Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
ETHNIC PEOPLE - 1
| Indigenous peoples in Brazill From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia J The Indigenous peoples in Brazil (povos indígenas in Portuguese) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country's present territory prior to its discovery by Europeans around 1500. Unlike Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese, most notably by Vasco da Gama, had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil. Nevertheless the word índios ("Indians"), was by then established to designate the peoples of the New World and stuck being used today in the Portuguese language to designate these peoples, while the people of India, Asia are called indianos in order to distinguish the two peoples. At the time of European discovery, the indigenous peoples were traditionally mostly semi- nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2,000 nations and tribes which existed in 1500 died out as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Brazilian population. The indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated at below 4 million to some 300,000 (1997), grouped into some 200 tribes. A somewhat dated linguistic survey [2] found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers. On 18 January 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now overtaken the island of New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted peoples. Brazilian indigenous people made substantial and pervasive contributions to the country's material and cultural development—such as the domestication of cassava, which is still a major staple food in rural areas of the country. History of Brazil Indigenous peoples Colonial Brazil Empire of Brazil 1889–1930 1930–1945 1945–1964 1964–1985 1985–present In the last IBGE census (2006), 519,000 Brazilians classified themselves as indigenous. Map of indigenous reserves in Brazil.Contents [hide] 1 Origins 1.1 The Siberian Ice Age hypothesis 1.2 The American Aborigines hypothesis 2 Archaeological remains 3 The natives after the European colonization 3.1 First contacts 3.2 Slavery and the Bandeiras 3.3 The Jesuits protectors of the Indians 3.4 Wars 3.5 The rubber trade 3.6 The legacy of Cândido Rondon 3.7 The Brazilian gold rush 4 Major ethnic groups 5 See also 6 References 7 External links Origins Xingu, a Brazilian Indian reservation.The origins of these indigenous peoples are still a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The traditional view, which traces them to Siberian migration to America at the end of the last ice age, has been increasingly challenged by South American archaeologists. The Siberian Ice Age hypothesis Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most Native American peoples descended from migrant peoples from North Asia (Siberia) who entered America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. In Brazil, particularly, most native tribes who were living in the land by 1500 are thought to be descended from the first wave of migrants, who are believed to have crossed the so-called Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, around 9000 BC. A migrant wave around 9000 BC would have reached Brazil around 6000 BC, probably entering the Amazon River basin from the Northwest. (The second and third migratory waves from Siberia, which are thought to have generated the Athabaskan and Eskimo peoples, apparently did not reach farther than the southern United States and Canada, respectively.) The American Aborigines hypothesis A Chaman man.The traditional view above has recently been challenged by findings of human remains in South America, which are claimed to be too old to fit this scenario—perhaps even 20,000 years old. Some recent finds (notably the Luzia skeleton in Lagoa Santa analyzed by University of Sao Paolo Professor Walter Neves) are claimed to be morphologically distinct from the Asian genotype and are more similar to African and Australian Aborigines. These American Aborigines would have been later displaced or absorbed by the Siberian immigrants. The distinctive natives of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the American continent, may have been the last remains of those Aboriginal populations. These early immigrants would have either crossed the ocean on boat, or traveled North along the Asian coast and entered America through the Bering Strait area, well before the Siberian waves. This theory is still resisted by many scientists chiefly because of the apparent difficulty of the trip. Some proposed theories involve a southward migration from or through Australia and Tasmania, hopping Subantarctic islands and then proceeding along the coast of Antarctica and/or southern ice sheets to the tip of South America sometime during the last glacial maximum. Archaeological remains Virtually all the surviving archaeological evidence about the pre-history of Brazil dates from the period after the Asian migratory waves. Brazilian natives, unlike those in Mesoamerica and the western Andes, did not keep written records or erect stone monuments, and the humid climate and acidic soil have destroyed almost all traces of their material culture, including wood and bones. Therefore, what is known about the region's history before 1500 has