GOLD DISCOVERIES--REVOLTS--FRENCH ATTACKS
The early attempts to find gold and silver had not been successful. A
little gold was found in Sao Paulo in the sixteenth century, but no
great discoveries were made until nearly the end of the seventeenth. The
Paulistas, who scoured the interior in their slave-hunts, occasionally
came across indications of gold, and rumours constantly reached the
coast. But for a long time the Paulistas failed, either through
ignorance or design, to give sufficiently exact information. After 1670
the rumours became so circumstantial that no doubt was felt that the
mountain ranges around the headwaters of the Sao Francisco River were
gold-bearing. Stimulated by government promises of liberal treatment,
the Paulistas undertook the hunt in earnest. About 1690 they found the
rich gold washings of Sabara, where to-day is one of the great mines of
the world--the Morro Velho. This is three hundred miles directly north
of Rio. In 1693, Antonio Arzao, a Paulista, penetrated west from this
region to the seacoast at Victoria, bringing with him native gold in
large nuggets. These were sent to Portugal and created intense
excitement. The Paulistas followed up these first discoveries by soon
finding half a dozen other fields--all of them yielding gold in
abundance to the crudest processes. A rush started that threatened to
depopulate the seacoast and even Portugal itself. The find was the
greatest gold discovery which had been made in the history of the world
up to that time. The one province of Minas Geraes produced seven million
five hundred thousand ounces within the first fifty years, and its total
product to the present time has been twenty-five million ounces.
The Paulista discoverers of the mines soon became involved in quarrels
with the swarms of adventurers who poured in from Portugal. The
government at first did not establish any regular control over the
mining region, and disputes arose between the old and new comers as to
proprietorship of claims. Anarchy and civil war ensued, but the foreign
element, nicknamed the "emboabas," came out on top with a strong man,
Nunes Vianna, at the head of affairs. He became the virtual ruler of the
region, and the Portuguese authorities at Rio, seeing their perquisites
endangered, tried to get rid of him by force. They were unsuccessful,
but finally managed to seduce his followers and secure a recognition of
their own paramount authority by solemn promises to concede the
reasonable demands of the miners. These promises were not kept. Vianna,
though he had been induced to surrender on assurances that his life
would be spared, was assassinated.
The mining laws, at first liberal, were narrowed until exploration was
discouraged and production oppressed. For years the authorities tried to
collect a fixed amount for each slave employed--a provision which
discouraged searches for new deposits. Then the system of requiring all
gold to be taken to government melting-houses was enforced. Export in
dust or nuggets was forbidden, and no gold was allowed in circulation
except that which bore the government stamp showing it had paid the
king's fifth. This involved the searching of every traveller's pockets
and the posting of detachments of soldiers at every crossroads. So
oppressive and inconvenient was this that finally the chief miners and
municipal authorities agreed to be responsible for a lump sum yearly.
The war of the emboabas ended in 1709, but troubles broke out in the
mining regions from time to time down to the end of the colonial period.
These struggles for local self-government--for the right to exist--were
not confined to Minas. In various forms and at various times they were
repeated in most of the provinces, and a strong belief in local autonomy
never died out, though for long periods it was apparently crushed out of
existence.
Simultaneously with the overthrow of the semi-independent government of
Minas, which had been set up by the emboabas, a civil war broke out in
the old province of Pernambuco. This was a struggle of the oligarchy of
native Brazilian sugar-planters against the rigorous and corrupt rule of
the royal governors and against the encroachments of the newly arrived
Portuguese. Then, as now, foreigners conducted the trade of Brazil; the
Brazilian aristocrats remained on their plantations, disdaining the
small economies and anxieties of commerce. The Portuguese were the
peddlers, shopkeepers, and money-lenders for the community, as well as
the officials of the government. In both capacities they pressed hard on
the extravagant Brazilians. Olinda, the old capital, was the
headquarters of the latter. Recife, three miles south, was the port and
chiefly inhabited by native Portuguese. It had outrun Olinda during the
Dutch occupation, but was legally only an administrative dependency of
the older and smaller town. In 1709 the Portuguese government made
Recife a separate city--a step which was bitterly resented by the
Brazilians and especially by the close corporation of native families
who controlled the Olinda municipal government. Hostilities broke out
between them and the governor. Two thousand Pernambucanos invaded
Recife; the troops deserted and the governor fled for his life, while
the royal charter to Recife was torn to bits by the mob. The heads of
the insurrection met to determine what form of government should be
adopted. Bernardo Vieira, the best soldier in the colony, proposed that
a republic should be founded on the plan of Venice, probably the first
time a republic was ever advocated on American soil. The proposition met
with much favour, but the conservatives shrank from so radical a
departure. The bishop was made acting-governor, but his hand proved not
firm enough to control the divergent interests and ambitions. The
Portuguese--"mascates" they were called--revolted in their turn and
drove him from Recife. The Pernambucanos besieged the place, but the
loss of the seaport was a heavy blow. The Olinda oligarchy was not able
to secure the co-operation of the smaller municipalities, and civil war
spread throughout the province. When a new governor appeared with a
commission from the king, he had little difficulty, by promises of fair
treatment, in inducing all parties to lay down their arms. No sooner,
however, was he safely in power than he imprisoned and banished the
chiefs of the revolt, especially selecting those who had favoured an
independent republic.
