Alex Melchiore

September 4, 2016
Dr. Tait Chirenje
Brazil: The Troubled Rise of a Global Power Reflection
Chapter 3: The Forging of a People
In some ways, the creation of Brazil as a nation were similar to that of the United States.
The year was 1500, eight years after Christopher Columbus had made his journey the new world
on March 9th , when King Manoel of Portugal approved the voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral and
his 1,500 men in thirteen ships to sail out and find new places to settle. Much like Columbus
trip, the goal of this voyage was to find India, however they ended up traveling west instead (it is
still debated whether or not they planned to go west towards the new world) to make landfall in
the strange new world, Brazil. Many Portuguese were traders/merchants since there was not a
strong feudalism presence; this voyage gave many Portuguese a way into nobility. As this
thirteen ship fleet made its way to the new world, they set up many trading posts with in the
Atlantic islands before finally reaching Brazil although the crown was waiting with anticipation
when the voyagers finally reached India. They finally reached the mainland on April 23rd about
a month and a half later. Once there, Cabral sent his most trusted and experienced pilots: Nicolau
Coelho to investigate, almost immediately he was surrounded by many native tribesmen called
the Tupiwith their bows and arrows pointed right at him ready to fire. Once they realized that he
was not a threat they lowered their weapons. Once the first contact had been made, the natives
and Cabrals men started exchanging gifts all along the coast. Not only did they exchange gifts
but they also exchanged ideals after the Tupi were very fascinated by the masses the Portuguese
held on their beaches. This opened up good relations between the natives and the Portuguese
(Reid 27-29).
After finding no traces of precious metals, Cabral and his voyagers set off towards the
real India. Once Cabral had reported to the crown, the crown quickly sent off three more voyages
to continue searching the coast of Brazil for evidence of precious metals. This voyage is where
the name Rio de Janeiro was coined after the pilot Amerigo Vespucci mistook the bay as the river
mouth, besides the name that would be used to recognize one of the most well-known cities in
the world, the Portuguese still had no luck finding the precious metals (Reid 30-36).

After Cabral left, he left two convicts who would end up becoming a huge part of the
early expeditions along with the help of the Tupi. The Europeans were given women as
concubines in exchange for metal tools and various other trinkets; this alliance was a popular
practice for the Tupi. The good relations between the Europeans and the native Tupi would
continue until 1549 due to the pressure from French making settlements on Brazils coasts and
the rise in sugar production. With all of this the Portuguese decided to make their settlement at
what is now Salvador, Bahia, a crown colony. Due to the pressure of trying to protect their land
and expand their sugar production, the Portuguese relations with the Tupi jumped quickly from
kinship to enslavement. The natives that would convert their religious beliefs to Christianity
would be in some ways protected and treated better as per the policy of the Jesuit leaders. The
Jesuits would continue to acquire more and more Tupi with heavy resistance as they pushed the
crown for access to more and more of them. Their poor treatment and the non-resistant immune
systems of the natives cost the lives of 30,000 in 1562 to 1563 (Reid 30-34).
With the acquired slaves, the Portuguese continued their quest to expand their sugar mills
and plantations as well as the conquest to find gold, silver, diamonds etc. The sugar plantations
really took off that by 1630 there were over 350 operational sugar mills. Bahia provided more
fertile red soil that allowed the sugar cane to grow in large quantities so much that between the
1570s and 1670s Brazil became the worlds largest exporter of sugar (which still stands today).
During this time, the Atlantic slave trade started to become an international commercial system
with its origins being sugar cane. As it was being produced world-wide more and more sugar
plantations were being established with more slaves being exported from Africa in exchange for
weapons and currency. In this time period, Brazil demanded many more slaves and imported
more than any other country due to the lower price for slaves traveling from Africa to Brazil due
to their closer geographic location and because Brazil was the only new-world territory to export
goods to Africa (tobacco, rum, and firearms). They also imported many slaves because it was
impossible to attract free labor due to Portugals small population. The crown never set any
regulations on slavery until 1684 when they set maximums that could be imported and made sure
that the death rate did not fall below one in twenty; they did not set many limits because the
monarchs depended on the revenues from the colonial outposts that sugar cane provided.
Treatment of the slaves became poorer and poorer. They were essentially brainwashed into
thinking that their hardships, badly worn down and malnourished bodies, and suffering would
pay off in the afterlife; Children of Gods fire was what they were according to the Jesuits.

During the 1700s, the price of sugar began to drop and the price for slaves began to rise so
working conditions continued to worsen (Reid 36-39).
Brazils dominance in the sugar industry also made it part of Europes Thirty Year War.
King Sebastiao passed in 1578 without an heir to ascend to the throne so it ended up going to his
uncle: Philip II of Spain. Spain was also in control of the Dutch who had long struggled to gain
independence from Spain who saw this an advantage to expand their own maritime power. The
Dutch sent two military expeditions of Brazil, occupying Salvador for a time and seizing
Pernambuco in 1630. After all the fighting, the Portuguese took back Pernambuco and Salvador
and would remain nearly unchallenged for over 150 years due to the marriage of Catherine of
Bragnaza and Charles II which gave the Brazilians protection from Britains royal navy.
The Portuguese-Brazilians continued their quest to find gold, silver and diamonds
moving more and more inland. Gold-strikes in southern Bahia, at Cuiaba, and in Goias sparked a
mass immigration of Brazilians from surrounding areas and other countries to take advantage of
the vast amount of wealth that was being found. This left the king in a tough place to try and
control the situation. Due to new townships being formed overnight and constant clashes over
mining rights left the king in a tough place with many struggles to oversee and tax the gold being
mined. This became part of Brazilian life and major degradation of the environment but it also
became a big part of Brazilian expansion to present day areas (Reid 40-43).
Once gold-mining gradually declined by 1750, the royal fifth took effect in Minas Gerais
which imposed a poll tax which lead to the rebellion against the crown in 1788. Inspired by the
new independence of the United States, the Brazilians fought to gain their independence which
included freeing the slaves without compensation to the owners, a moratorium on debts to the
monarch, etc. Brazil would eventually gain its independence after a few more failed attempts at
violent uprisings. Brazil became home to a unique people, and the new independence brought
many new immigrants from other European nations to escape persecution. It also ended up
surpassing Portugal in wealth and rivaling them in population Brazil still had its fair of growing
pains: The expulsion of Jesuits still left a vacancy in primary education and the crown did not
allow the new colony to have many original ideas at first. There was still a long way to go (Reid
44-46).
This chapter offered really good insight and expanded my knowledge of the origin of
Brazil how the geography of Brazil helped shape the nation as a whole. I was very surprised to
read that Brazil imported more slaves than any other nation and used slave labor longer than

most nations to plant sugar cane and mine for gold which contributed majorly to the economy of
the country as well as many other facts. I cannot wait to continue on and learn more about the
geography of Brazil and how it contributed to the economy moving forward.

Source:

Reid, M. (2014). Brazil: The troubled rise of a global power.