|
Brazil Early Colonization
Early Colonization
On April 22, 1500, the thirteen-ship fleet under Pedro Álvares
Cabral anchored off the mouth of the Rio Buranhém (sweet
bark in Tupí) on the Bahian coast. The chronicler of the
discovery, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, wrote that immediately they
saw men walking on the beach, and by the time a longboat reached
the shore twenty or so had assembled. Entirely naked and dark skinned,
they laid down their bows and arrows as a sign of peace, while responding
to offers of Portuguese hats by giving over a parrot-feathered headdress
and a long string of white seed pearls. Thus did the cultural exchange
begin that would evolve over the next five centuries into the distinctive
Brazilian culture.
In the nine days that the Portuguese stayed at the anchorage they
called Porto Seguro, the natives were fascinated by the Catholic
Mass, the iron tools, and alcoholic drink. Their seeming receptivity
and lack of religious symbols that the Portuguese could understand
caused Caminha to predict that these people quickly would turn Christian.
The natives helped fill a ship with fine-grained timber, dyewood,
and presumably some of the buranhém wood or bark that gave
the river its name. Cabral sent the ship back to Lisbon with Caminha's
oft-quoted letter to the king, the first report on Brazil to reach
Europe. As the rest of the fleet set sail from what Cabral called
the Island of Vera Cruz for the Cape of Good Hope, two male convicts
were left on the shore. Rather than execute such degredados (outcasts;
see Glossary), the Portuguese were instinctively creating an advance
guard that would learn the local language and via intermarriage
would give them in another generation the means to penetrate both
the indigenous societies and the Brazilian land mass.
After so many years of remarkable contacts with newly discovered
lands, the Portuguese were a bit blasé about the news of
this land of parrots, naked people, and brazilwood. At that time,
peppers, spices, and silks were worth more than such exotica, and
those products came from India and lands farther east.
With the exception of the New Christian (Jewish converts) investors,
Brazil received little attention from Lisbon for three decades.
The investors scouted and defended the coast and shared with the
crown their monopoly contracts to harvest the brazilwood. The Portuguese
monarchs followed the practice of holding legal title to lands and
to certain commodities but issuing to others licenses to profit
from these lands and commodities at their own expense, or with the
backing of other investors. The custom was akin to the Castilian
practice of adelantado (awarding of conquistador status--see Glossary)
that developed during the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from
the Moors, whereby the crown commissioned an agent to conquer a
certain area at his own expense in return for rights to land, booty,
and labor. The combination of royal licenses and private initiative
that worked so well for Portugal along the African coast and in
India was reshaped for Brazil.
But soon other Europeans were challenging Portugal's claims to
exclusivity. Spanish captains edged their ships down the coast and
up the Río de la Plata. From 1504 onward, French vessels
from Brittany, Flanders, and Normandy were active in the dyewood
trade. The reddish-purple dyes made from the wood brought good prices
from tapestry and textile makers, and the French court ignored Portuguese
protests. The Portuguese sent out naval expeditions to destroy French
vessels and outposts, but by 1530 it was clear that mounting an
effective coast guard along thousands of kilometers with countless
coves, anchorages, and bays would be impossible; Portugal either
had to take active possession or lose out to more interested rivals.
Portugal took two steps, one immediate and the other long term.
It dispatched a strong fleet under the command of Martim Afonso
de Sousa, who was instructed to clear the coast of interlopers and
to establish a permanent settlement. The result was Brazil's first
European town, São Vicente, established in 1532.
The crown also may have wanted to follow up on the adventure in
1524 of Aleixo Garcia, a Portuguese shipwrecked on the southern
coast who led about 2,000 Guaraní on a raid against Inca
border towns in what is now Bolivia. Sousa sent a government-sponsored
expedition (entrada ) back over Garcia's route, only to meet death
at the hands of the Carijó tribe of Indians. Such feeble
results did little to attract investors, so the crown turned to
the hereditary donatory captaincy system that had succeeded on the
islands of Madeira and the Azores. Under this system, each donee
was responsible for colonizing his own captaincy at his own expense.
To help the lord proprietor attract settlers, he was given permission
to issue land grants (sesmarias ). This step was significant because
it twisted a medieval Portuguese practice that placed conquered
lands in the hands of peasants into one that gave some families
holdings larger than Portugal's provinces. This practice in part
led to the establishment of latifundia (see Glossary) in Brazil.
