well with the revolt, Saraiva having invaded the states of Santa
Catharina and Parana, and defeated the government troops in several
encounters. Mean while, President Peixoto had fortified the
approaches to the city of Rio de Janeiro, bought vessels of war in
Europe and the United States and organized the National Guard.
Early in 1894 dissensions occurred between Saraiva and Mello,
which prevented any advance of the insurgent forces, and allowed
Peixoto to perfect his plans. Admiral da Gama, unable to leave the
Bay of Rio de Janeiro on account of lack of transport for the sick
and wounded and the civilians claiming his protection, could do no
more than wait for Admiral Mello to return from Desterro. In the
meantime the ships bought by President Peixoto arrived off Rio de
Janeiro and prevented da Gama from escaping. On the 15th of March
1894 the rebel forces evacuated their positions on the islands of
Villegaignon, Cobras and Enxadas, abandoned their vessels, and were
received on board two Portuguese warships then in the harbour,
whence they were conveyed to Montevideo. The action of the
Portuguese commander was prompted by a desire to save life, for had
the rebels fallen into the hands of Peixoto, they would assuredly
have been executed.
When the news of the surrender of Saldanha da Gama reached
Gumercindo Saraiva, then at Curitiba in Parana, he proceeded to
retire to Rio Grande do Sul. Government troops were despatched to
intercept his retreat, and in one of the skirmishes which followed
Saraiva was killed. The rebel army then dispersed. Admiral Mello
made an unsuccessful attack on the town of Rio Grande, and then
sailed to Buenos Aires, there surrendering the rebel squadron to
the Argentine authorities, by whom it was immediately delivered to
the Brazilian government. After six months of civil war peace was
once more established, but there still remained some small rebel
groups in Rio Grande do Sul. These were joined by Admiral da Gama
and a number of the naval officers, who had escaped from Rio de
Janeiro; but in June 1895 the admiral was killed in a fight with
the government troops. After the cessation of hostilities, the
greatest barbarities were practised upon those who, although they
had taken no part in the insurrection, were known to have desired
the overthrow of President Peixoto. The baron Cerro Azul was shot
down without trial; Marshal de Gama Eza, an old imperial soldier of
eighty years of age, was murdered in cold blood, and numerous
executions of men of lesser note took place, among these being two
Frenchmen for whose death the Brazilian government was subsequently
called upon to pay heavy compensation.
General Peixoto was succeeded as president on the 15th of
November 1894 by Dr Prudente de Moraes Barros. It was a
moot question whether Peixoto, after
the revolt was crushed, would not declare himself dictator;
certainly many of his friends were anxious that he should follow
this course, but he was broken down by the strain which had been
imposed upon him and was glad to surrender his duties. He did not
recover his health and died shortly afterwards.
From the first day that he assumed office, President Moraes
showed that he intended to suppress praetorian systems and reduce
militarism to a minimum. This policy received the approval and
sympathy of the majority of Brazilians, but naturally met with
bitter opposition from the military element. The president
gradually drew to him some members of the better conservative class
to assist in his administration, and felt confident that he had the
support of public opinion. Early in 1895 murmurings and disorderly
conduct against the authorities began to take place in the military
school at Rio de Janeiro, which had always been a hotbed of
intrigue. Some of the officers and students were promptly expelled,
and the president closed the school for several months. This
salutary
lesson had due
effect, and no more discontent was fomented from that quarter. Two
great difficulties stood in the way of steering the country to
prosperity. The first was the chaotic confusion of the finances
resulting from the maladministration of the national resources
since the deposition of Dom Pedro II., and the corruption that had
crept into every branch of the public service. Much was done by
President Moraes to correct abuses, but the task was of too
herculean a nature to allow of accomplishment within the four years
during which he was at the head of affairs. The second difficulty
was the war waged by religious fanatics under the leadership of
Antonio Maciel, known as " Conselheiro," against the constituted
authorities of Brazil.
