COLONIZATION IN BRAZIL
The story of colonization in Brazil is unique in the annals of the human
movement across the world that has been going on ever since man began to
multiply and to seek elbow-room; it is one of the phenomena of exodus.
Arrival upon the shores of Brazil of an extraordinary variety of races
was not a voluntary immigration in most instances. It was the result of
a studied policy, inaugurated by the Emperors of Brazil, and carried on
to the present day by the Federal Government and certain of the separate
States; experiments in various kinds of people were made on a concerted
plan, the colonies were grouped, in many cases isolated, retained their
language and customs, still produce the food to which they were
accustomed in the home land, and only become assimilated as their
populations leave them or touch in time the fringe of others. The
official mothering which they received tended rather to keep them
grouped than to spread them in the earlier years.
The first official, deliberate importation of colonists of blood foreign
to Brazil or Portugal began in 1817, when Dom João brought in Swiss
settlers. Agents of the Brazilian Government recruited no less than five
thousand in Bern, although owing to delays and accidents only about two
thousand sailed from Amsterdam and Rotterdam: landing on a hot coastal
belt after a trying voyage, fever took the mountaineers, and but a
sparse seventeen hundred reached the foot of the Serra do Mar. Climbing
to the pretty nook where the town of their founding, Nova Friburgo,
stands today in a shelter of green mountains, sickness still followed
them, and only the hardiest or most resistant clung to the colony,
survived and left their name to another generation. Many dispersed to
other localities. Nova Friburgo, now reached by the Leopoldina railway,
and a thriving city, fresh, flowery, producer of cereals and peaches,
owns few Swiss inhabitants today. A second batch of immigrants, three
hundred and forty-two Germans, filled some gaps in the ranks: their
readiness for labour may have been heightened by memories of the
difficulties of transit to Europe, for the journey had taken one hundred
and eighty days in a sailing-ship. Germany at this period had not begun
the industrial expansion which later kept all her people at home;
economic conditions were severe on the ambitious worker, laws and social
customs were irksome, and enterprising men looked across the seas for
free lands. Germany became for about twenty-five years the very best
recruiting ground for Brazil.
The second official colony was founded in Rio Grande do Sul, and
consisted entirely of Germans—one hundred and twenty-six persons
originally—who came in 1825. The colony was named São Leopoldo, used the
water highway of the Rio dos Sinos until a railway line was built
connecting it with Porto Alegre and with new colonies to the north, and
has developed into one of the chief towns of the state, with forty
thousand inhabitants. Its establishment was followed rapidly by that of
Tres Forquilhas and S. Pedro de Alcantara, both in Rio Grande and both
German, 1826; by another S. Pedro de Alcantara, also German, in Santa
Catharina, 1826; Rio Negro, in Paraná, 1828, formed by disbanded German
soldiers. Petropolis, the model city in the hills above Rio, owed its
inception to Dom Pedro and was founded with Germans and Swiss, but not
until 1848, for more than ten years of civil war down south in Rio
Grande, when the “República de Piritinim” was proclaimed, checked
colonizing projects in the Empire. With the suppression of trouble
German colonizing was resumed in the south, Santa Catharina creating the
Santa Isabel colony in 1845, while Rio Grande started five new centres
between 1849 and 1850. The latter year is also memorable for the
foundation of Blumenau, in Santa Catharina, by the good Herr Blumenau of
Brunswick. At the same point on the lovely river Itajahy a little
nucleus had existed precariously since 1827, added to by a group of one
hundred and twenty-two Belgians in 1844; Herr Blumenau brought in
Germans gradually at his own expense, supervising the colony in the rôle
of a kind of paternal burgomaster, and in 1864 was able to count two
thousand five hundred people; his efforts had, however, cost him about
twelve thousand dollars. The Brazilian Government repaid him his outlay
and made him official Director. Today Blumenau, once a small
self-contained _nucleo_, is a bustling city with fifty thousand people,
a lively exporting business and a railroad line. In 1850 the Dona
Thereza colony in Paraná was started, while the famous Joinville, first
called Dona Francesca, began in 1851 in Santa Catharina; it owed its
existence to the fact that an Orleans scion, the Prince de Joinville,
married a Brazilian princess who inherited large estates chiefly
consisting of _matto_ in Santa Catharina. The family ceded twelve square
leagues of this land to the “Colonizing Union” of Hamburg, whence
settlers were promptly sent, both the Prince and the Brazilian
Government making a protégé of the _nucleo_. The large sums of money
spent resulted in a fine town, now numbering some twenty-five thousand
people, served by the Brazil Railways. A little later (1852) the Minas
Geraes colony of Mucury was founded, but by this time German colonizing
in arranged shipments had come to an end; any additional German
colonists came singly. The German Government, both alarmed at the losses
in blood—for emigration to North America and other parts of South
America was also proceeding, although along different lines—and by
reports sent home as the result of investigation which gave a poor
account of the condition of the isolated _nucleos_, passed a law to
forbid emigration to Brazil. Dom Pedro had to turn his attention to
other countries.