Nonetheless, the nobles were not interested in risking their lives
or fortunes in a land of "naked savages," and most of
those who received the grants were too ill-prepared, ill-financed,
and ill-connected to succeed. The northern four captaincies never
went beyond the planning stage, and the rest flourished or failed
depending on the management skills and competence of the donatário
in dealing with the native Brazilians. Sousa, who obtained the grant
to São Vicente, prospered because he took advantage of João
Ramalho, a castaway who had married the daughter of the chief of
the Goiana Tupiniquin. Because of Ramalho, who lived until 1580,
the Portuguese were able to obtain Indian labor, foodstuffs, and
women. With his help, it was possible to establish a town at the
village of Piratininga, which in time would grow into the metropolis
of São Paulo. He was the key player in the Portuguese alliance
with the Tupiniquin, who protected the colony from other Indians
and who formed the basis for the future military power of the bandeirantes
. The lack of European women facilitated assimilation and acculturation
with the Indians. With the steady miscegenation, a substantial population
of Tupí-speaking mestizos (mestiços or mamelucos --see
Glossary) came into being.
Also important for São Vicente's success was Sousa's ability
to attract investors for sugar mills, including an investor from
Antwerp, which became the center of the European sugar market. Although
Pernambuco in later years surpassed São Vicente in sugar
production, its early success fixed Portuguese control on what centuries
later would be the agricultural and industrial core of Brazil.
Similarly, the affluence of Pernambuco Province centering on Olinda
resulted from successful interaction with the natives, the ability
to draw investment capital (often from Italian merchants), and capable
settlers. The donatário , Duarte Coelho Pereira, had married
into the well-connected Albuquerque family, which helped him attract
colonists and financial support to set up sugar mills. But he was
especially fortunate because his brother-in-law, Jerônimo
de Albuquerque, had married the daughter of chief Arcoverde (Green
Bow) of the Tobajara, thereby sealing an alliance that gave the
Portuguese supplies of food and workers. The alliance also gave
Coelho Pereira the military superiority to eventually defeat the
French and their Indian allies. As the brazilwood stands were cut
down, they were replaced with sugarcane plantations, which by 1585
were served by more than sixty mills or engenhos . The captaincy
was so successful that there was reputedly more luxury in Pernambuco
than in Lisbon. This strong beginning would make it the northern
focal point of Portuguese America.
Porto Seguro failed to prosper as a captaincy. The constant fighting
with the local Aimoré people may have been related to the
presence of many married Portuguese couples and, consequently, little
intermarriage with the natives. Likewise, Bahia failed at this stage
because its donatário lacked managerial skills. Many of the
Portuguese there were veterans of India, where abuse of the natives
was routine. The Tupinambá finally tired of the mistreatment,
and many of the Portuguese at Bahia, including the donatário
, were captured and ceremonially killed and eaten. Ilhéus,
Espírito Santo, São Tomé, Santo Amaro, and
Santa Anna also failed because of poor management and hostile relations
with the natives. The coast was now exposed to French incursions.
Such an outcome was not what the crown had in mind, and it decided
wisely to listen to warnings. Rather than replace inept donatários
with others, the king established direct royal control, except over
Pernambuco and São Vicente. The crown may have acted at this
juncture for several reasons: the Spanish discovery of the famed
silver mountain at Potosí (1545), the decline of the Asian
spice trade, and the crown's practice of reclaiming royal control
after some years of leasing its rights. The enhancement of royal
power was part of the general Iberian pattern of establishing royal
control over the sprawling colonial ventures. In a larger sense,
renewed royal control appears to have been linked to a new conservatism
in Catholic Europe. The Council of Trent (1545-63) defined church
dogma and practice, religious tolerance faded, and the Inquisition
was emplaced in Portugal in 1547.
The king named Tomé de Sousa the first governor general
of Brazil (1549-53). He ordered Sousa to create a capital city,
Salvador, on the Bahia de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints) and
to spread the royal mantle over the captaincies, defending the weaker
ones and reestablishing the failed ones. Because Indian attacks
were blamed for the failures, Sousa's orders amounted to a declaration
of war on the indigenous peoples of Brazil. If they could be defeated,
the French would have no allies and so would be less of a threat.
In addition, Sousa was to increase royal revenues. The twin objectives
of control and revenue were characteristic of royal policy for the
rest of the colonial era.
Bahia, as the city and province would be known, was selected for
its central location and its fine bay, and because the crown had
purchased it from the heirs of the donatário . Sousa built
fortifications, a town, and sugar mills. His knottiest task was
forming a policy on the Indians, whose status remained unclear.
Although he had treasury and coast guard officials with him, their
roles were oriented toward Portuguese colonists and European interlopers.
As early as 1511, the crown had placed the Indians under its "protection,"
and it ordered Sousa to treat them well, as long as they were peaceful,
so that they could be converted. Conversion was essential because
Portugal's legal claims to Brazil were based on papal bulls requiring
Christianization of the Indians. However, those who resisted conversion
were likened to Muslims and could be enslaved. In fact, as historian
Sergio Buarque de Holanda showed, by identifying Brazil as a destination
of the wandering Apostle St. Thomas the Portuguese settlers were
able to argue that all natives had their chance to convert and had
rejected it, so they could be conquered and taken captive legitimately.