been inferred and reconstructed from small-scale archaeological evidence, such as pottery and stone arrowheads. The most conspicuous remains of pre-discovery societies are very large mounds of discarded shellfish (sambaquís) found in some coastal sites which were continuously inhabited for over 5,000 years; and the substantial "black earth" (terra preta) deposits in several places along the Amazon, which are believed to be ancient garbage dumps (middens). Recent excavations of such deposits in the middle and upper course of the Amazon have uncovered remains of some very large settlements, containing tens of thousands of homes, indicating a complex social and economical structure. The natives after the European colonization First contacts Depiction of cannibalism in the Brazilian tupinamba tribe, as described by Hans StadenWhen the Portuguese discoverers arrived for the first time in Brazil, in April 1500 they found, to their astonishment, a widely inhabited coastland, teeming with hundreds of thousands of indigenous people living in a "paradise" of natural riches. Pero Vaz de Caminha, the official scribe of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the commander of the discovery fleet which landed in the present state of Bahia, wrote a letter to the King of Portugal describing in glowing terms the beauty of the land. In fact however, the Portuguese colonizers had many armed conflicts with the indigenous peoples and had many indigenous people as allies. At the time of European discovery, the territory of current day Brazil had as many as 2,000 nations and tribes. The indigenous peoples were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. For hundreds of years, the indigenous people of Brazil lived a semi-nomadic life, managing the forests to meet their needs. When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Indians were living mainly on the coast and along the banks of major rivers. Initially, the Europeans saw the natives as noble savages, and miscegenation of the population began right away. Tribal warfare, cannibalism and the pursuit of Amazonian brazilwood for its treasured red dye convinced the Portuguese that they should "civilize" the Indians (originally, Colonists called Brazil Terra de Santa Cruz, until later it acquired its name (see List of meanings of countries' names) from brazilwood). But the Portuguese, like the Spanish in their South American possessions, had unknowingly brought diseases with them against which many Indians were helpless due to lack of immunity. Measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and influenza killed tens of thousands. The diseases spread quickly along the indigenous trade routes, and whole tribes were likely annihilated without ever coming in direct contact with Europeans. Slavery and the Bandeiras The mutual feeling of wonderment and good relationship was to end in the succeeding years. The Portuguese colonists, all males, started to have children with female natives, creating a new generation of mixed-race people who spoke Indian languages (in the city of São Paulo in the first years after her foundation, a Tupi language called Nheengatu). The children of these Portuguese men and Indian women formed the majority of the population. Groups of fierce conquistadores' sons organized expeditions called "bandeiras" (flags) into the backlands to claim the land to the Portuguese crown and to look for gold and precious stones. Colonial Brazil From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Portuguese colony 1500 – 1815 In the History of Brazil, Colonial Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to United Kingdom with Portugal. During the over 300 years of Brazilian colonial history, the economic exploitation of the territory was based first on brazilwood extraction (16th century), sugar production (16th-18th centuries), and finally on gold mining (18th century). Slaves, specially those brought from Africa, provided most of the working force. In contrast to the neighbouring Spanish possessions, the Portuguese colony in Latin America kept its territorial and linguistic integrity after the independence, giving rise to the largest country in the region. Contents [hide] 1 Early colonial history (15th century-1530) 1.1 The Age of Exploration 1.2 Discovery and early settlement 2 Colonisation 2.1 Captaincies 2.2 General government 2.3 Jesuit missions 2.4 French incursions 3 The Sugarcane Cycle (1530-18th century) 3.1 The Iberian Union and Dutch incursions 3.2 The Quilombos 4 Inland expansion: the entradas and bandeiras 5 The gold cycle (18th century) 5.1 Colonisation of the South 5.2 Inconfidência Mineira 6 United Kingdom period (1808-1822) 7 Territorial evolution of colonial Brazil 8 References Early colonial history (15th century-1530) The Age of Exploration The European discovery of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between the kings of Portugal and Castile, which were the leading seafaring powers at the time. The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, that created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between those two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian was to be property of Portugal, west of it of Spain. The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two