THE DISCOVERY AND EARLY HISTORY OF BRAZIL
It still remains a point of dispute between the Spanish and Portuguese
nations as to who was the discoverer of Brazil. There is, moreover,
Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo Vespucci may be said to have been more
successful in his accounts of his voyages than in the feats which he
actually accomplished. To have succeeded on such slender foundation in
causing an entire Continent to be christened by his name was in itself
no mean performance, and this was probably his greatest claim to
distinction.
Some historians take him more seriously than this. Southey, for one,
appears to accept Vespucci very much at his own valuation, and states
that the honour of having formed the first settlement in Brazil is due
to Amerigo Vespucci.
The Spaniards claim this distinction for their famous seaman, Vicente
Pinzon. Pinzon sailed from Spain in December, 1499. He shaped a more
southerly course than any previous navigator in the Spanish service, and
he appears to have made his landfall in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco.
He went ashore, it would seem, at a spot he named Cape Consolation, and
of this he took possession in the name of the Spanish Crown. His voyage,
however, appears to have had very little practical result, for almost
immediately afterwards he returned to Europe, and no steps seem to have
been taken by the Spanish Court for the colonization of the land which
he had discovered.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS LANDING IN AMERICA.
_From a seventeenth-century engraving._]
The Portuguese, for their part, assert that the territories of Brazil
were first sighted by their great navigator, Pedro Alvarez Cabral. The
discovery was in one sense something of an accident. It was necessary
for the seamen who were setting their course for the East Indies to
steer well to the west, in order to avoid the zones of calms which
prevail in the neighbourhood of the African coast. Cabral appears to
have steered so boldly into the west that he fell in with the coast of
Brazil. This was in 1500. Word of this event was sent to Portugal, and
the enterprising little kingdom, at that time at the height of her
maritime power, made preparations to colonize the country.
The auspices under which the Spaniards and the Portuguese arrived in the
New World were curiously different. The Spaniards were frankly in quest
of gold, and in many cases ransacked the fertile agricultural lands in
search of minerals which were non-existent. The Portuguese, on the other
hand, had no reason to suspect the presence of precious metals in their
new colony, and it was in the first instance for its vegetable products
that the land, so rich in minerals, became famed.
It was only natural that the pioneer Portuguese should have been struck
with the admirable quality of the valuable Brazilian woods. Shipments of
timber were the first to be sent from the new colony to the Mother
Country. It was from this very wood that Portuguese South America took
its name, since much of it, being of a brilliant red colour, was known
in the Portuguese language as "brasa."
Just about this time the Portuguese fitted out the most imposing fleet
which had ever left their shores. It was commanded by one of the
greatest of Portuguese explorers, Vasco da Gama, and was destined to
sail round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indies--the new and marvellous
land of spices. The fleet was worthy of its commander; it was made up of
no fewer than thirteen vessels, and was manned by some 1,200 men.
With pomp and ceremony this imposing Armada sailed away from the blue
waters of the Tagus, and, rounding the sunlit bluff, stood away to the
south. It made the Canaries in the usual way, passed the Cape Verde
Islands, and struck out to the west, lighting on the Brazilian coast in
latitude 17 deg. south--that is to say, not far from the spot where stands
the present town of Bahia. From this point Vasco da Gama sailed
southward, keeping touch with the coast. He eventually established
communication with the Indians, who were, as was usual in these
latitudes, quite naked, their bodies being painted, and who wore great
bones in their ears and in their slit lips and noses.
A criminal, one of the type which seems to have been brought out for
purposes such as this, was landed in order to dwell among the natives,
to test their temper and habits--a somewhat precarious profession this!
After a while the fleet sailed from the place they named Port Seguro,
leaving two of these criminals or _degradados_--professional
pioneers--behind. These "were seen lamenting and crying upon the beach,
and the men of the country comforting them, demonstrating that they were
not a people devoid of pity."
This was the scene which presented itself to the eyes of the more
fortunate mariners as they sailed away. Nevertheless, the criminals seem
to have survived. No small advertisement, this, of the courtesy of the
Indian tribe, for the people composing it must have belonged to one of
the coastal races who afterwards were grimly famed for their ferocity.
