The Colonial Brazil is called historical period ranging from the arrival of the first Europeans in 1500, until independence in 1822. In this period, Brazil was under the political domination of Portugal.
The Portuguese colonization of America began motivated by economic and strategic reasons. On the one hand because of the economic decline of profits in the trade with the East and the commercial possibilities Brazil tree, the bark of which produced a red dye used for dyeing textiles. And among the strategic reasons, the main one was fighting Spanish or French ambitions in this area.
Eventually, France and Holland won some strategic regions such as the island of Sao Luis, the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Recife, and part of the states of Pernambuco , Paraíba and Alagoas.
In 1530, the Portuguese crown expelled the French who surrounded the coast of Brazil , as were lands belonging to Portugal since 1500.
In 1533, King of Portugal, Joao III divided the territory of Brazil in 13 stripes or captaincies , 150 miles wide each, what influenced the privacy of Portuguese colonization . These captaincies were distributed or granted to Portuguese nobles hereditary for life... The nobles who received them committed to evangelize the natives, settlers recruit and develop economically the captaincy.
The territory to be established in Brazil was deeply marked by slavery in the era of European colonization. The boundaries between Spain and Portugal were established in 1492 shortly after Spain made the "discovery" official territory now known as America, this first limit was established by Papal Bull Inter Caetera Alejandrina call , however the Portuguese refused arguing that the referee was a pope of Spanish origin , so that the meridian was run further west (ie more territories annexed to Spain ) by the Treaty of Tordesillas which, if it was obeyed in the letter by the Portuguese never was fulfilled in by these facts .
Pedro Alvares Cabral , a Portuguese , is credited as the first European to reach Brazil on April 22, 1500 , but three months earlier, on January 26, 1500 , the Spanish Navy Vicente Yanez Pinzon had already reached the Cape of St. Augustine and explored the coast to the mouth of the Amazon River , where he advanced his cousin Diego de Lepe , whose expedition continued its wake , all this before Cabral.3 the country was settled by Portuguese gradually seeking to escape poverty , and nobles who were granted by the Crown colonial privileges . The colonial administration in the next two centuries was based on a feudal system in which favored individuals received titles enormous blocks of land called captaincies , many of these domains eventually became the current Brazilian states.
The Brazil of the " Two States " .
In the first century after its European discovery , the largest export commodity of the country, which gave its name to Brazil , was the " Pau Brasil " , a large tree ( Caesalpinia echinata ) whose trunk contains a prized red dye , which was almost wiped out as a result of overexploitation . Beginning in the seventeenth century , sugar cane , grown in plantations called "geniuses " along the northeast coast , became the basis of the Brazilian economy , due to the high demand for sugar in Europe. First, the settlers tried to enslave the natives to work the fields ( the initial scan of the interior of Brazil was due greatly to paramilitary adventurers , the frontiersmen , who entered the jungle in search of gold and slaves "Indians" ) . However, the Indians were unfit as slaves , and thus the Portuguese landowners looked to Africa, from which imported millions of slaves .
Some slaves escaped from plantations and tried to establish independent colonies ( brothels ) in remote areas . However, these colonies were eventually all destroyed by the government and private forces , which in some cases required long sieges and the use of artillery. So , Africans came to be a substantial section of the Brazilian population , and when before the end of slavery ( 1850 ) began to join the Portuguese , like the Indians above.
During the first two centuries of the colonial period , attracted by the vast natural resources and uninhabited land , other European powers sought to establish colonies in various parts of the Brazilian territory , in defiance of the papal bull and the Treaty of Tordesillas , which had divided the New world in two parts , for Portugal and Spain . French colonists tried to settle in the current Rio de Janeiro , from 1555 to 1567 ( the so-called France France Antarctique or Antarctica ) , and the current São Luís , from 1612-1614 ( the so-called equinoctial France or France Equator ) . Little ethnic or cultural influence French and Dutch were these attempts at colonization .
Portuguese and Spanish South American soil implanted in an economic system based on the exploitation of human beings , a fact that made a deep impression on the historical formation of our societies. In Brazil , economic exploitation was initiated by the Indian labor , recruited to cut and transport the brazilwood , a tree abundant in the Atlantic Forest at that time. In exchange for cheap European goods and unknown , as mirrors and pieces of fabric , Indians mined and transported to the Portuguese valuable timber to the coast . Then , the settlers tried to subject them to its domination , imposing their culture , their religion - this function was concerned Jesuits through catechesis - and forcing them to forced labor in the fields, as they did not have the manpower. In turn, the Indians were exploited and died assimilated , not only as a result of ill-treatment by the settlers , but also of the diseases that were unknown and they were brought by European settlers and later by slaves Africans, as venereal diseases and smallpox.