Thus, a distinction was made between peaceful, pliable natives who
as wards deserved crown protection and those resisters who wanted
to keep their independence and on whom "just war" could
be made and slavery imposed.
The dual mission of the governors was contradictory; how could
they stimulate the economy using slave labor while converting the
natives? To carry out the pacification and conversion of the natives,
the crown chose the new Jesuit order of the Society of Jesus, which
was international in membership and military in structure and which
had the task of defending and spreading the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
The Jesuits had a major impact on Brazil, despite their small numbers--128
by 1598. The Indians responded to the Jesuits with initial acceptance,
then regression, evasion, and enmity. The objective of the Jesuits
was to Europeanize the Indians by resettling them in Indian villages
(aldeias) . In a recurring pattern, the first aldeia near Bahia
(1552) soon disintegrated as the Indians who survived the European-born
diseases faded into the interior beyond the Jesuits' reach.
Europeanization was overcome by a sort of Brazilianization, as
the Jesuits blended Indian songs, dances, and language into the
liturgy and as the colonists adopted native foods, women, language,
and customs. However, the first bishop of Brazil (1551), Dom Pêro
Fernandes Sardinha, objected to the Jesuit accommodation with indigenous
culture. He threw the weight of his authority behind subjugation
and enslavement. At issue was the nature of the future of Brazilian
society. The bishop, who had served in Goa and ironically had taught
Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit founder, insisted that Europeanization
must precede baptism. He believed Brazil, like India, should have
a dual society made up of heathen natives ruled by a small number
of Portuguese.
The conflict between the Jesuits and the bishop had far-reaching
significance for Brazil's future. To get away from his direct grasp,
the Jesuits shifted their attention to the south, where they formed,
in 1554, the aldeia of São Paulo de Piratininga on the plateau
at the headwaters of the Rio Tietê high above São Vicente.
Father José de Anchieta's mission village later became known
as the city of São Paulo. The crown seemingly favored the
Jesuit approach because it recalled Bishop Sardinha. En route back,
Sardinha was shipwrecked and then killed and reportedly eaten by
Caeté people.
In 1557 the crown sent out a new bishop and a new governor to consolidate
royal control and to bring organization to the far-flung settlements
on the verge of collapse. The new crown representatives supported
Jesuit methods and returned the Jesuits to Bahia. By protecting
the Indians who lived in aldeias from enslavement, the crown representatives
made the Jesuit towns more attractive. The pool of slaves available
to the colonists dwindled, causing such protests that Mem de Sá
(governor, 1558-72) approved a "just war" against the
Caeté to punish them for killing Brazil's first bishop. However,
the "just war" soon got out of hand as the closer and
undefended aldeias were raided for slaves. The conflict damaged
native trust in the missions, and the epidemics of influenza, smallpox,
and measles in 1562 and 1563 decimated the Indian population and
increased colonist competition for laborers. The famine that followed
the waves of disease prompted starving Indians to sell themselves
or their relatives in order to survive.
This situation led to a policy under which the Indians were considered
free but could be enslaved in a sanctioned "just war,"
or for cannibalism, or if rescued from being eaten or enslaved by
other natives. Government-sponsored expeditions (entradas ) into
the interior, sometimes ironically called rescues (resgates ), became
slave hunts under the guise of "just war." The Paulista
expeditions (bandeiras ), one of the major themes of Brazilian history
in the 1600s and 1700s, would develop out of this practice. The
eventual exploitation of the interior and the development of gold
and gem mining in Minas Gerais, Goiás, and Mato Grosso have
roots in the voracious appetite of coastal plantations for slave
labor.
As Indian resistance, social disintegration, and flight into the
interior increased in the last quarter of the sixteenth century,
the Portuguese began to import more African slaves. In 1570 there
were 2,000 to 3,000 such slaves in Brazil; by 1587 there were 14,000.
Considering that the European population in 1570 was 20,760 and
in 1585 was 29,400, the growth of African slaves from 14 percent
of the number of whites to 47 percent is striking. Much of the commentary
on native slavery holds that the Indians were unfit physically to
be slaves, when actually it was their strong resistance to slavery
and the colonial competition for their labor that led to the African
slave trade. Also, the focus of many historians on Bahia and Pernambuco
has left readers with the impression that Indian slavery gave way
to African slavery throughout Brazil by 1600. This was not the case.
Indians continued to be enslaved in Pará, which caused the
depopulation of much of Amazônia by the mid-eighteenth century.
Data as of April 1997
|
|