halves, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Portuguese. The Treaty of Tordesillas was arguably the most decisive event in all Brazilian history, since it alone determined that the country was settled by Portugal instead of Spain. Indeed, the present extent of Brazil's coastline is almost exactly that defined by the treaty. Portuguese map by Lopo Homem (c. 1519) showing the coast of Brazil and natives extracting brazilwood. Discovery and early settlement On April 22, 1500, during the reign of King Manuel I, a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1000 men following Vasco da Gama's way to India, around Africa. The place where Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro ("safe harbor"), in Northeastern Brazil. After the voyage of Cabral, the Portuguese concentrated their efforts on the lucrative possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to the new land to chart the coast and to obtain brazilwood. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable dye to stain luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes. In this early stage of the colonisation of Brazil, and also later, the Portuguese frequently relied on the help of European adventurers who lived together with the aborigines and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were the Portuguese João Ramalho, who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo, and Diogo Álvares Correia, nicknamed Caramuru, who lived among the Tupinamba natives near today's Salvador de Bahia. As time passed, the Portuguese realised that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to the land to extract brazilwood. Worried about the foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and combat the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived to patrol the entire coast, ban the French, and to create the first colonial villages, like São Vicente, at the coast. Colonisation Portuguese map (1574) by Luís Teixeira, showing the location of the hereditary captaincies of Brazil. The first attempt to colonise Brazil followed the system of hereditary captaincies (Capitanias Hereditárias), which had previously been used successfully in the colonisation of the Madeira Island. The costs were transferred to private hands, saving the Portuguese crown from the high costs of colonisation. Thus, between 1534 and 1536 King John III divided the land in 15 Captaincies of Brazil, which were given to Portuguese noblemen who wanted and had the means to administer and explore them. The captains were granted ample powers to administer and profit from their possessions. From the 15 original captaincies, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. The failure of most captaincies was related to the resistance of the Indigenous peoples, shipwrecks and internal disputes between the colonisers. Pernambuco, the most successful captaincy, belonged to Duarte Coelho, who founded the city of Olinda in 1536. His captaincy prospered with sugarcane mills used to produce sugar installed after 1542. Sugar was a very valuable good in Europe, and its production became the main Brazilian colonial produce in the next 150 years. The captaincy of São Vicente, owned by Martim Afonso de Sousa, also produced sugar but its main economic activity was the traffic of indigenous slaves. General government With the failure of most captaincies and the menacing presence of French ships in the Brazilian coast, the government of King John III decided to turn the colonisation of Brazil back into a royal enterprise. In 1549, a large fleet led by Tomé de Sousa set sail to Brazil to establish a central government in the colony. Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil, brought detailed instructions, prepared by the King's aides, about how to administer and foster the development of the colony. His first act was the foundation of the capital city, Salvador da Bahia, in Northeastern Brazil, in today's state of Bahia. The city was built on a slope by a bay (Todos-os-Santos Bay) and was divided into an upper administrative area and a lower commercial area with a harbour. Tomé de Sousa also visited the captaincies to repair the villages and reorganise their economies. In 1551, the colony was turned into a diocese with its seat in Salvador. Historical centre of Salvador today.The second Governor General, Duarte da Costa (1553- 1557), faced conflicts with the aborigines and severe disputes with other colonisers and the bishop. Wars against the natives around Salvador consumed much of his government. The fact that the first bishop of Brazil, Pero Fernandes Sardinha, was killed and eaten by the Caeté natives after a shipwreck in 1556 illustrates how strained the situation was between the Portuguese and many indigenous tribes. The third Governor General of Brazil was Mem de Sá (1557-1573), an efficient administrator that managed to defeat the aborigines and, with the help of the Jesuits, expel the French Calvinists that had established a colony in Rio de Janeiro (the France Antarctique). His nephew, Estácio de Sá, founded the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. The huge size of Brazil led to the colony being divided into two Estados (states) after 1621, when King Philip II created the Estado do Brasil, the most important colony with Salvador as