CHAPTER XXII

_A Glance at Brazilian History_

If geographical extent, length of seaboard, variety of resources, number of cities, constitute the importance of a country, then Brazil may fairly claim to be the most important State in South America.

It is 2600 miles from north to south, and 2500 miles from east to west, and has a seaboard extending for 3700 miles. In square mileage it is exceeded only by the British Empire, Russia, China, and the United States. It occupies 33 per cent of the whole continent of South America, for it contains within its borders 3,291,416 square miles. It is the proud boast of Brazilian authors that their country is in one sense the most remarkable on the globe, because it is peopled by a single nation, and not by a heterogeneous medley of races, a contention which is perhaps not strictly justified, for even in Brazil many different nationalities go to swell its population, which is quite small for the tremendous area it occupies. To-day it does not contain more than eighteen or nineteen millions of inhabitants. Each year sees an increasing emigration to it, and the nationalities of the new-comers are over thirty in number. Some become naturalised, many refrain from bothering about a formality which bestows few advantages and many obligations. The Brazilian people is made up of three distinct races, Europeans mostly of Latin origin, indigenous Indians and negroes imported from Africa. These different races have mixed and bred, and to some extent have intermarried, and the numerous half-breeds which now inhabit the country are the result. Half whites and half Indians are called “Caboclos,” white and Indian “Mameluco,” white and negro “Mulattos,” the descendants of Mulatto parents “Cascos.” The full-blooded negro is termed “Creolo,” the cross between them and the Indians

“Carboreto.” These are only a few of the many results of these strange alliances, for there are hundreds of variations resulting from further matrimonial complications. Yet the Brazilian claims them all as comprising one nation. Further, there are to-day many strong and settled colonies of Germans, Italians, and Spaniards in different localities, particularly in the south, which are at present entirely free from the admixture of the diverse strains that run all through the central and northern States. All over Brazil pure negroes still exist, as well as undiluted Indians, and they have the same rights and privileges as their lighter-skinned neighbours, and mix with them with a freedom that is scarcely found in any other country. There is no colour question in Brazil, no antagonism as in the United States of the north, and it seems extremely likely that the merging of the diverse races will go on uninterruptedly until a new type is evolved. When one looks back and considers the problems that confronted the mere handful of adventurous Portuguese pioneers who first settled upon this vast continent, it does not seem at all remarkable that they should have mingled with the races they found and with the slave women they imported. The rough adventurers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went out to seek their fortunes in wild countries, and they would hesitate to take their womenfolk, even if the latter were not loath to go. This led to their alliances with native and foreign races, and to the population which was destined to hold, if not to develop, the vast country which lay around them. The negro, who has a reputation for laziness, has not transmitted to his descendants any remarkable qualities for activity, unless it be the irrepressible emotionalism which is characteristic of many of the inhabitants of Brazil. Nor has the Indian who for such long ages lived in the most primeval fashion transmitted much initiative. So that what there is of activity and progress in the race to-day must come from the Portuguese and other European ancestry. It is an interesting study, full of suggestion, this of pedigree, even if the student is unsuccessful in arriving at any definite conclusion. The resources of the country are enormous, diverse, and practically inexhaustible, but they have been lying for all the ages hardly touched and generally inadequately worked. The mixed inhabitants are settled upon lands which shelve down from the mountains to the Atlantic coast, or along the banks of the mighty rivers which flow through the impenetrable forests out to sea. There are vast districts of virgin forest and trackless wild where white man has never penetrated, and where the aboriginal Indian is just as savage and untamed as were his ancestors upwards of four centuries ago when European mariners first landed on their shores. Brazil, as we know it to-day, or at least the civilised portion of it, was created by Portugal, and it was one of the distinguished sons of that little nation who had the honour of being its discoverer. In the year 1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral, sailing from Lisbon ostensibly to make an all-sea voyage to India, diverted his course off the Cape of Good Hope and sailed to the south-west. Forty-two days after leaving Portugal the eyes of the adventurous seaman rested upon Mount Paschoal in the State of Bahia.