As a matter of fact, human instruments of the kind, which, it must be
admitted, were of small merit, played no small part in the colonization
of Brazil. In some respects these unfortunate folk were undoubtedly
useful. They resembled the candles carried by underground miners. If the
candle continued to burn, all was well; but if the candle went out,
there was obviously danger in the air. Quite a number of these human
candles went out in the course of the early Iberian explorations. In a
sense there was sufficient justice in this, since they were criminals
whose offences had been usually those of murder and violence. If,
therefore, they escaped in the first instance with their lives, their
penitence had been consummated, and they were free to take advantage of
the land.
People of this kind had been set ashore to pave the way for their
betters in Africa and in India, and this system was now extended to
Brazil. When friendly relations were once established, it may be
imagined that the influence of these criminals upon the savages was not
of the best. According to Southey: "The Europeans were weaned from that
human horror at the blood-feasts of the savages, which, ruffians as they
were, they had at first felt, and the natives lost that awe and
veneration for the superior races, which might have proved so greatly to
their advantage."
In 1503 the Portuguese sent out an important expedition under Duarte
Coelho. This leader explored the country in the neighbourhood of the Bay
of Bahia. After this he proceeded southwards, and landed men in order to
establish a small colony.
The first really important attempt at colonizing the country was
undertaken by Martin Affonso de Souza. This navigator set out from
Portugal in command of many ships and men. Like Coelho, he struck the
Brazilian coast at Bahia; but, instead of proceeding to the south, as
his predecessor had done, he remained for some while at the spot. It is
said that when De Souza landed he fell in with a Portuguese of the name
of Correia. This worthy is supposed to have formed one of Cabral's
expedition. For some reason or other he was marooned at that place. The
Indians, instead of slaying him, had conceived a great veneration for
this white man, who had, as it were, dropped from the clouds into their
midst. The marooned sailor had become a kind of professional adviser,
whose counsel was sought by the natives on every important occasion.
Many of the early navigators maintain that the comparatively easy
colonization of this portion of the Brazilian coast was due to the
presence of the much-esteemed Correia.
Bahia rapidly became the most important of these early Portuguese
settlements. In the first instance it was, of course, extremely
difficult for the few bands of daring Portuguese to make any practical
impression on the huge slice of coast which had fallen to their share.
The experiences of the first colonists, moreover, were destined to
differ considerably from those of the pioneer Spaniards. The latter had
their field of exploration practically to themselves. The Portuguese, on
the other hand, found rivals in the South Seas almost as soon as the
prows of their ships had pierced the waters. The Dutch eventually were
destined to become by far the most formidable of these; but in the first
instance the chief friction occurred with the French.
Just at this period the Gallic sailors awoke to a strong interest in
Brazil, and the French vessels carried numbers of warlike and industrial
adventurers to the tropical shores. Even before 1530 a French factory
had been established at Pernambuco, but a circumstance of far greater
importance was that these French rovers discovered the magnificent
harbour of Rio de Janeiro, sailed into the narrow entrance between the
lofty peaks, and founded a colony there before the Portuguese had
obtained the opportunity of a permanent footing in that place.
The leader of these troops was Nicolas Durant de Villegagnon, and his
men comprised a number of Huguenots who were abandoning France.
Villegagnon's own character appears to have been complex and curious in
the extreme. He was apparently a true blade of the old swashbuckling
type; he employed religion for such ends as he might have in view at the
moment, regarding its tenets cynically, tongue in cheek. Thus he came
out in command of the Huguenots, ostensibly himself a Huguenot; but his
convictions appear to have changed on various occasions, and he is seen
now as their abettor, now as their oppressor. In the end he clearly
showed himself antagonistic to the convictions of his followers, and
took to denouncing them as heretics. With the exception of this leader,
the circumstances and motives of the expedition were somewhat similar to
those which caused the first emigration of the English Puritans to North
America.