The story of Conselheiro is a remarkable one. A native of
Pernambuco, when a young man he married against the wishes of his
mother, who took a violent dislike to the
bride. Shortly after the marriage the mother
assured her son that his wife held clandestine meetings with a
lover, and stated that if he would go to a certain spot not far
from the house that evening he would himself see that her assertion
was true. The mother invented some plea to send the wife to the
trysting-place, and then, dressing herself in male clothing,
prepared to come suddenly on the scene as the lover, trusting to be
able to make her escape before she was recognized. The three met
almost simultaneously. Conselheiro, deeming his worst suspicions
confirmed, shot and killed his wife and his mother before
explanations could be offered. He was tried and allowed to go at
liberty after some detention in prison. From that time Conselheiro
was a victim of remorse, and to expiate his
sin became a missionary in the
sertao or
interior of Brazil among the wild Jagunco people. He built places
of worship in many different districts, and at length became the
recognized chief of the people among whom he had thus strangely
cast his lot. Eventually he formed a settlement near Canudos,
situated about 400 m. inland from Bahia. Difficulty arose between
the governor of Bahia and this fanatical missionary, with the
result that Conselheiro was ordered to leave the settlement and
take away his people. This order was met with a sturdy refusal to
move. Early in 1897 a police force was sent:to eject the settlers,
but encountered strong resistance, and suffered heavy loss without
being able to effect the purpose intended. In March 1897 a body of
1500 troops, with four guns, was despatched to bring the Jaguncoes
to reason, but was totally defeated. An army comprising some 5000
officers and men was then sent to crush Conselheiro and his people
at all costs. Little progress was made, the country being difficult
of access and the Jaguncoes laying ambuscades at every available
place. Finally strong reinforcements were sent forward, the
minister of war himself proceeding to take command of the army, now
numbering nearly 13,000 men. Canudos was besieged and captured in
September 1897, Conselheiro being killed in the final
assault. The expense of these
expeditions was very heavy, and prevented President Moraes from
carrying out many of the retrenchments he had planned.
Soon after the Canudos affair a conspiracy was hatched to
assassinate the president. He was watching the disembarkation of
some troops when a shot was fired which narrowly missed him, and
killed General Bitencourt, the minister of war. The actual
perpetrator of the
deed, a
soldier, was tried and executed, but he was apparently ignorant of
the persons who procured his services. Three other men implicated
in the conspiracy were subsequently sentenced to imprisonment for a
term of thirty years. The remainder of the presidency of Dr Moraes
was uneventful; and on the 15th of November 1898 he was succeeded
by Dr Campos Salles, who had previously been governor of the state
of Sao Paulo. President Salles publicly promised political reform,
economy in the administration, and absolute respect for civil
rights, and speedily made efforts to fulfil these pledges.
The difficulties in the reorganization of the finances of the
state, which Dr Campos Salles had to face on his accession to
Reforms power, were very great. The heavy cost involved in
the suppression of internal disorders, maladministration,and the
hindrances placed in the way of economical development by the
semi-independence of the federal
Salles. states
had seriously depreciated the national credit. The president-elect
accordingly undertook with the full approval of Dr Moraes, who was
still in office, the task of visiting Europe with the object of
endeavouring to make an arrangement with the creditors of the state
for a temporary suspension of payments. He was successful in his
object, and an agreement was made by which bonds should be issued
instead of interest payments from the 1st of July 1898, the promise
being given that every [[[History]] effort should be made for the
resumption of cash payments in 1901. President Campos Salles
entered upon his
tenure of
office on the 15th of November 1898, and at once proceeded to
initiate fiscal legislation for the purpose of reducing expenditure
and increasing the revenue. He had to face opposition from
sectional interests and from the
jealousy of interference with their rights on
the part of provincial administrations, but he was able to achieve
a considerable measure of success and to lay the foundation of a
sounder system under which the financial position of the republic
has made steady progress. The chief feature of the administration
of Dr Campos Salles was the statesmanlike ability with which
various disputes with foreign powers on boundary questions were
seriously taken in hand and brought to a satisfactory and pacific
settlement. There had for a long period been difficulties with
France with regard to the territory which lay between the mouth of
the Amazon and
Cayenne or
French Guiana. The language of various treatises was doubtful and
ambiguous, largely owing to the ignorance of the diplomatists who
drew up the articles of the exact geography of the territory in
question. Napoleon had forced the Portuguese government to cede to
him the northernmost arm of the mouth of the Amazon as the southern