Given the difficulties in subjecting the indigenous labor , the solution found by the colonists was to seek labor elsewhere : on the African continent . This search for slaves in Africa was encouraged for various reasons . The Portuguese , subjects and settlers , were interested in finding a means to obtain large profits with the new colony. The answer was in the sugar , because sugar was widely accepted in the European market. The production of this raw material , in turn , required a large labor force in the colony and the lucrative African slave trade was discovered alternative , initiating insertion in colonial Brazil . These factors contributed to the African labor force was in agriculture from entering Brazil through the slave trade mainly arrived the Portuguese colonies in Africa. The activity of the slave trade was officially started in 1559 , when the Portuguese metropolis decided to allow the entry of slaves arrived from Africa to Brazil . Previously, however, as occurred in Brazil transactions involving African slaves. The labor shortage was one of the main arguments of the settlers. Note that various forms of exploitation of Indians continue at least until mid-eighteenth century .
Roberto Simonsen (in Economic History of Brazil , pág.120 ) comments :
`` In the land of Santa Cruz, the value and the possibilities of trade did not justify ( ... ) organizations of the same importance " that the factories of Portugal in Africa . " Even so , were installed either by dealers trade Pau- Brazil , either by the Portuguese government , various factories , stations where rescue concentrated , under the shelter of primitive fortifications , the Articles of land that the ships came for . Are too disabled to date news on these factories , Igaraçu , Itamaracá , Bahia , Porto Seguro , Cabro Frio , San Vicente and other intermediaries who disappeared , now crushed by Gentile , now conquered by the French ``. ``Colonize the new land would be costly without immediate profit . Portugal , at the height of your navigation technique , ownership of factories in vastíssimas driven into the back of oceans , had no human resources, with an estimated population of one million inhabitants . It had to be an attitude predominantly tax . There was what? There were monkeys , parrots , naked savages and primitives.``
John Ribeiro (in History of Brazil ) says
Cquote1.svg ... after the first explorations , the lands of Brazil became universal constant theater of piracy . Speculators French , German , Jewish and Spanish here port, trading with the gentile or seelvajam up and live with them in equal barbarism . The browsers all points here or supplying shelter from storms . Adventurers landed here , and live the happiness in the company of exiles and fugitives . What do you look the Portuguese court of King Manuel I are the riches of the East, and some expedition touches here and delay ( .... ) is not Brazil that attracts but still the fascination of the Orient .
Anti- Slavery society
Early movement against slavery were made by Jesuit missionaries who fought slavery , but tolerated indigenous Africans. The gradual end of the slave trade was decided at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Since 1810 , England introduced a series of demands to Portugal , and from 1845 began to violently suppress the international slave trade , protected by English law called Law Aberdeen . In 1850 , Eusébio de Queiros Act abolished the international slave trade in Brazil . In 1871, the Brazilian Congress approved it and Princess Isabel signed the 2040 Act , commonly known as Rio Branco or Free Womb Law , determining that all children of slaves born thereafter be free from age 21. Eight years later, in 1879 , began a campaign stimulated abolitionist intellectuals and politicians like Jose Joaquim do Patrocinia and Nabucco. On September 28 , 1885 , promulgated the Law of the sixties ( Saraiva - Cotegipe Act ) that determined the " gradual extinction servile element " , created funds for the compensation of slaveholders and slaves determined that from 60 years could be free . Thus, with these two laws ( Free Womb and sixties ) , the elimination of slavery would gradually increase. Finally , the President of the Council of Ministers of the " Cabinet of March 10 " , Joao Alfredo Correia de Oliveira , the Conservative Party, promoted the vote on a law that determined the final extinction of slavery in Brazil. On May 5, 1888 , Pope Leo XIII , in the encyclical In plurimis , addressed to the bishops of Brazil , called for support to the Emperor and his daughter , in the struggle for the abolition of slavery. The May 13, 1888 , Princess Isabel signed the Golden Law , which had already been approved by Parliament , abolishing all forms of slavery in Brazil. Liberal , Princess joined supporters of the abolition of slavery. He supported young artists and politicians , although many calls abolitionist movement allied with the republican movement . Funded the emancipation of former slaves with their own money and supported the Quilombo community Leblon , who cultivated white camellias , a symbol of abolitionism . Even fugitives receive at home in Petropolis.
