EARLY COLONISATION
The permanent settlement of Brazil was begun by deserters and mutineers
set on shore from ships on their way to India or to cut brazil-wood. In
1509 a certain Diego Alvarez, nicknamed by the Indians "Caramuru," or
"man of lightning," landed at Bahia and escaped being eaten by
frightening the Indians with his musket. He married a chief's daughter,
and when a real colony was established years later he and his numerous
half-breed descendants proved of great use to his compatriots. Two years
later John Ramalho did much the same near Santos, hundreds of miles to
the south. The story of the last of the three authentic _degradados_ is
even more romantic. His name was Aleixo Garcia, and with three
companions he landed about 1526 in the present state of Santa Catharina.
Collecting an army of Indians he led them on a conquering and
gold-hunting expedition over the coast-range, across the great plateau,
into the valley of the Paraguay, and even penetrated ten years before
Pizarro into territory tributary to the Incas of Peru. He finally
perished in the centre of the continent, but when, years afterwards, the
Spaniards penetrated the valley of the Parana they found that the
Indians already knew of white men and firearms.
As early as 1516 the Portuguese government offered to give farming
utensils free to settlers in Brazil, and it is probable that shortly
afterwards some sugar was planted. The first serious and official effort
to cultivate sugar was made in 1526. Christovao Jaques founded a factory
on the island of Itamarica, a few miles north of Pernambuco. It was
shortly destroyed by the French brazil-wood hunters, and the settlers
fled to the site of Pernambuco and renewed the effort pending the
arrival of re-enforcements. Seekers of brazil-wood hailing from Honfleur
and Dieppe were swarming along the coast. The value of the region for
sugar raising began to be appreciated. When the news came of the failure
of the Spanish expedition which Cabot had led to the Plate, the
Portuguese government determined to fit out a considerable expedition,
composed of colonists and families as well as soldiers and adventurers.
Seduced by the cry, "We are going to the Silver River," four hundred
persons enlisted. The five vessels were commanded by Martim Affonso da
Souza, a great general and navigator, who had already proved his
capacity and who later went to the very top in the East Indian wars. He
was instructed to expel all intruders and establish a permanent
fortified colony. Early in 1531 he reached the coast near Pernambuco,
captured three French ships laden with brazil-wood, and sent two
caravels north to explore the coast beyond Cape St. Roque, while he
himself sailed south with the idea of founding a colony on the Plate.
But after passing Santa Catharina he was unfortunate in losing his
largest ship with most of his provisions, and deemed it safer to return
toward the north. At Sao Vicente, now a little town near the great
coffee port of Santos, he dropped anchor, and there, January, 1532,
founded the first Portuguese colony in Brazil. Near this point lived the
solitary Portuguese, John Ramalho, surrounded by his half-breed
descendants, and he gave his countrymen a glad reception. He soon showed
them the way up the mountains to the high plateau which begins only a
few miles from the sea. Another settlement was founded on these fertile
plains near the site of the present city of Sao Paulo.
In the west of Brazil the settlements were established at a striking
distance from the coast, but in Sao Paulo the colonists could more
easily spread over the open plains of the interior than along the
mountainous coast. On top of their plateau they were cut off from ready
communication with the mother country; they struck out for themselves,
and their development was something like that of the British in North
America. They were the pioneers of Brazil, corresponding closely in
character and habits, in the virtues of daring, hospitality, and
self-confidence, and in the vices of cruelty, rudeness, and ignorance,
with the pioneers of the Mississippi valley.
The Paulistas were all profoundly influenced by their intimate
association with the Indian tribes. In the early days intermarriages
were frequent, but the continual re-enforcement of the European
element, and the inferiority in capacity of reproduction which the
Indian has shown in Brazil, make the traces of that intermixture hard to
discover at the present time. The Paulistas and their descendants in the
interior states are taller, slenderer, darker, and more active and
graceful than the modern Portuguese. Their hands and feet are smaller,
their movements more nervous, their manners more self-confident.
The successful founding of a considerable colony in Brazil aroused
interest at home, and many courtiers solicited the Crown for grants. It
was decided to partition the whole coast into feudal fiefs, each
proprietor undertaking the expenses of colonisation and being given
virtually sovereign powers in return for a tax on the expected
production. Each of these "captaincies" measured fifty leagues along the
coast, and extended indefinitely into the interior. In 1534 twelve such
fiefs were created, covering the whole coast from the mouth of the
Amazon to the island of Santa Catharina--these being the points where
the Tordesillas line met the seaboard.
Six of these proprietors succeeded in establishing permanent colonies.
Martim Affonso's settlement has already been described. In 1536 his
brother, Pero Lopes, established Santo Amaro within a few miles of Sao
Vicente. Naturally its history soon became confounded with that of the
larger settlement. Duarte Coelho founded Pernambuco in 1535, and in it
was soon absorbed Itamarica, the second of the two colonies founded by
Pero Lopes in 1536. The other three permanent settlements were
Victoria, the nucleus of the present state of Espirito Santo, Porto
Seguro, and Ilheos. No one of them prospered, and their territories are
still among the most backward parts of the Brazilian coast. The donatory
of the territory which included the bay of Bahia, started a town, but it
was destroyed by Indians. The other five captaincies were not taken hold
of seriously by their proprietors. The four nuclei for the settlement of
Brazil were Sao Paulo, Pernambuco, and the later colonies of Bahia and
Rio de Janeiro.