Before the coming of the Germans, South Brazil was almost totally
neglected; demand for tropical produce such as sugar and tobacco had
kept the attention of Portuguese and their mixed-blood descendants for
over three centuries to North Brazil, where negro slaves multiplied on
the warm coast; the grassy uplands of the south attracted few
Brazilians, and these chiefly bandeirantes whose main business was to
keep out Spaniards from the Plate, and whose wild cattle strayed and
bred on the natural pastures. So wild and untenanted was the country
that up to the middle of the nineteenth century the German colonists had
trouble with Indian raiders. But it was the right climate for the
north-born Europeans, a wise choice that proved a success while other
settlements dwindled out. During the same period there were several
attempts to colonize Espirito Santo, notably at Santa Isabel, and
Cachoeiras and Transylvania, six or seven starting between 1847 and
1856. The energy of the settlers was discounted by the hot climate, and
many moved south, where the great increase in settlers’ populations is a
fair criterion of their success. The official figures of German entries
into Brazil from 1820 to the end of 1915 are one hundred and twenty-two
thousand eight hundred and thirty, but the people of German blood in
Brazil are now reckoned at about 250,000. The southerly towns under
their influence are clean, well-kept, live centres, with constantly
expanding industries. Rio Grande today is quite one of the best sections
of Brazil: the influx of Italians brings them more than equal in numbers
to the German element, taking the state as a whole.
With organized German settlement checked, Brazil during the eighteen
fifties turned her attention to the mother country, and brought in
Portuguese; they were settled in the warmer latitudes. In 1853, such a
colony was begun in Maranhão, at Santa Isabel, followed by five more in
the same northern and sultry state in 1855; in the same year three
Portuguese colonies were established in Pará, at Nossa Senhora d’O, at
Peçanha and at Silva, while Rio de Janeiro was planted with another
five. A little later Bahia was given Portuguese colonies at Sinimbú,
Engenho Novo and Rio Pardo. These and others were not strikingly
successful until or unless joined by other colonists, for the
Portuguese, who are artisans rather than agriculturists, melted from the
lonely settlements and found jobs in the coast cities.
By this time coffee culture was coming into favour, the slave business
was doomed, although the actual abolition of slavery did not occur until
1888, and planters invited immigrants to their developing estates. The
work of obtaining immigrants was undertaken by individuals, as the
Vergueiro family by Theophilo Ottoni and the Visconde de Baependy, with
varying success, as well as by the International Society of Immigration
of Rio, with headquarters in Antwerp. Colonists sent to coffee estates
worked on the _métayer_ or _parceria_ system, inherently vicious. The
colonist had the satisfaction of considering himself an independent
worker, but as he started with a large debt, never owned land and earned
no wages, his lot was a poor one if crops failed or the _fazendeiro_
chanced to be unfair. He arrived owing for the passage of himself and
family, and was given a house and a quantity of food—of the country; he
cultivated a certain number of coffee trees, or allotment of sugarcane,
took the harvest to the owner’s mill and received half the result after
milling. It is said by J. L. Moré, in his book _Le Brésil en 1852_, that
the hardworking Bavarians and Holsteiners who worked on this system in
São Paulo often paid off their debts in four years and then had money in
hand; but other investigators spoke adversely on the subject, finding
colonists of ten and twelve years’ standing still indebted and living
hopelessly. In the end the _parceria_ gave way before a general wages
system. The _métayer_ plan still exists in some parts of Minas, Espirito
Santo, São Paulo and other coffee regions, and can be found in the sugar
districts and in the cacao region of Bahia, but large ownership of great
scientifically-run estates has driven it from general employment.
