EVENTS OF 1849 TO 1864
After the final pacification of the country prosperity came with a rush.
In the six years from 1849 to 1856 foreign commerce more than doubled.
The circulating medium was brought to a sound basis. Coffee had doubled
in value by 1850, and its culture was rapidly extended. The profits of
sugar-raising had not risen in the same proportion, and Rio, Sao Paulo,
and Minas drew slaves from the northern provinces. The decline of mining
in the late years of the eighteenth century and the profitableness of
sugar and tobacco during the great wars had made Maranhao, Pernambuco,
and Bahia overshadow the South for a time, but now the tide turned the
other way. Brazil's drift has ever since been to the South.
The Emperor and government followed an enlightened and vigorous
progressive commercial policy. The subjects of internal communication,
of colonisation, of better steamship facilities, of the opening of
public lands to settlement, of public instruction, of liberal treatment
to foreigners, and of administrative and financial reforms were taken
up intelligently. So far as the government was concerned the suspicious
and jealous exclusive policy was abandoned, and large amounts of foreign
capital began to be invested in commercial houses, preparing the way for
the great government loans and railroad building soon to come. The
British had the lion's share of the importing and the Americans of the
carrying trade.
The history of Brazil for the next few decades contains examples of
devotion, of high-mindedness, and of great capacities worthily employed,
of which any country might well be proud. The higher officials as a rule
left office poorer than they had entered it. However, in the lower ranks
of the magistracy and the government departments there was much to be
desired. The public service became more and more the one career sought
by young men of ability. The mercantile and property-owning classes in
general kept out of politics. Only the landowning and slaveholding
aristocracy owed a nominal allegiance to the two parties whose active
members were the officeholders or those who hoped to become
officeholders. The most promising and prominent young men were selected
from the graduates of the universities, placed in the magistracy, thence
to be promoted to the Chamber of Deputies, and to be governors of
provinces. The final goal was a nomination to the senate, where, from
the dignified security of a life position, the successful Brazilian
politician watched the struggles of those below him.
[Illustration: PAMPAS OF THE RIO GRANDE.]
The bright young magistrates were preoccupied with their own ambitions
and were not responsible to the people of the localities they happened
to be governing for the moment. Real local interests were not studied.
Those who reached the highest positions applied their well-trained minds
to larger problems, but their work was too much from above down--they
produced admirable reports and framed admirable laws, but among the lazy
magistracy and indifferent people the energy to put them into effect was
too often wanting. But the level of political well-being rose
noticeably, though fitfully. The Brazil of 1850 had progressed far
beyond the Brazil of colonial times. Liberty of speech was unquestioned
and unquestionable; arbitrary imprisonment had died out; the grosser
forms of tyranny had vanished; property rights and the administration of
civil justice had much improved. Judges no longer openly received
presents from litigants, though the nation had not risen to the
conception of a judiciary independent of the executive.
In 1850 the Emperor chose a new Conservative Cabinet, which proved the
most efficient the country had known. Its first great act was to abolish
the slave trade.
The year 1850 is also memorable as that in which the yellow fever began
those terrible ravages on the Brazilian coast which have never since
entirely ceased. The first epidemic is said to have been the worst which
ever visited Rio. Two hundred persons fell sick daily, and the wealthier
classes were especially attacked. Among the victims was the great
statesman, Bernardo de Vasconcellos, and many deputies, senators, and
diplomatic representatives. Congress adjourned in terror. In the earlier
epidemics the citizens of Rio were just as susceptible as foreigners.
Later, however, they acquired a relative immunity--an immunity which is
not shared by Brazilians who have lived in non-infected districts.
Brazil and Argentina had agreed in 1828 that Uruguay should be an
independent and neutral buffer state between them. But the Buenos
Aireans never forgot that for geographical and historical reasons
Uruguay naturally belonged to them. Rosas, the Argentine dictator,
assisted the Oribe faction, which openly advocated entering the
confederation, while the Rio Grande Brazilians who owned much property
on the Uruguayan side of the border aided the Rivera faction.
To protect the property interests of its citizens and prevent Rosas from
conquering Uruguay the Brazilian government quietly made military
preparations and formed an alliance with the Rivera party and with
Urquiza, the ruler of the province of Entre Rios, to which the dictator
of Paraguay and the president of Bolivia gave a passive adhesion. It
amounted to a coalition to forestall Rosas's plan of uniting the whole
of the old Viceroyalty and the Plate valley under his rule. Brazil was
virtually the instigator of a combination of the weaker Spanish-American
states against the strongest one.
Urquiza crossed the Uruguay, and with the aid of the Brazilian troops
made short work of Oribe's army, which was besieging Rivera in
Montevideo. Rosas responded with a declaration of war and began
collecting a formidable army. Urquiza resolved to carry the war to the
gates of Buenos Aires. The allies gathered in camp on the left bank of
the Parana, a hundred miles above Rosario, a great army which numbered
four thousand Brazilians, eighteen thousand Argentines, mostly from the
half-Indian provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, and a contingent of
Uruguayans. A Brazilian fleet under Admiral Grenfell had penetrated up
the Parana and protected their crossing of the great river. On the 17th
of December they got safely over the Parana, and out of the low country
of Entre Rios on to the dry pampas of the right bank. Thence they
marched down on Buenos Aires, where Rosas was awaiting them. On the 3rd
of February, 1852, he gave them battle in the suburbs of that city. He
was completely defeated and fled to England.