All three great revolts--Beckman's in Maranhao, that of the emboabas in
Minas, and the Olinda rebellion of 1710--followed substantially the same
course. Local feeling was strong enough to sweep all before it for a
time, but lack of capacity for organisation, intestine quarrels, want of
persistency, soon enabled the Portuguese officials to re-establish
themselves more firmly than ever.
Meanwhile Portugal had become involved in the War of the Spanish
Succession. Colonia was again captured by the Spanish of Buenos Aires,
and though it was restored at the end of the war its trade was never so
prosperous afterwards. In the Upper Amazon Spanish Jesuits had come down
from Quito, but the Portuguese expelled them, thereby confirming
Portugal's title as far as the foothills of the Andes. The Spaniards of
the eighteenth century no more than the Peruvians and Bolivians of the
nineteenth were able to cope with the difficulties of transit from the
Pacific side of the mountains. Portugal's effective possession reached
to the 70th meridian from Greenwich--sixteen hundred miles west of the
Tordesillas line.
Rio was the only important Brazilian port which had escaped attack by
hostile fleets during the preceding century, and the discovery of the
gold mines gave a tremendous impetus to its prosperity and wealth. The
only gateway to the mining territory, its population of over twelve
thousand was soon one of the richest and busiest in all America. The
opportunity was too tempting to be neglected by the French
prize-hunters. A daring Frenchman, named Duclerc, appeared before the
city in 1710, but, seeing that he had not ships strong enough to force
the entrance, landed with a thousand marines forty miles down the coast.
They met with no resistance in their march through the woods and arrived
back of the city without loss. Thence they proceeded coolly to charge
into the narrow streets in the face of the artillery fire from the
hilltop forts that surround the city. The audacious enterprise was very
nearly successful. The Portuguese regulars offered no effective
resistance, and the main body of the French penetrated to the very
centre of the city. There they were checked by a little party of
students who had climbed into the governor's palace and were firing out
of the windows. The French finally took the palace by assault, but
meanwhile the city had risen behind them, their scattered detachments
were massacred in detail, and the main body in the palace had to
surrender at discretion. The Portuguese sullied their victory by acts of
mediaeval cruelty--killing most of the prisoners.
The victims did not long remain unavenged. As soon as the news reached
France, Admiral Duguay-Trouin, one of the ablest seamen his nation has
produced, volunteered to lead an expedition to Rio. Wealthy merchants of
St. Malo supplied the money, and in June, 1711, he sailed with seven
line-of-battle ships, six frigates, and four smaller vessels, manned by
five thousand picked men. Secretly as the expedition had been
despatched, the Portuguese had received warning. The garrison had been
re-enforced and the narrow-mouthed harbour and hill-commanded city were
defended by three forts and eleven batteries, besides four ships of the
line and four frigates. Favoured by a foggy morning he ran boldly in,
suffering little loss. Of the Portuguese men-of-war not one escaped.
Fort Villegagnon was blown up by the mismanagement of its garrison, the
Portuguese became demoralised, Trouin put a battery on an unoccupied
island within cannon-shot of the city, and disembarked troops to the
left of the town where a range of hills made it easy to dominate the low
ground. The poor governor knew no better tactics than to let the French
enter the streets and then overpower them in fighting from the houses.
But Trouin was too old a soldier to be caught like his fellow-countrymen
the year before. He coolly advanced his batteries and soon had the town
commanded on three sides; it was only a question of getting his cannon
into position when he could batter the place at his leisure. Panic
extended from the citizens to the soldiers, and a week after the French
had entered the harbour the governor fled ignominiously to the interior,
and the French took possession unopposed.
Revenge and plunder had been the objects of the expedition. It would
have been very difficult for the French to have remained in permanent
possession of the city, and a conquest of the interior, with its large
population and mountainous character, was not to be thought of. The city
was admitted to ransom on giving up the surviving prisoners of the
Duclerc expedition. Duguay-Trouin sailed triumphantly back to France
with a treasure which netted the Norman merchants who had fitted him out
ninety-two per cent. on their investment, in spite of the wrecking of
the biggest ship on the homeward voyage.