Investigations made by J. von Tschudi, sent by the Swiss Government in
1857, and by the German Consul Haupt ten years later, proved the failure
of the share system; colonists could be seized and imprisoned if they
tried to leave the estate on which they worked, and, unable to support
life on the produce of their allotments, would have been even worse off
had it not been for the “many acts of benevolence for which the
emigrants had to thank the kindness natural to so many Brazilians,” says
the author of _Brazilian Colonization_, a little brochure published
under a pseudonym in London in the year 1873.
The same writer, giving a list of nationalities comprising the
immigration into Brazilian states up to that time, nearly thirty-five
years ago, before the great entry of the Italians had begun, or that of
the Poles and Russians with their gift of hardy persistence, names a
French colony taken to the banks of the Ivahy river in Paraná about
1850, which expired for want of transportation and therefore of markets;
this, with the influx of Algerian French in 1868–1869 to a spot near
Curityba, also in Paraná, is the most important attempt of the Gallic
race to found settlements in Brazil; the disturbances of the latter, the
first vine-growers of the state, gave the authorities as much trouble as
the subsequent adventures of the Russians ten years later in the same
region.
“Jacaré Assu” also mentions a few Alsatians in Nova Petropolis (Rio
Grande); the Dutch families in Joinville, Rio Novo, Petropolis, and
Leopoldina (Espirito Santo); the Tyrolian wanderers; the Danes of
Estrella; the Mongolians—five hundred and sixty-six of them, who came by
contract in 1856; and the colony of Icelanders who went to Joinville,
and were “said to be doing very well.” He also speaks of the “colonies
of Brazilians” in Brazil, who were settled in Estrella, at Sinimbú,
Iguape and Itajahy; and the North American influx of 1867. This later
item was the result neither of population overflow nor invitation, but
was the result of the struggle between the North and South of the United
States, the disappointed slave-owning southerners seeking a land where
their losses could be forgotten. The exodus, of course, was in several
directions: groups went into Mexico, some to Canada, to different parts
of South America; I have seen an excellent colony of these migrants and
their descendants at Toledo in the south of British Honduras, growing
sugarcane and prospering. Those who came to Brazil were brought from the
port of New York by the “United States and Brazil Mail Ships,” since
defunct, the first batch of two hundred leaving in December, 1866. They
were followed by some thousands, but today it is difficult to trace
them, the groups into which they were originally assembled having long
since broken up.
Seeking these settlements, I visited Villa Americana in São Paulo state
but found it long since turned into a villa Italiana, with only one
family of American origin which seemed to have thriven; forty miles or
so across country, at Piracicaba, however, I found an American school,
admirably conducted by a little old lady who told me that she had come
with the original settlers of Santa Barbara, founded in the parish of
Piracicaba, but now a shadow. Her school was a delightful one, with the
stocky girl pupils going through gymnastic exercises in unwonted
rational clothes, but they were all Brazilians; the Americans had
melted, the ones who remained not being able to keep up in the struggle.