Under Article 46, Chapter 3 of Title IV of the Brazilian Constitution of 1824 : the Princes of the Imperial House are senators by right, and occupy seat in the Senate as soon as they reach the age of twenty years. Thus, in 1871 , Isabella Leopoldina became the first woman to hold the office of senator in Brazil .
The Oath of the Imperial Princess Isabel , as ruler of the Empire of Brazil .
The June 30, 1887 assumed the regency of the empire, for the third time since his father was forced to leave for medical treatment in Europe. The abolition provoked strong opposition among farmers owned slaves . The relationship between the ruler and the Council of Ministers conservatives were tense . The princess joined the popular movement , while the Baron Cotegipe ( President of Council of Ministers) advocated the maintenance of slavery. In the Speech from the Throne , 1888 , Elizabeth said that with a joyful heart : " I trust you not to remove the right led to doubt the only native exception contained therein ... " .
The May 13, 1888 , came the final vote to abolish slavery project . Confident of victory, the ruling came down from Petropolis, mountain city , the Imperial Palace to await the time you signed the Golden Law . She used a gold pen made especially for the occasion , receiving the acclaim of the people of Rio de Janeiro. Jornal da Tarde , the May 15, 1888 , reported that " and knowing that the great Act was passed , the people who had gathered outside the Palace called His Highness , who appeared in the window and was greeted with enthusiasm. " The galleries of the palace were filled, and cheers and applause from a crowd estimated at 10,000 people , Elizabeth signed the law, passed by the Parliament of the Empire.
On September 28, Pope Leo XIII sent him the insignia of the Golden Rose , in recognition of the Abolition of Slavery. This logo symbolizes papal recognition of the Pope to a notable act that deserved the joy of the whole Church .
The slave-owning aristocracy and the rural oligarchy , ruined by the abolition without compensation , blamed the government and adhered to various existing Republican parties , especially the Republican Party and the Republican Party Paulista Miner, who made opposition to the monarchy . Thus, one of the consequences of abolition would be the fall of the monarchy. Smallholders could not resort to wage labor offered by European immigrants also were ruined . Only the paulista coffee economy , compared with other regions, did not suffer dramatically , for it was based on free wage labor . Many black slaves remained on the field , practicing a subsistence economy on small farms , others sought cities where entering a process of marginalization . Unemployed, went to live in huts and shacks in the hills and in the suburbs.
The Minas Conspiracy
The Minas Conspiracy, was an attempt to revolt aborted by the government in 1789 , in full gold cycle , then the captaincy of Minas Gerais, in Brazil , against , among other things , the execution of spills and Portuguese rule .
It was one of the most important social movements in the history of Brazil . Meant the struggle of the Brazilian people for freedom against the oppression of the Portuguese government in the colonial period .
In the late eighteenth century , Brazil was still a colony of Portugal and suffered from political abuse and charging high fees and taxes . Additionally , the metropolis was enacted a series of laws that harmed the industrial and commercial development of Brazil . In the year 1785, for example, Portugal enacted a law prohibiting the operation of manufacturing industries in Brazil. causes In this period , there was much gold extraction , especially in the region of Minas Gerais. The Brazilians who found gold should pay the fifth , or twenty percent of all the gold found in the vaults had just Portuguese . Those who were caught with gold "illegal " (without paying tax " ) suffered harsh penalties and may even be deported ( sent power to the African territory ) .
With the great exploration , gold began to diminish in the mines . Yet the Portuguese authorities did not diminish the charges . At that time, Portugal created taxes. This worked as follows : each region gold exploration should pay 100 kilos of gold ( 1500 pounds ) per year to the metropolis . When the region could not meet these requirements , the crown soldiers entered houses of families to withdraw their belongings to complete the amount due .
All these attitudes were causing a very great dissatisfaction among the people , and especially the rural farmers and mine owners who wanted to pay less taxes and have more participation in the political life of the country . Some members of the Brazilian elite ( intellectuals , farmers, military and mine owners ) , influenced by the ideas of freedom coming from the European Enlightenment , began meeting to seek a solution to the problem : the conquest of Brazil's independence .
Territorial reorganization during the The Minas Conspiracy.
The Dutch intrusion finally frustrated in Brazil was longer lasting and more troublesome to Portugal. The Dutch privateers began by plundering the coast : sacked Bahia in 1604 , and even temporarily captured the capital, San Salvador . From 1630-1654 , the Dutch settled more permanently in the Northeast and controlled a long stretch of the coast more accessible to Europe without, however, penetrating the interior . But the colonists of the Dutch Company of the West Indies in Brazil were in a constant siege despite the presence in Recife of the great John Maurice of Nassau- Siegen as governor. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch formally withdrew in 1661. Johann Moritz von Nassau - Siegen .