The event was momentous and the hour propitious, for everything favoured Portuguese expansion. The independence of the little kingdom was an accomplished fact, and the possibility of absorption of it by Spain was a remote contingency. The Moors, driven out of the Iberian Peninsula and hurled back to their native Africa, were no longer a menace. In addition to this the Portuguese were quick to perceive that a new era was dawning upon the world, and they were determined to have a hand in the shaping and controlling the future destinies of the newly discovered continent. The conquest and colonisation of Brazil were a national corollary to the earlier discoveries of Portuguese navigators. Cabral, with his companions, was at first inclined to believe that they had struck upon another island similar to those recently discovered in the Caribbean seas by their Spanish rivals, and he christened it, after the fashion of the period, “The Island of the True Cross,” and it was only when the geographical error was realised that the name was altered to Brazil. This name had been used long before, for a western island of the Azores was named “De Brazi,” being derived from the red dye woods which grow so plentifully in tropical latitudes.

Following immediately upon the discovery of “Brazil” by Cabral and the nominal possession of it by the Crown of Portugal, expeditions were sent, and in two of these the celebrated Amerigo Vespucci took part. He built a fort at Cape Frio, and was so struck by the loveliness of the surrounding country that he thought he was in the region of an earthly paradise. Voyagers on their way to the Indies began to touch upon the Brazilian coast, and it soon became explored by navigators of different nationalities. Portugal, jealous of her rights, had to protect it from the traders of France, who were beginning to have dealings with the natives upon its shores, and in 1527 a post was established for the protection of Portuguese interests. This fort or garrison at Pernambuco was the scene of one or two raids by both French and English seamen, and which hastened the Portuguese Crown to take serious steps to occupy the new territory in a more imposing manner. In 1531 Martin Affonso, with a fleet and about 300 colonists, landed at Pernambuco, and coasted down in the Bay of Rio, and to the mouth of the bay where Santos now stands. On behalf of the Crown he divided the land out into sections, running from the coast into the interior indefinitely, and these were granted to nobles of the Court, who were so unsuccessful in developing their concessions that they were allowed to revert to the Crown. The Portuguese, unlike their Spanish rivals, made no great expeditions into the hinterland of their new colony, and were slow to bring the Indians under their rule. The vastness of the country, and the ease with which the natives could withdraw from the invaders, made it necessary for the governors who were planted up and down the coast to have recourse to the importation of negro slaves from Africa to the northern provinces. Gradually the traders made journeys into the interior, generally along the rivers, to trade with natives, and villages took root; but the greater part of the population settled upon the coasts in such towns as Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio, Espirito Santo, São Paulo, etc.

Of course there were rapacious traders who tried to exact too much from the natives, but a salutary check against their tyranny was soon provided by the Jesuits. These enthusiastic and energetic followers of Loyola have left a deep and abiding mark on nearly all the South American communities. They built churches, founded schools, and taught the Indians the arts of agriculture, and all that they asked in return was obedience and conformity with the rites of the Church. The “Paulistas,” as the lay settlers were termed, saw in Jesuit influence an obstacle to their own domination over the supply of native labour, and conflicts between the religious and secular powers lasted for more than a century, the mother country sometimes siding with one faction and sometimes with the other. But the priests persisted with that zeal which is the traditional mark of their order, and suffered persecution, privation, and even death, rather than relinquish their mission. Vestiges of their work are still to be found in many parts of Brazil and neighbouring States, notably in the place-names, which are often derived from the saints, symbols, and sacraments of the Church.

In the welter of South American politics Brazil has suffered those frequent changes of government which have been the fate of every republic existing in the sub-continent to-day. The first European country to contest the claim of Portugal to this vast territory was France. But although an island in the Bay of Rio was occupied by some French troops in 1515, the danger of permanent French rule was never a strong probability, and it was not long before the invaders were dislodged. A more serious phase of its history was when, in the year 1581, Philip II of Spain united the two kingdoms in the Peninsula, and the affairs of the Brazilian colony were directed from headquarters at Madrid.

It was the Dutch who next had a shot for the prize of supremacy in Brazil, and a very successful shot it was. Spain had by this time passed the zenith of her prosperity, and was “hasting to her setting.” Holland was becoming a predominant maritime power in Europe, and her companies and adventurers were resolutely determined to establish empires both in the Orient and the Western Hemisphere, and some of the settlements which they founded in those vigorous years own allegiance to the Dutch flag to-day.