There seem to have been at least four definite attempts at settlement
besides individual selection of dwelling places: these were at Santarem,
on the Amazon’s junction with the Tapajoz river; Cannavieiras, on the
coast of southern Bahia; Juquiá, or Cananea, below Iguape in southern
São Paulo; and the Santa Barbara-Villa Americana group in central São
Paulo. Some of the immigrants had money, but in many cases the war had
swallowed it; former owners of slaves, they were often less fitted to
make a living from the soil than the negroes they had left behind. The
one crop that they understood thoroughly was cotton, and it seems to
have been tried at each of the four spots named, but in at least two
regions success was nullified by climate. In São Paulo’s interior lands
a fair measure of reward was obtained and an impulse to cotton growing
dates from this time. The Cananea colony, where some English were
introduced about the same time, was a notable scene of discontent; both
groups of colonists hurried back to Rio and made so many complaints that
the consuls went through sieges. The fact was that the site for the
settlement was unsuited to Anglo-Saxon modes of life and that
insufficient preparation had been made: a few years ago a colony of
Japanese was given land a few miles from the ill-fated spot, at Iguape,
and, settling down to grow rice, have made a striking success. But the
points of view of the two nationalities, as well as colonization methods
pursued by the organizers in the different cases, had nothing in common.
At Cannavieiras there is today a thriving series of cacao plantations
and a Brazilian population: these people keep in order, carefully
weeded, a grave. There is a fence of hard Brazilian _massaranduba_ about
it, perennial flowers blossom above; under the soil lie the three little
children of the leader of the American colony, and of it there is no
other trace.
Of the Santa Barbara colony there is a story told which is comedy
instead of tragedy. The colonists grew, besides cotton, watermelons: one
year just as the crop ripened, cholera broke out in S. Paulo, the sale
of melons was forbidden, and the growers faced ruin. At this time
President Cleveland had come into office in the United States, and had
just appointed a new consul at Santos: he must, then, be a good
Democrat. The settlers, who on landing in Brazil had ceremonially torn
up the Constitution of the United States and offered thanks to heaven
for having permitted them to reach a land where the sacred Biblical
institution of slavery was still in force, remembered that they were
American citizens. They wrote to the consul a letter of congratulation
on his arrival and at the same time detailed their grievances with
regard to watermelon sales. The consul replied cordially, suggested that
he should visit them, and received post haste a warm welcome. The
afternoon of his arrival at the colony found the entire population drawn
up on the platform, a southern Colonel at the head of the deputation.
The train rolls up, a first-class compartment door opens, a gentleman
steps out with a suitcase, and walks up to the Colonel with outstretched
hand. It was the consul—but a consul as black as the ace of spades.
It is said that the Colonel, rising nobly to the occasion, gasped once,
shook the hand of the consul, and that he and the other southerners gave
the official the time of his life; but when he departed they vowed that
never, never again would they trust a Democratic administration....
There are a few descendants of this group who have attained true
distinction in Brazil and genuinely work for the land of their adoption.
It was after the dwindling of the flow of German incomers about 1860
that a steady stream of Italians was directed towards Brazil. Their
wooing was in a great measure due to the systematized efforts of the
coffee-growers of S. Paulo state, and, after the establishment of the
republic in 1889, of the state authorities. Workers from North Italy
were found to be those who best suited the needs of conditions of the
coffee industry, and to this part of Europe were directed the attentions
of recruiting agents. Laborious, serious, economical, bent upon
acquiring a little fortune, the Italians came with their wives and
families, accepted their position as _colonos_ upon the great estates,
never very ardently attached to one particular piece of soil, and ready
to pick up and move on wherever advantageous conditions beckoned.
[Illustration:
_Agriculture in S. Paulo State._
Cutting sugar cane.
Rice cultivation.
Coffee gathering.