On December 26, 1629 departed from São Vicente , Cape Verde , a fleet of 66 ships and 7,280 men towards Pernambuco . The Dutch , landing on the beach in Yellow Wood , conquered the Captaincy of Pernambuco in February 1630 to establish the colony New Netherland . The fragile Portuguese resistance in the passage of the Rio Doce , Olinda invaded without major setbacks and defeated the small but fierce , strong garrison (which later would be called Brum ) , gateway to the reef through the isthmus connecting the two towns.
Count Maurice of Nassau arrived in Nieuw Holland , New Holland, in 1637 , accompanied by a team of architects and engineers . At this point begins the construction of Mauritsstad (now Recife ) , which was equipped with bridges, dikes and canals to overcome the geographical locations . The architect Pieter Post was responsible for the layout of the new city and buildings as the Palace of Freeburg , seat of power of Nassau in New Holland, and the building of the astronomical observatory , considered the first of the New World . On February 28, 1644 Recife ( Recife currently the District ) was connected to Mauritius City with the construction of the first bridge in Latin America . During the government of Nassau , Recife was considered the most cosmopolitan city in the Americas and had the largest Jewish community from across the continent , he built, at the time , the first synagogue in the New World , the Kahal Zur Israel, and the second , the Magen Abraham. In the Palace of Freiburg , the seat of power of Nassau in New Holland, was built the first astronomical observatory Continent Americano.
Recife was the most cosmopolitan city in the Americas during the government of German count ( the service of Dutch crown ) Mauritius Nassau.
For several reasons , the most important being the removal of Maurice of Nassau government of the captaincy by the Dutch West India Company , the people of Pernambuco rebelled against the government , adding to the weak resistance still exists , in a movement known as Insurrection Pernambucana .
With the gradual arrival of reinforcements Portuguese , the Dutch were finally expelled in 1654 , the second Battle of Exmouth . It was then said to have been born the Brazilian Army .
With the Dutch colony taken by the Portuguese , the Jews were given a deadline of three months to leave or convert to Catholicism . Afraid of fire of the Inquisition , almost all sold what they had and left Recife on 16 ships. Part of the Jewish community expelled from Pernambuco fled to Amsterdam and elsewhere settled in New York . Through this last group to Manhattan Island , now the financial center of the United States , enjoyed a great economic development , and descendants of Jews from Recife graduates have been active in American history : Gershom Mendes Seixas , an ally of George Washington in the War of Independence of the United States , his son Benjamin Mendes Seixas , founder of the Stock Exchange of New York , Benjamin Cardozo , Associate Justice of the United States linked to Franklin Roosevelt , among outros.
After the expulsion of Dutch , the state started to decline along with the rest of the Northeast , due to the transfer of the political and economic center for the South East , which resulted in conflicts such as Pernambuco Revolution and the Confederation of the Equator , separatist movements Pernambuco .
The quality of the Dutch sugar now produced in the West Indies , top to brown Brazilian also helped accelerate the decline of the state, which was based on estates growing sugar cane . Seeking new means of income , increases trade in the state gradually . This effect was sparked revolts as the War of the Peddlers .
During the eighteenth century occurred some rebellions against the colonial power that were harshly suppressed , the first of which was the Revolt of Filip the Saint in 1720 . The The Minas Conspiracy in 1789, was followed by the Bahian Conspiracy ten years later . These two movements were marked already intend to proclaim independence while the second came aa claim the abolition of slavery.
The Conjuration Bahia was a movement that started from humble layer Society Bahia , with great participation of blacks , mulattos and tailors , so it is also known as Revolt of Tailors . The rebels preached liberation of the slaves , the establishment of an egalitarian government ( where people were promoted according to ability and merit individual ) , and installing a republic in Bahia . On August 12, 1798 , the motion was precipitated when some of its members , handing out flyers in front of churches and pasting them on the corners of the city , warned the authorities that immediately reacted , detaining them . As in Minas Conspiracy , interrogated , eventually betraying the others involved . Hundreds of people were reported - military , clergy , government officials and people from all walks of life . Of these , 49 were arrested , most have sought to abjure their participation , seeking to prove innocence. More than 30 were arrested and prosecuted . Four participants were sentenced to the gallows and the remains of their bodies were scattered around the Bahia to frighten the population .