capital, and the Estado do Maranhão, with capital in São Luís. The state of Maranhão was still further divided in 1737 into the Estado do Maranhão e Piauí and the Estado do Grão-Pará e Rio Negro, with its capital in Belém do Pará. After 1640, the governors of Brazil coming from the high nobility started to use the title of Vice-rei (Viceroy). Brazil became officially a Viceroyalty around 1763, when the capital of the Estado do Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. In 1775 all Brazilian Estados (Brasil, Maranhão and Grão-Pará) were unified into the Viceroyalty of Brazil, with Rio de Janeiro as capital. As in Portugal, each colonial village and city had a city council (câmara municipal), whose members were prominent figures of colonial society (land owners, merchants, slave traders). Colonial city councils were responsible for regulating commerce, public infrastructure, professional artisans, prisons etc. 17th century-Jesuit church in São Pedro da Aldeia, near Rio de Janeiro. Jesuit Reductions Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought the first group of Jesuits to the colony. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits represented the spiritual side of the enterprise and were destined to play a central role in the colonial history of Brazil. The spreading of the Catholic faith was an important justification for the Portuguese conquests, and the Jesuits were officially supported by the King, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all the support needed to Christianise the indigenous peoples. The first Jesuits, guided by Father Manuel da Nóbrega and including prominent figures like Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes and later José de Anchieta, established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo. Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in the defeat of the French colonists of the France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous peoples to Catholicism is linked to their capacity to understand the native culture, specially the language. The first grammar of the Tupi language was compiled by José de Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines in communities (the Jesuit Reductions) where the natives worked for the community and were evangelised. The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from slavery, but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defences. Slave labour and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and the Jesuits usually did not object the enslavement of African peoples. [edit] French incursions The potential riches of tropical Brazil led the French, who did not recognise the Tordesillas Treaty, to attempt to colonise parts of the Portuguese colony. In 1555, the Huguenot Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon founded a settlement within Guanabara Bay, in an island in front of today's Rio de Janeiro. The colony, named France Antarctique, led to conflict with Governor General Mem de Sá, who waged war against the colony in 1560. Estácio de Sá, nephew of the Governor, founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 and managed to expel the last French settlers in 1567. Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta were instrumental in the Portuguese victory by pacifying the natives who supported the French. Another French colony, the France Équinoxiale, was founded in 1612 in present-day São Luís, in the North of Brazil. In 1614 the French were again expelled from São Luís by the Portuguese. View of a sugar-producing farm (engenho) in colonial Pernambuco by Dutch painter Frans Post (17th century). [edit] The Sugarcane Cycle (1530-18th century) Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco, cotton, cachaça and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. The first sugarcane farms were established in the mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. The period of sugar-based economy (1530-c. 1700) is known as the "Sugarcane Cycle" in Brazilian history. Sugarcane was cultivated on large patches of land, harvested and processed in the engenhos, which were the houses were sugarcane was milled and the sugar refined. Over time, the term engenho was applied to the whole sugarcane farm. The dependencies of the farm included a casa-grande (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the senzala, where the slaves where kept. Initially, the Portuguese relied on aborigine slaves to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing black African slaves. Portugal owned several commercial facilities in Western Africa, where slaves were bought from African merchants. These slaves were then sent by ship to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions. The idea of using African slaves in colonial farms based on monoculture was also adopted by other European colonial powers when colonising tropical regions of America, like Spain in Cuba, France in Haiti, the Netherlands in the Dutch Antilles and England in Jamaica. The Portuguese severely restricted colonial trade, meaning that Brazil was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine, olive oil, textiles and luxury goods - the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian merchants frequently exchanged cachaça, a distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the Triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period. Even though the Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles, located much closer to Europe, causing the sugar prices to fall. Golden Baroque inner decoration of the Franciscan church of Salvador (first half of 18th century). [edit] The Iberian Union and Dutch incursions In 1580, a succession crisis led to Portugal forming a personal union with Spain under the Habsburg King Philip II. The unification of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640. The Netherlands (the Seventeen Provinces) obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil. Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering the coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed gold and silver literally in barrels before a joint Spanish- Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda, and with the capture of Paraiba in 1635, the Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe, without, however, penetrating the interior. But the large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went, and the ironic result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was that the price of sugar rose in Amsterdam. During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence in Recife of the Grand Duke John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637-1641?). Nassau invited scientific commissions to come and research the local flora and fauna, resulting in additions to the time's knowledge. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Some survive up to this day. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch formally withdrew in 1661; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Little Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remained of these failed attempts. [edit] The Quilombos Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labour, mostly of black African origin. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organising themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos, gathered not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. The largest of the quilombos was the Quilombo dos Palmares, located in today's Alagoas state, governed by semi-mythical leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi. The Dutch and later the Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed Sao Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695. Of the many quilombos that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities. [edit] Inland expansion: the entradas and bandeiras Since the 16th century the exploration of the Brazilian inland was attempted several times, mostly to try to find mineral riches like the silver mines found in 1546 by the Spanish in Potosí (now in Bolivia). Since no riches were initially found, colonisation was restricted to the coast where the soil was suitable for sugarcane plantations. The expeditions to inland Brazil are divided into two types: the entradas and the bandeiras. The entradas were done in the name of the Portuguese crown and were financed by the colonial government. Its main objective was to find mineral riches, as well as to explore and charter unknown territory. The bandeiras, on the other hand, were private initiatives sponsored and carried out mostly by settlers of the São Paulo region (the paulistas). The expeditions of the bandeirantes, as these adventurers were called, were aimed at obtaining native slaves for trade and finding mineral riches. The paulistas, who at the time were mostly of mixed Portuguese and native ancestry, knew all the old indigenous pathways (the peabirus) through the Brazilian inland and were used to the harsh conditions of these journeys. At the end of the 17th century, the bandeirantes expeditions discovered gold in central Brazil, in the region of Minas Gerais, which started a gold rush that led to a dramatic urban development of inland Brazil during the 18th century. Another consequence of the inland expeditions was the westward expansion of the frontiers of colonial Brazil, beyond the limits established by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. View of Ouro Preto, one of the main villages founded during the gold rush of Minas Gerais. The village has preserved its colonial appearance to this day. [edit] The gold cycle (18th century) At the end of the 17th century, the bandeirantes found gold in the interior of Brazil. The news was met with great enthusiasm by Portugal, which had an economy in disarray following years of wars against Spain and the Netherlands. A gold rush quickly ensued, with people from other parts of the colony and Portugal flooding the region in the first half of the 18th century. The large portion of the Brazilian inland where gold was extracted became known as the Minas Gerais (General Mines). Gold mining in this area became the main economic activity of colonial Brazil during the 18th century. In Portugal, the gold was mainly used to pay for industrialised goods (textiles, weapons) obtained from countries like England and, specially during the reign of King John V, to build magnificent Baroque monuments like the Convent of Mafra. Apart from gold, diamonds deposits were also found in 1729 around the village of Tijuco, now Diamantina. In