]
From the year 1820 to the end of 1919, a total of one million, three
hundred and seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six
Italians have officially entered Brazil as immigrants. With their
children born in Brazil they total well over two millions today, greatly
out-numbering any other entering race. Their colonization has been a
marked success, due not only to their personal characteristics, but to
the just treatment given them by the authorities. There was a time, soon
after the abolition of slavery, when the _colonos_ brought in to fill
labour gaps complained of the relations between themselves and the
_fazendeiros_; realizing that the existence of friction and subsequent
scandals would defeat their object, the São Paulo Government put
machinery into working order, known as the _Patronato Agricola_ which
adjusted differences, looked into social conditions, and took in hand
the work of giving medical care and schooling to immigrants. The Italian
has remained upon coffee fazendas, acquired land and coffee trees of his
own or taken up commercial work in the towns, rather than remained in
_nucleos_; he has identified himself with the modern progress of South
Brazil, taken up manufacturing, built himself some of the most splendid
and extravagant houses in São Paulo city, famed as it is for luxurious
dwellings; the Avenida Paulista, pride of São Paulo, was “built on
coffee,” and much of the wealth displayed there is Italian wealth,
created during the last twenty-five years. The year of greatest
immigration in Brazil is said to have been that of 1891 when out of a
total of nearly two hundred and seventy-six thousand, about one hundred
and sixteen thousand were Italians; their influence upon prosperity in
São Paulo may be estimated by the fact that more than one million out of
the State’s three million population are of Italian blood. No other
state has so systematized immigration, perhaps because none had the
pressing need and the immediate rewards to offer, as has São Paulo; she
no longer pays passages on steamships, but she maintains free hotels in
Santos and São Paulo city, where five meals a day are given, good airy
rooms, baths, etc., and where immigrants are lodged for a week or until
work is found.
Preponderant as are the numbers of Italians, they are by no means the
only southern settlers of the last fifty years; Poles and Russians came
in notable quantities in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s, settling in
the Paraná uplands as well as in _nucleos_ in São Paulo. At the end of
the century there were two thousand Russo-Germans from the Volga,
farming land on methods of their own in the neighbourhood of Curityba;
an obstinate folk, they insisted upon tilling prairies like their own
steppes instead of choosing forestal land, shared all goods on the
Russian communistic plan, and gave the Brazilian authorities so much
trouble that there must have been sighs of relief when bodies of them
deserted the _nucleos_ and demanded to be sent back to Russia. From
those who stayed has grown up the tribe of Russian carters who do the
road-transportation work of the high Paraná plateau; there are groups of
farmers, too, both Russians and Poles, who share land in common and are
raisers of wheat, their favourite rye, and other cereals; some have
taken up the business of gathering and curing _matte_, the “tea” which
South Brazil grows and exports to the Argentine.
There is one specially thriving Russian settlement to be seen in São
Paulo state, at Nova Odessa; the wooden buildings are Russian in type,
the tall churches are like pictures from a traveller’s Russian notebook,
and the institution of the samovar and the huge family stove is clung
to. These people are great lovers of land, and its possession has
contented them; as yet there is little mingling with the social or
political life of Brazil.
The system under which land is made over to colonists demands more
explanation than space permits; São Paulo, briefly, only sanctions the
establishment of _nucleos_ near a railway line or navigable river, with
an eye to marketing, and has inserted colonization clauses in more than
one railroad concession to help develop these settlements along the
route; lots are never, originally, of more than fifty hectares, and may
be half this size if quite close to rail or river; “urban” lots are
granted to settlers with money in hand to start a business, and “rural”
lots to intending agriculturists; nobody can obtain a lot unless he has
a wife and family, but sons twenty-one years old can also obtain grants
while bachelors; payments are made on easy terms, generally at the end
of each harvest for five successive years, prices varying according to
locality from a few milreis to a couple of hundred per hectare—roughly
speaking; I have never heard of unfeeling treatment in cases where
settlers are unable to keep up payments in bad years, but encountered
many stories of help given by the authorities. When the male head of a
family dies before payments are complete, the widow and family are
handed clear titles if three-quarters of the debt has been liquidated,
and if ability to continue work is demonstrated; if not, the family is
sent back to Europe at State expense. Rebates of ten per cent are given
to settlers able to pay on taking up land.