Brazil found herself in a peculiarly advantageous situation. The war had
cost her little in money or men. Buenos Aires might no longer hope to
dominate the other Argentine provinces, and seemed likely to offer small
resistance to the unified and centralised empire. Uruguay's independence
of Buenos Aires, and Brazil's preponderance in Montevideo were assured.
The Rio Grandenses flocked over the border, bought large amounts of
property, and enjoyed peculiar privileges, while the Uruguayan
government accepted subsidies from that of Brazil.
The country's commercial development continued even more rapidly after
the war. In 1853 the Bank of Brazil was authorised to issue circulating
notes, and the expansion of credit stimulated business. The same year
the Conservative ministry, which had so brilliantly governed the nation
since 1848, was forced to resign on account of the constant interference
by the Emperor. It was replaced by the "Conciliation Cabinet"--whose
chief, the Marquis of Parana, adopted the policy of admitting Liberals
to administrative positions. He remained in power until 1858, and his
name will always be associated with one of the most prosperous epochs in
Brazilian history. The first railway systems were inaugurated; the
receipts of the treasury grew fifty per cent.; European immigration
amounted to twenty thousand a year; private wealth and luxury
increased; and numerous theatres, balls, and social reunions furnished
an indication of the rise of the level of culture.
One of Brazil's reasons for entering on the war against Rosas was to
open up the navigation of the Paraguay, Parana, and Uruguay, upon which
she depended for access to a large part of her territory. The treaties
made at the conclusion of the war assured, against her protest, free
navigation to all nations. Brazil has intermittently attempted to
confine the navigation of the international rivers of South America to
the nations having territory on their banks.
Parana's "conciliation" policy seems to have suited the Emperor very
well, although it tended to hamper the development of two great parties
in clearly defined opposition to each other. The elections came more and
more under the control of the bureaucracy and were mere ratifications of
selections made by the ministers. Congress lost rather than gained in
influence, and the whole system became steadily more centripetal.
[Illustration: OLD MARKET IN SAO PAULO.]
From 1849 the country had been having prosperous times, but in 1856 the
inevitable commercial crisis came. Prosperity had brought about
extravagances in governmental administration; the budgets showed
deficits; foreign loans were resorted to; the currency fluctuated
violently. Brazil entered upon seven lean years, during which foreign
trade remained stationary, the revenues increased only at the cost of
heavy impositions, and the public debt grew. With the death of the
Marquis of Parana in 1858 the regular Conservatives returned to power.
He had been the dominant figure in politics since the Regency, and his
personal prestige and the confidence the Emperor reposed in him had had
much to do with holding the government together during the panic. But
the new ministry could not make headway against the difficulties. A new
currency law was necessary, but the mercantile and speculating classes
bitterly opposed the rigid measures proposed by successive Cabinets.
Parana's neutral policy had given the opposition a hold in some of the
most important provinces, and the following elections showed a vast
increase in the number of Liberals and of dissident Conservatives.
Conservative Cabinets succeeded each other rapidly from 1858 to 1862.
The opposition to a contraction of the currency grew in force, and the
dissidents and Liberals finally obtained a majority. The Emperor at last
called upon the leader of the dissident Conservatives--Zacarias--to form
a government. But he was as powerless as his predecessors, and as a last
resort the Emperor temporarily gave up the effort to govern after the
English system, and selected a Cabinet outside of the Chamber of
Deputies.
The elections of 1863 resulted in a complete defeat of the
Conservatives, but the victorious Liberals did not need to pass any
radical currency legislation. Hard times had disappeared by the
operation of natural law. The bank-notes approached par and the budgets
nearly balanced. With 1864 the country entered upon a new era of
prosperity. The production of coffee had doubled from 1840 to 1851, and
then had remained stationary. But with the cessation of the Civil War in
the United States an era of high prices was inaugurated which coincided
with Brazil's financial rehabilitation, and stimulated planting.
Although real activity in the building of railroads did not begin until
after the Paraguayan war, four short lines had been started before 1862.
The years of peace and order had disaccustomed the people to the thought
of violence, and a steady advance had been made toward government by
law. The highly educated statesmen placed by the Emperor at the head of
affairs understood the most important principles of good government and
tried conscientiously to put them in practice. In transportation,
banking, posts, and telegraphs, commercial methods, etc., the
improvements of modern civilisation were easily introduced, though in
agriculture the indolence of proprietors and the apathetic ignorance of
the slaves prevented any rapid advance.
On the whole, Brazil had made greater political and industrial progress
when the Paraguayan war broke out than any other South American country,
though grave vices remained to hamper her further development. The mass
of the people were apathetic and ignorant; slavery tended to discredit
industrious habits, at best so difficult to maintain in the tropics; the
upper classes showed little interest in or aptitude for commercial
matters: commerce, banking, railroads, mining, and engineering prospered
only where foreigners personally engaged in them. The people themselves,
in spite of the enlightenment of the educated classes, showed little
initiative or energy.