the hilly landscape of Minas Gerais, gold was present in alluvial deposits by streams and was extracted using pans and other rudimentary instruments that required little technology. The hard work of gold extraction was mostly done by slaves imported from Africa. The Portuguese Crown allowed particulars to extract the gold, requiring a fifth (20%) of the gold (the quinto) to be sent to the colonial government as tribute. To prevent smuggling and charge the quinto, in 1725 the government ordered all gold to be casted into bars in the Casas de Fundição (Casting Houses), and sent armies to the region to prevent disturbances and oversee the mining process. The Royal tribute was very unpopular in Minas Gerais, and gold was frequently hidden from the colonial authorities. Eventually, the quinto contributed to rebellious movements like the Levante de Vila Rica, in 1720, and the Inconfidência Mineira, in 1789 (see below). The large number of adventurers coming to the Minas Gerais led to the foundation of several villages, the first of which were created in 1711: Vila Rica de Ouro Preto, Sabará and Mariana, followed by São João Del Rei (1713), Serro, Caeté (1714), Pitangui (1715) and São José do Rio das Mortes (1717, now Tiradentes). In contrast to other regions of colonial Brazil, people coming to Minas Gerais settled mostly in villages instead of the countriside. In 1763, the capital of colonial Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, which was located closer to the mining region and provided a harbour to ship the gold to Europe. Gold production declined towards the end of the 18th century, beginning a period of relative stagnation of the Brazilian hinterland. 18th century-São José Fortress near Florianópolis, in Southern Brazil. [edit] Colonisation of the South In an attempt to expand the borders of colonial Brazil and profit from commerce with the silver mines of Potosí, the Portuguese Overseas Council (the Conselho Ultramarino) ordered colonial governor Manuel Lobo to establish a settlement on the shore of the River Plate, in a region that legally belonged to Spain. In 1679, Manuel Lobo founded Colonia de Sacramento on the margin opposite to Buenos Aires, and the fortified settlement quickly became an important point of illegal commerce between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Spain and Portugal fought over the enclave in several occasions (1681, 1704, 1735). In addition to Colonia de Sacramento, several settlements were established in Southern Brazil in the late 17th and 18th century, some with peasant couples from the Azores Islands. The towns founded in this period include Curitiba (1668), Florianópolis (1675), Rio Grande (1736), Porto Alegre (1742) and others that kept Southern Brazil firmly under Portuguese control. The conflicts over the Southern colonial frontiers led to the signing of the Treaty of Madrid (1750), in which Spain and Portugal agreed to a considerable Southwestward expansion of colonial Brazil. According to the treaty, Colonia de Sacramento was to be given to Spain in exchange for the territories of São Miguel das Missões, a region occupied by Jesuits Missions dedicated to evangelising the Guaraní natives. Resistance by the Jesuits and the Guarani led to the Guarani War (1756), in which Portuguese and Spanish troops destroyed the Missions. Colonia de Sacramento kept changing hands until 1777, when it was definitely conquered by the colonial governor of Buenos Aires. Quartered body of Tiradentes, by Brazilian painter Pedro Américo (1893). [edit] Inconfidência Mineira In 1788/89, Minas Gerais was the setting of the most important of the conspiracies against colonial authorities, the so called Inconfidência Mineira. The Inconfidência was inspired by the ideals of the French liberal philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment and the successful American Revolution, which had taken place in 1776. The conspirators belonged to the white upper class of Minas Gerais and many had studied in Europe, specially in the University of Coimbra. Several of them, like a great part of the elite of Minas Gerais, had large debts with the colonial government. In the context of a declining gold production, the intention of the Portuguese government to impose the obligatory payment of all debts (the derrama) was a leading cause behind the conspiracy. The conspirators wanted to create a Republic in which the leader would be chosen through democratic elections. The capital would be São João Del Rei, and Ouro Preto would become a university town. The structure of the society, including the right to property and the ownership of slaves, would be kept intact. The conspiracy was discovered by the Portuguese colonial government in 1789, before the planned military rebellion could take place. Eleven of the conspirators were banned to Portuguese colonial possessions in Angola, but Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tiradentes, was sentenced to death. Tiradentes was hanged in Rio de Janeiro in 1792, quartered and his body parts were sent to different towns as an example. He later became a symbol of the struggle for Brazilian independence and liberty from Portuguese rule. The Inconfidência Mineira was not the only rebellious movement in colonial Brazil against the Portuguese. Later, in 