boundary of French Guiana with a large slice of the unexplored
interior westwards. A few years later the Portuguese had in their
turn conquered French Guiana, but had been compelled to restore it
at the peace of
Paris. The old
ambiguity attaching to
the interpretation of earlier treaties, however, remained, and in
April 1899 the question by an agreement between the two states was
referred to the arbitration of the president of the Swiss
confederation.. The
decision was given in December 1900 and was entirely in favour of
the Brazilian contention. A still more interesting boundary dispute
was that between Great Britain and Brazil, as to the southern
frontier line of British Guiana. The dispute was of very old
standing, and the settlement by arbitration in 1899 of the acute
misunderstanding between Great Britain and Venezuela regarding the
western boundary of British Guiana, and the reference to
arbitration in that same year of the FrancoBrazilian dispute, led
to an agreement being made in 1901 between Brazil and Great Britain
for the submission of their differences to the arbitration of the
king of Italy. The district in dispute was the site of the fabled
Lake of Parima and the Golden City of Manoa, the search for which
in the early days of European settlement attracted so many
adventurous expeditions, and which fascinated the imagination of
Raleigh and drew him to his
doom. The question was a complicated
one involving the historical survey of Dutch and Portuguese
exploration and control in the far interior of Guiana during two
centuries; and it was not until 1904 that the king of Italy gave
his award, which was largely in favour of the British claim, and
grants to British Guiana access to the northern affluents of the
Amazon. Before this decision was given Senhor Rodrigues Alves had
been elected president in 1902. Dr Campos Salles had signalized his
administration, not only by the settlement of disputes with
European powers, but by efforts to arrive at a good understanding
with the neighbouring South American republics. In July 1899
President Roca had visited Rio de Janeiro accompanied by an
Argentine squadron, this being the first official visit that any
South American president had ever paid to one of the adjoining
states. In October 1900 Dr Campos Salles returned the visit and met
with an excellent reception at Buenos Aires. The result was of
importance, as it was known that Brazil was on friendly terms with
Chile, and this interchange of courtesies had some effect in
bringing about a settlement of the controversy between Chile and
Argentina over the Andean frontier question without recourse to
hostilities. This was indeed a time when questions concerning
boundaries were springing up on every side, for it was only through
the moderation with which the high-handed action of Bolivia in
regard to the Acre rubberproducing territory was met by the
Brazilian government that war was avoided. Negotiations were set on
foot, and finally by treating the matter in a give-and-take spirit
a settlement was reached and a treaty for an amicable exchange of
territories in the district in question, accompanied by a pecuniary
indemnity, was signed by President Alves at Petropolis on the 17th
of November 1903. During the remainder of the term of this
president internal and financial progress were undisturbed save by
an outbreak in 1904 in the Cunani district, the very portion of
disputed territory which had been assigned to Brazil by the
arbitration with France. This province, being difficult of access,
was able for a time to assert a practical independence. In 1906 Dr
Affonso Penna, three times minister under Pedro II., and at that
time governor of the state of Minas-Geraes, of which he had founded
the new capital, Bello Horizonte, was elected president, a choice
due to a
coalition of
the other states against Sao Paulo, to which all the recent
presidents had belonged. Penna's presidency was distinguished by
his successful efforts to place the finances on a
sound basis. He died in office on the 14th of
June 1909. (K. J.; C. E. A.; G. E.) Bibliography. - History:
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Munich, 1823-1831); F. A. de
Varnhagen,
Historia geral do Brazil (2 vols., Rio de
Janeiro, 1877);
Historia das luctas com os Hollandeses
(Vienna, 1871); C. E. Akers,
Hist. of South America,
1854-1904 (1904); the
Revista trimensal do Instituto
Historico e Geographico do Brazil (1839-1908), one or two
volumes annually, is a storehouse of papers, studies and original
documents bearing on the history of Brazil.
Geography, &c.: Elisee Reclus,
Universal Geography
(1875-1894), vol. xix. pp. 77-291; J. E. Wappaus,
Geographica
physica do Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1884); A. Moreira
Pinto,
Chorographia do
Brazil (5th ed., Rio de Janeiro, 1895); Therese Prinzessin von
Bayern,
Meine Reise inden brasilianischen Tropen (Berlin,
1897); M. Lamberg,
Brasilien, Land and Leute (Leipzig,
1899); L.
Hutchinson,
Report on Trade in Brazil (Washington, 1906); F. Katzer,
Grundziige der Geologie des unteren Amazonegebietes
(Leipzig, 1903); J. C. Branner,
A Bibliography of the Geology,
Mineralogy and
Paleontology of Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1903); J. W. Evans, "
The Rocks of the Cataracts of the River Madeira and the adjoining
Portions of the Beni and
Mamore,"
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,
London, vol. lxii., 1906, pp. 88124, pl. v.
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