Once established in Rio de Janeiro, the Huguenots succeeded in making
friends with the Indians of the neighbourhood, who became their firm
allies and proved of great assistance to the French in their struggles
against the Portuguese, who came down in force to evict the intruders.
The Huguenots were defeated in 1560 by Mem de Sa, the third Governor of
Brazil; but, although dispersed for a while, the power of the invaders
was by no means broken. Shortly afterwards they came together again, and
succeeded in establishing themselves more firmly than before in the
place. They were again fiercely attacked by the Portuguese, but the
number of islands in the bay afforded excellent points of defence, and
it was not until 1567 that the Portuguese sea and land forces combined
were able to expel the last Frenchmen from the mountains which lay about
the harbour of Rio de Janeiro. This, as a matter of fact, was merely a
foretaste of much of the active and aggressive competition in matters of
colonization from which the Portuguese were destined to suffer.
Before arriving at the subject of the predatory expeditions of the
various nations in South America, it would be as well to consider the
initial methods taken by the early Portuguese settlers. In the first
instance the partition of so vast an extent of territory among so small
a number of colonists was necessarily effected in a crude and tentative
fashion. The great colony was divided into _capitaneas_, or counties,
each of which possessed a coast-line of 150 miles. A Governor was
appointed to each _capitanea_. As was perhaps natural, the powers of
each of these officials, more or less isolated as each was, grew
rapidly--to such an extent, indeed, that the home authorities in
Portugal became anxious to curb the occasional eccentricities of some of
the more despotic of these. In order to effect this, Thome de Souza was
made Captain-General of Brazil, and was sent out to that country
provided with numerous officials and troops. He established his
headquarters at Bahia, and the size of the town increased in
consequence. In 1572 Brazil was divided into two governmental areas,
Bahia being recognized as the capital of the north, and Rio de Janeiro
as the capital of the southern portion. This division, however, only
lasted for five years. Brazil in the meanwhile was becoming populous,
and had taken its place as the largest among the regular Portuguese
colonies throughout the world.
It was not long before the jealousies between the Spanish and Portuguese
led to various outbreaks and to troubles on the frontiers. From a purely
practical point of view, there is no doubt whatever that such
bickerings were a sheer absurdity, since the territories at the disposal
of both nations were far too great to be effectively dealt with by any
forces which either the Spanish or Portuguese could introduce into the
Continent. As it was, the era was one of moulding and experiments. Even
at the present day it would seem difficult to decide whether many of
these latter have proved themselves definite successes or undoubted
failures. The general conditions of the New World at this period are
well worthy of note.
No doubt South America has been more widely experimented upon in the
colonizing sense than any other Continent. The methods of the Spaniards
and Portuguese were by no means similar throughout. Indeed, the
principles adopted by the four greatest colonizing nations of the
age--the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English, and the Dutch--were all
distinguished from each other by various important features.
The British, where they came into contact with dark-skinned races of
inferior vigour and individual power, made a point of holding aloof, so
far as the more important social points were concerned. Thus in India
and in Africa the gulf between the white and the black has continued
unbridged. The representatives of the British have remained as a
governing race, relying upon the strict justice of their rule for its
preservation. They have refrained from interference in the thousand
jealousies and caste regulations with which the East Indies were, and
are, honeycombed, becoming active only when oppression became barefaced.
These officials, that is to say, have made a point of respecting the
religions of the various tribes, and have even encouraged them to
continue unmolested.
As a result, the Governors, as a body, won the respect, and even the
reverence, of a great mass of the populace, but gained comparatively
little actual and personal affection. They were subjected to the
jealousy of the fakirs in India, of the witch-doctors in Africa, and of
other dusky fanatics who had been accustomed to oppress the rank and
file of the populace before the advent of the European civilization.
The Dutch pursued a policy very similar to that of the English. They
were essentially just in their rule, and they won the wholesale respect
of the subject races. Their methods of governing, however, were usually
more severe than those of the British, and as a rule the discipline they
enforced was considerably stronger. This has been evidenced in Africa
and elsewhere.
The Iberian system of colonization was in general totally different.