1798, there was the Incofidência Baiana in the former capital, Salvador. In this episode, which had more participation of the common people, four people were hanged, and 41 were jailed. Members included slaves, middle-class people and even some landowners. [edit] United Kingdom period (1808-1822) In 1807, as the Portuguese were allies of England, the French troops of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Portugal. Prince Regent João (future King João IV), who governed since 1792 on behalf of his mother, Queen Maria I, ordered the transfer of the Portuguese royal court to Brazil before he was deposed by the invading army. In January 1808, Prince João and his court arrived in Salvador, where he signed a commercial regulation that opened commerce between Brazil and friendly nations, which in this case represented England. This important law broke the colonial pact that, until then, only allowed Brazil to maintain direct commercial relations with Portugal. The Paço Imperial, 18th century-colonial palace located in Rio de Janeiro, used as dispach house by King João VI of Portugal and later by Emperor Pedro I of Brazil.In March 1808, the court arrived in Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, during the Congress of Vienna, Prince João created the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarve (Reino Unido de Portugal, Brasil e Algarves), elevating Brazil to the rank of Portugal and increasing the administrative independence of Brazil. Brazilian representatives were elected to the Portuguese Constitutional Courts (Cortes Constitucionais Portuguesas). In 1816, with the death of Queen Maria, Prince João was crowned King of Portugal in Rio de Janeiro. Among the important measures taken by Prince João in his years in Brazil were incentives to commerce and industry, the permission to print newspapers and books, the creation of two medicine schools, military academies, and the first Bank of Brazil (Banco do Brasil). In Rio de Janeiro he also created a powder factory, a Botanical Garden, an art academy (Escola Nacional de Belas Artes) and an opera house (Teatro São João). All these measures greatly advanced the independence of Brazil in relation to Portugal and made the later political separation between the two countries inevitable. Due to the absence of the King and the economical independence of Brazil, Portugal entered a severe crisis that obliged João VI and the royal family to return to Portugal in 1821. The heir of João VI, Prince Pedro, remained in Brazil. The Portuguese Cortes demanded Brazil to return to its former condition of colony and the return of the heir heir Brazil. Prince Pedro, influenced by the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Senate (Senado da Câmara) refused to return to Portugal in the famous Dia do Fico (January 9, 1822). Political independence came in September 7, 1822, and the prince was crowned emperor in Rio de Janeiro as Dom Pedro I, ending 322 years of colonial dominance of Portugal over Brazil. The Jesuits protectors of the Indians The Jesuit priests, who had come with the first Governor General to provide for religious assistance to the colonists, but mainly to convert the "pagan" peoples to Catholicism, took the side of the natives and extracted a Papal bull stating that they were human and should be protected. Jesuit priests such as fathers José de Anchieta and Manoel da Nóbrega studied and recorded their language and founded mixed settlements, such as São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, where colonists and natives lived side by side, speaking the same Língua Geral (common language) and freely interbred. They began also to establish more remote villages peopled only by "civilized" natives, called Missiones, or reductions (see the article on the Guarani people for more details). By the middle of the 16th century, Catholic Jesuit priests, at the behest of Portugal’s monarchy, had established missions throughout the country’s colonies. They became protectors of the Indians and worked to both Europeanize them and convert them to Catholicism. The Jesuits provided a period of relative stability for the Indians. In the mid-1770s, when the power of the Catholic Church began to wane in Europe, the Indians’ fragile co-existence with the colonists was again threatened. Because of a complex diplomatic web between Portugal, Spain and the Vatican, the Jesuits were expelled from Brazil and the missions confiscated and sold. By 1800, the population of Brazil had reached approximately 3.25 million, of which only 250,000 were indigenes. And for the next four decades, the Indians were largely left alone. Wars A Warrior depicted by Jean-Baptiste Debret in the early 19th CenturyA number of wars between several tribes, such as the Tamoio Confederation, and the Portuguese ensued, sometimes with the natives siding with enemies of Portugal, such as the French, in the famous episode of France Antarctique in Rio de Janeiro, sometimes allying themselves to Portugal in their fight against other tribes. At approximately the same period, a German soldier, Hans Staden, was captured by the Tupinamba and released after a while. He described it in a famous book. There are various documented accounts of smallpox being knowingly used as a biological weapon by Brazilian