Martim Affonso recked little of his fief or its revenues and left his
Paulistas to work out their own destiny. Pernambuco was on the track of
every ship which came to South America, the neighbouring interior was
level and easily accessible from the coast, the soil and climate were
suitable for sugar, and from the beginning relations with the mother
country were intimate and continuous. Its proprietor, Duarte Coelho,
determined to devote himself to his colony, and he personally headed a
numerous and carefully selected colonising expedition. He spent the rest
of his life there, and died twenty years later, surrounded by a large
and prosperous colony, which was already a self-supporting state with
all the elements of permanence. A good business man and liberal for that
age, he granted land on easy terms; its possession was secure;
contributions were moderate; and he resolutely defended himself and his
grantees from the exactions of the Crown.
The Portuguese occupation of Brazil was induced solely by commercial
considerations. Explorers and emigrants went out to make their fortunes,
not to escape religious or political tyranny. When the first voyagers
were disappointed in not finding gold mines, they turned their attention
to brazil-wood. Soon the suitability of the territory for sugar was
discovered. The European demand for this luxury was increasing, and the
Portuguese had become familiar with its culture in Africa. Cane was
taken from Madeira and the Cape Verdes to Brazil before 1525, and there
is a record of exportation at least as early as 1526. Here was found the
basis for the real colonisation. From the very start the industry
prospered in Pernambuco, and Brazil became the main source of the
world's supply.
Near Pernambuco little trouble was experienced with the Indians. Many of
the tribes were allies of the Portuguese, though the fierce Aymores
fought the settlers and once reduced the infant colony to the verge of
destruction. Although the law of Portugal forbade the enslavement of
Indians except as a punishment for crime, they were reduced to bondage
on a large scale in Pernambuco, and the Paulistas never paid any
attention to this prohibition.
By the middle of the sixteenth century Brazil contained one rapidly
expanding colony of sugar-planters, Pernambuco, which gave sure promise
of wealth if not attacked from without,--a half dozen moribund
settlements on the thousand miles of coast to the south, and an isolated
but vigorous and self-sufficing group in Sao Paulo, whose inhabitants
produced little for export, but who were reducing the aborigines to
slavery in an expanding circle. In the last there was a considerable
proportion of Indian blood and in the first a large number of negroes.
The smaller captaincies were little more than resorts for pirates and
contraband traders in brazil-wood. The settlers were powerless to
prevent the French expeditions which yearly became more numerous.
Serious apprehensions were felt that the French would occupy the coast
and make Brazil a basis for attacks on Portugal's African and Indian
empires.
The best blood of the Portuguese nation was being drained away in
exhausting wars and expeditions to India and Africa; absolute government
was sapping civic vitality; the extravagances of Court and nobles were
impoverishing the country. However, enough vitality remained, before the
terrific destruction of Portuguese power and pride at Alcacer-Kibir in
1580, to secure such a firm establishment of the Portuguese race on the
whole coast of Brazil that it never has been dislodged, and only once
seriously threatened. This result was largely due to the founding of a
strong military and naval post at Bahia, around which grew up a
prosperous colony, and under whose protection Pernambuco spread out over
the north-east coast, Sao Paulo developed uninterruptedly, and Rio Bay
was saved from the French.
The first proprietary settlement in Bahia Bay had been destroyed by the
Indians, but this magnificent and central harbour was manifestly the
most convenient point whence to send assistance to the other
settlements and guard the whole coast. In 1549 the king determined to
build a fortress and city there. Thomas de Souza, the illegitimate scion
of a great house, was chosen the first governor-general. He sailed in
April, 1549, with six vessels, and accompanied by three hundred and
twenty officials and a number of colonists. The new capital commanded
the entrance to a magnificent inland sea which offered splendid
facilities for the establishment of a flourishing state. Bahia Bay is
nearly a hundred miles in circumference; its shores are fertile and
penetrated by rivers; each plantation has its own wharves. Within a few
months a town of a hundred houses had been built, surrounded by a wall
and defended by batteries; a cathedral, a custom house, a Jesuit
college, and a governor's residence were under way.
Thomas de Souza was instructed to strike at the root of the difficulties
that were supposed to have prevented the success of the proprietary
captaincies. He was the direct representative of the king and had
supreme supervisory power. Other officers, however, were associated with
him who were independently responsible in judicial, financial, and naval
matters. He was closely bound by instructions covering every detail that
could be foreseen, and these instructions clearly show the centralising
and jealous spirit of Portuguese institutions and ideas.
Few Portuguese of that age were capable of rising to an appreciation of
the economical advantages of freedom. The liberal concessions to the
original proprietors--free trade with the mother country, the right of
communication with foreign countries, and judicial and administrative
independence--availed nothing. Neither colonists, proprietors, nor the
central government could understand or apply them. Brazil was subjected
to a systematic and continually more rigorous exploitation by the home
government, and to the irresponsible and uncontrolled military despotism
of little satraps.
[Illustration: BAHIA.]
In Bahia, as in Pernambuco, the sugar industry prospered from the
beginning. Bahia is close to Africa and navigation across is safe and
easy. The importation of blacks began immediately, and the port
continued to be the greatest _entrepot_ and distributing point for the
trade during three centuries. Bahia's population is more largely black
than that of any other city in Brazil, and the pure African type is
frequently seen on its streets. The local cuisine includes many dishes
of African origin, and the local dialect many African words. Certain
African dialects are spoken to this day, and a few Mohammedan negroes
there still perform the rites of the Koran in the most absolute secrecy.
The municipal government of the town, though under the overshadowing
power of the governor, showed some vitality and independence. The
fertile island of Itaparica, just opposite the city, had been granted to
the mother of a minister. Though the donation was repeatedly confirmed
by the king himself, she and her heirs were never able to put their
agents in possession. The municipal council successfully insisted that
the original royal instructions to the governor required all grantees to
occupy their estates in person.