Following this plan, it happens that for several years after the
foundation of a new centre the colony is in debt, becoming _emancipado_
as the obligations are paid off; São Paulo state is dotted with pleasant
examples of these “emancipated” colonies, today flourishing agricultural
regions well-farmed by the industrious and ambitious Europeans, adding
enormously to the productivity of the State. At the end of 1915 the
State was acting as god-mother to half a score of _nucleos_, of which
the most promising are Campos Salles, Jorge Tibirçia, Nova Europa, Nova
Veneza, Gavião Peixoto, and the Martinho Prado group. In the same year,
the President’s message states, two hundred and ninety-three colonists
completed payments on their lots and received definite titles in place
of the provisionary ones first issued: over one hundred and eighty-five
contos was paid on lots. “The total population still under State
administration is 13,793 persons, who occupy an area of 54,666 hectares;
of these over 14,000 are in cultivation, yielding produce worth 1800
contos of reis last year,” said Dr. Altino Arantes (July, 1916). Twenty
thousand people came into the state in 1915, of whom six thousand were
Portuguese, four thousand Spanish and four thousand Italian; this is but
twenty per cent of pre-war average immigration to S. Paulo.
In the course of years very many colonies have developed into regular
towns, long since “emancipated;” São Bernardo, Sabaúna and Bom Successo
are notable instances, while the capital city itself has reached out and
absorbed _nucleo_ hangers-on to her spreading petticoats.
One of the interesting recent experiments of São Paulo was the cession
of some twelve million acres of coastal land to a Japanese company with
the object of creating an agricultural colony with Oriental brains and
labour. The organizing syndicate, with the approval of the Japanese
Government, was formed in Tokio in 1913, used Japanese capital,
emigrants and ships, and has already settled several thousand people.
Studied preparations and soil experiments were made before any colonists
were carried over. Practical results so far have included a large
addition to Brazil’s production of rice, while the resurrection of the
once flourishing tea industry is also said to be in sight. This Japanese
colony is notable for its tactful introduction: wishing to avoid even
the chance of friction, the organizers stipulated its location in a spot
which, able to communicate by water with markets, does not rub shoulders
with other centres of population. Iguape is reached either by small
steamers from Santos, or by rail from Santos to a spot on the river
Iguape communicating with the colony by riverine boats, but little is
heard of the Japanese settlement in São Paulo; they live to themselves
and their chief appearance is in statistical reports. Besides the
members of this agricultural colony there are at least another eight or
ten thousand Japanese in Brazil, chiefly house servants, greatly liked
for their quick, sophisticated resource.
Apart from the serious, long-continued work of the São Paulo authorities
to win labour from abroad, there is still a remarkable amount of support
given to immigration by the Federal Government; _nucleos_ to the number
of twenty are supervised by the authorities, seven of which have been
“emancipated” while thirteen are still paying for their allotments. The
seven free centres, Tayó, Ivahy, Jesuino Marcondes, Itapará, Iraty and
Vera-Guarany, in Paraná, and Affonso Penna in Espirito Santo, contain
nearly 33,000 persons, the remaining thirteen counting 19,000 persons:
together the colonies had an agricultural yield in 1915 worth 14,223
contos of reis, and own livestock valued at 2,427 contos.
The State of Minas Geraes has made repeated efforts to encourage
immigration and spent large sums upon propaganda and the establishment
of _nucleos_. She has under supervision sixteen state colonies, with a
total population of 26,000 persons, agricultural production from the
lands under cultivation amounting in 1915 to the value of 3,155 contos
of reis. There are also within the state borders two Federal colonies,
one of which, João Pinheiro, has freed itself from indebtedness and is
on the way to become an important agricultural and stock-raising centre;
these two _nucleos_ contain over two thousand persons.
In Rio Grande do Sul colonization has been seriously checked since 1913,
but there are two important centres under State control which call for
mention: one is the Guarany _nucleo_, in existence for a quarter of a
century but counting only 25,000 inhabitants because it is off the line
of communication with state markets; its position is strikingly
contrasted with the Erechim colony, six years old, planted on the Rio
Grande-S. Paulo railway line when the latter was opened to traffic, and
which today has over 30,000 population grouped in six or seven bright
little villages.