villagers that wanted to get rid of nearby tribes (not always aggressive ones). The most "classical", according to Anthropologist, Mércio Pereira Gomes, happened in Caxias, in south Maranhão, where local farmers, wanting more land to extend their cattle farms, gave clothing owned by ill villagers (that normally would be burned to prevent further infection) to the Timbirans. The clothing infected the entire tribe, and they had neither immunity nor cure. Similar things happened in other villages throughout South America. The rubber trade The 1840s brought trade and wealth to the Amazon. The process for vulcanizing rubber was developed, and worldwide demand for the product skyrocketed. The best rubber trees in the world grew in the Amazon, and thousands of rubber tappers began to work the plantations. When the Indians proved to be a difficult labor force, peasants from surrounding areas were brought into the region. In a dynamic that continues to this day, the indigenous population was at constant odds with the peasants, who the Indians felt had invaded their lands in search of treasure. The legacy of Cândido Rondon Marshal Cândido Rondon.In the 20th century, the Brazilian Government adopted a more humanitarian attitude and offered official protection to the indigenous people, including the establishment of the first indigenous reserves. Fortune brightened for the Indians around the turn of the century when Cândido Rondon, a man of both Portuguese and Bororo ancestry, and an explorer and progressive officer in the Brazilian army, began working to gain the Indians’ trust and establish peace. Rondon, who had been assigned to help bring telegraph communications into the Amazon, was a curious and natural explorer. In 1910, he helped found the Serviço de Proteção aos Índios (Indian Protection Service) (SPI) (today the FUNAI, or Fundação Nacional do Índio), the first federal agency charged with protecting Indians and preserving their culture. In 1914, Rondon accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on Roosevelt’s famous expedition to map the Amazon and discover new species. During these travels, Rondon was appalled to see how settlers and developers treated the indigenes, and he became their lifelong friend and protector. In 1952, as a final legacy, he established the Xingu National Park, in the state of Mato Grosso, the first Indian reservation in Brazil. Rondon, who passed away in 1956, is a national hero in Brazil. The Brazilian state of Rondonia is named after him. The remaining unacculturated tribes have been contacted by FUNAI, and accommodated within Brazilian society in varying degrees. However, the exploration of rubber and other Amazonic natural resources led to a new cycle of invasion, expulsion, massacres and death, which continues to this day. After Rondon’s pioneering work, the SPI was turned over to bureaucrats and military officers. They did not share his deep commitment to the Indians. The lure of reservation riches enticed cattle ranchers and settlers to continue their assault on native lands – and the SPI eased the way. Between 1900 and 1967, an estimated 98 indigenous tribes were wiped out. But reports of mistreatment of Indians finally reached Brazil’s urban centers, and in 1967, the military government launched an investigation. It soon came to light that the SPI was failing to protect native lands and that agency officials, in collaboration with land speculators, were systematically slaughtering the Indians by intentionally circulating disease-laced clothes. Criminal prosecutions followed, and the SPI was disbanded. Also in 1967, in a seismic political shift, the Brazilian military took control of the government and abolished all political parties. For the next two decades, Brazil was ruled by a series of generals. The country’s mantra was “Brazil, the Country of the Future,” which the military government used as justification for a giant push into the Amazon to exploit its resources, thereby bringing Brazil to its rightful place among the leading economies of the world. Construction began on a transcontinental highway across the Amazon basin, aimed to encourage migration to the Amazon and to open up the region to more trade. With funding from World Bank, thousands of miles of forest were cleared with no regard for reservation lands. After the highway projects came giant hydroelectric projects, then swaths of forest were cleared for cattle ranches. As a result, reservation lands suffered massive deforestation and flooding. The public works projects attracted very few migrants, but those few – and largely poor - settlers brought new diseases that further devastated the native population. The Brazilian gold rush The next phase of destruction came in the 1980s with the discovery of large deposits of gold on reservation lands, particularly Yanomami land. The Yanomami, one of the largest and oldest known tribes in the Americas, had lived virtually unchanged since the Stone Age. Then the promise of gold brought tens of thousands of speculators onto their land. The mercury used to extract the deposits polluted the rivers and killed the fish. The miners also introduced tuberculosis, malaria and flu. In 1977, the Yanomami population was estimated at 20,000; by the end of the 20th century, it was down to 9,000. [ |