Even the Spaniards, far less spontaneously genial than the Portuguese,
encouraged an intimacy between their colonists and the subject races of
a kind unknown in the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic circles. It is true that
in the first instance the Spaniards slaughtered hundreds of thousands of
natives. But these wholesale killings were on account of no social
convictions; they were merely the result of an overpowering greed for
gold and of too harsh a method of enforcing labour. The colour question,
as between Spaniard and native, scarcely ruffled the social surface of
the colonies. This was not altogether to be wondered at when the
antecedents of these bold Spanish colonial pioneers are taken into
consideration.
A dusky tide from Africa had flooded the half of Spain, and had remained
there for centuries, until the southern Spaniard, who lived in the midst
of Moorish conquerors, tolerantly treated and allowed almost entire
religious freedom, forgot the hostility towards his traditional enemy,
and became oblivious of questions of colour. So much so was this the
case that the Christian services were wont, after a time, to be
conducted in Arabic, a system which evoked horrified protests from
Bishops in other parts. Be that as it may, it is certain that the
Spaniards had, with the sole exception of the Portuguese, been more
concerned with the African races and dark blood than any other nation in
Europe. Thus, once in South America, although the actual helplessness of
the Indians was immediately remarked and taken advantage of, no question
of inferiority from a mere racial point of view arose. The Indian went
to the wall, not because he was an Indian, but because his powers were
less than those of the European who had invaded his lands.
[Illustration: VASCO DA GAMA.
_From a portrait in colour in a Spanish MS. (Sloane, 197, fol. 18) in
the British Museum._]
If this was the case with the Spaniard, it was far more marked in the
case of the Portuguese. In some respects, perhaps, no nation colonized
with quite the same amount of enthusiasm as this. Its pioneers once
definitely settled in the country, whichever it might be, there arose no
question of looking upon the new conquest as a place to be resided in
for a certain number of years and no more. The Portuguese went to the
east and to the south-west to make themselves part and parcel of the
soil of the country they had annexed. To this end they mingled from the
very start with the natives, and inter-married with an entire want of
restraint with the Indian women.
Thus from the very inception of the Portuguese colonial era we are
confronted with a race of half-castes, and we see the forces brought
about by a mixture of blood and climatic conditions working more
powerfully in the Portuguese colonies than in any others. The result
was, in one sense, the formation of a new race, and an almost complete
absence of rebellion and native unrest in those parts where genuine
civilization had been attempted. That the race as a whole lost its
European vigour and its northern principles was inevitable. This was the
price of peace.
The subject is one into which climatic influence enters largely. Many
of the districts of Brazil were not, and are not, in the least suited as
a permanent place of residence for the white man. Were an attempt to be
made to populate such places as these by Europeans, it could only be
done by means of a continual change of inhabitants. That is to say, each
resident, having spent a certain number of years in the spot, must be
succeeded by another in order to preserve the integrity and vigour of
the race.
Portugal, with an extraordinary generosity, flung her handful of white
colonists into the vast lands she had discovered, and hoped by this
means to raise the leaven of the whole. In India, as exemplified in Goa,
the result has met with scant success. In Brazil, however, where the
proportion of white to black was greater, a race of intellect and
culture has been developed, although occasionally subject to the mental
paroxysms of the dwellers in the tropics. In any case it may be said
that the colour question has never existed in Brazil--so far, at all
events, as the Indian is concerned. It was necessarily in evidence to a
certain extent upon the first introduction of the negro slave, but even
here the question has become of less and less importance, until, at the
present day, the negro has in Brazil probably a more congenial
resting-place than anywhere else in the world.
It must never be forgotten that these remarks as regards the Spanish
colonies, and to almost as great an extent as regards the Portuguese,
apply to the general run of the population. The majority of the leaders,
both social and political, in all the South American colonies have been
in the first instance, and have continued, men of good blood, and
generally of ancient lineage, who have floated along with the rest,
until they met with the inevitable current which bore them to the
topmost of the new social layers. And once there, having been found the
most fitting, they have remained.