In 1915, when entries from abroad were checked on account of the war in
Europe there were still immigrants from Portugal to the number of
15,000, 6,000 Italians, nearly as many Spanish, 600 Russians and 500
“Turco-Arabs:” also some two thousand Brazilians were moved from the
“scourged” districts of the rainless north and sent south. From 1820 to
the end of 1919 the number of immigrants entering Brazil has been as
follows:—
Italians 1,378,876
Portuguese 1,021,271
Spaniards 500,378
Germans 127,321
Russians 105,225
Austrians 79,302
Turk-Arabs 54,120
French 29,665
British 28,798
Japanese 18,402
Swiss 11,376
Swedes 5,502
Belgians 5,289
In addition, official lists give another 200,000 of “diversas”
nationalities and a margin must also be allowed for persons who did not
enter as immigrants.
Where is the future immigrant of Brazil to come from, and to what part
of the country is he to go? I have put this question frequently to
Brazilians, and have almost invariably received an answer to this
effect: “We want white immigrants, and they can settle healthily either
in the cool south of Brazil or on the high interior uplands.” The
sertões of Matto Grosso and Goyaz will not attract foreign settlers
until there is better communication; the land is there, but the markets
are not available. But there is land and to spare still in São Paulo
with its network of railways and good riverways, and there is excellent
cereal and cattle land in Paraná, Santa Catharina and Rio Grande do Sul,
for the northern-born, who cannot face a semi-tropical climate: for him
who can face it—as the Texas cotton grower should do—there are extensive
regions farther north in Pernambuco and her sister states. The extreme
north is not fitted for white, Anglo-Saxon or Latin, families, and
although single men can live healthily in such latitudes for many years,
the life of such tropic exiles is not good for the individual or for
society. Coloured or Asiatic colonists have been suggested for the
Amazonian valley, but it is at least doubtful whether the Brazilian
Government would favour such plans, or whether, in view of the fertility
of the native population, such introductions would be necessary; saving
babies by improved sanitation would solve the problem better than any
other method of populating.
The question of where white immigration is to come from is a difficult
one; after the close of the European War, there was an exodus from
Russia and the most troubled regions of Central Europe. But on the other
hand the formation of new States created an appeal to national feeling
that kept at home as creative builders many men who would otherwise have
been, probably, among the emigrants. São Paulo received in 1920 nearly
45,000 immigrants, the bulk of all entrants, and has added considerably
to the southerly Japanese colonies producing rice, silk and tea; and the
conclusion, in late 1921, of an emigration treaty between Brazil and
Italy immediately set flowing a strong tide of Italian workers.
Many ex-service men with camp experiences are still looking about them
for the country offering most to farmers and stock-raisers. To such men
there are few parts of the world which offer as much as does Brazil,
with her sincere invitation to foreigners, square dealing, stability,
and rewards for enterprise. The lack of development along certain
definite lines is Brazil’s best recommendation to the enterprising and
persistent.
No seeker after _dolce far niente_ should come here. No thought of
tropic paradises should obscure the vision of the newcomer. Brazil is a
good country for the worker, with wide southern lands where careful
cultivation will bring excellent results; it is a really free country of
tolerant views as well as of wide spaces. The foreigner who comes here
to work, to develop, will feel himself remarkably soon at home in a
friendly atmosphere, and if he cares to identify himself with
progressive movements he will be warmly welcomed; a very long list could
be made up of high-class foreigners who have attained not only to wealth
but to positions which proved the open mind and confidence of the
Brazilian authorities. Naturalized foreigners are eligible to the
legislative assemblies of Brazil, and whether naturalized or not
foreigners enjoy precisely the same rights and privileges as Brazilians
before the law.
[Illustration:
The Barra Road, Upper City, Bahia.
Resaca along the Avenida Beira Mar, Rio; Morro da Gloria in
background.
On the Upper Amazon.
]
For the mining engineer, the stock-raiser, the expert agriculturist, the
fruit-grower, there is plenty of room in Brazil; along certain special
lines his work is much wanted, and he can look forward to getting a
better return for his investment of personality and cash than in most
places in a world that has not many great untouched spaces left. The
pioneer, hardy and determined, has still a chance in Brazil.