Holland sent her best sailors to Brazil, and for a time it looked as if the dominion not only of Spain but of Portugal also was ended in that quarter of the globe. For a time the Dutch were practically complete masters of many of the principal provinces. But the Brazilians had a spirit of their own, and never at any time showed a disposition to submit tamely to the encroachments of the Dutch. When the successful revolution in Portugal threw off the Spanish domination in 1640, and the Duke of Braganza was proclaimed King of Portugal, under the title of Dom João IV, and was recognised as the rightful sovereign to all the Portuguese possessions not under Dutch control, an armistice was signed between Holland and Portugal. But that did not affect the Brazilians overmuch; they continued their strenuous attempts to get rid of the Dutch. The people of Maranhão rose in revolt in 1642, and the Pernambucans followed suit in 1645. The battles that followed were adverse to the Dutch arms, and finally the commander, General van Schoppe, had to capitulate, all the fortresses still occupied by the Dutch being turned over to the King of Portugal.

It is perhaps as well for both countries that Holland had to relax her hold, for the Brazilians were separated from their Dutch conquerors by the differences of language, and the still more vital differences of religion. Protestantism is not understood in the South American republics, and therefore any attempts by Holland to make the Brazilians conform to the tenets of the Reformed Church could only have ended in signal failure. The fierce Latin spirit was well manifested by the great leader of the Brazilian revolt, Juan Fernandez Vievia, when at the battle of Tabocas he urged his troops against the alien invaders with the words, “Portuguese! At the heretics! God is with us!”

Out of this victorious struggle with the Dutch, Brazil emerged a nation, though it was not for some time yet that she was to forswear the suzerainty of Portugal and declare her own autonomy.

The next stage in her variegated history is a quiet one. During the remainder of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century the connection with Portugal was maintained undisturbed, and the period of calm was occupied by the colonists to penetrate farther and farther into the interior, spreading agriculture, increasing existing crops and raising new ones.

A big development came during the early years of the nineteenth century. The Napoleonic wars had caused all kinds of disruptions and complications, and naturally Portugal, which was in the thick of the struggle, could not escape them. The Prince Regent, Dom João VI, began to find Lisbon too hot to hold him, and he transferred the Court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808. The Brazilians received him well, but his reign there was not happy. When affairs in the home country became more quiet the monarch’s counsellors in Lisbon urged his return, and with that request he complied, his son, Dom Pedro, remaining at Rio as Prince Regent. Signs were abundantly evident that the spirit of nationhood had established itself very firmly in the hearts of the Brazilian people, and that they were not prepared to brook interference from the Court in Lisbon, which was constantly acting in a high-handed and arbitrary manner. Many national leaders of eminence arose, and it was not long before a declaration of independence was made, and Portugal did little or nothing to prevent the severance. But Dom Pedro, who, whatever his faults may have been, had a national resilience of mind, determined to stop with the reformers, and his reward came when he was promoted to the headship of the State under the imposing title of Emperor.

A digression may be made here touching the strain of insanity which characterised this particular Royal line. One action of Dom João’s is almost as incredible as it is gruesome. He ordered that his mother, who had started her career by marrying her uncle and ended it in an asylum in Brazil, should not be buried for six years.

If the body had been embalmed that would have been nothing unusual, but the Portuguese law prescribes such treatment only for males of the Royal house. When João found himself back in Lisbon he gave orders for his mother’s body to be brought from Brazil and buried with state ceremony; the Queen, be it noted, had been six years dead!

Here is an eye-witness’s account of the awful spectacle: “The next day the Church of the Estrella overflowed with spectators, and the corpse was exposed in full court dress, while the nobility came successively to kiss the hand!... Two of the young princesses were appointed by the King to the high honour of presiding, and four ladies-in-waiting performed the enviable office of tire-women to the corpse. It had been brought over from Brazil enclosed in three coffins, the inner one of lead, where it was laid, surrounded by aromatic herbs, gems, and essences.... One of the princesses fainted twice, and was too ill to reappear; but her sister was obliged to remain, while the ladies raised the body and completely reclothed it in a black robe, a dress cap, gloves, shoes, and stockings, and adorned it with four splendid orders upon the heart.” This throws a lurid light on the attitude still shown to the dead in some Latin-American countries. The bodies of the rich are treated with garish pomp; the bodies of the poor with shameful neglect, if not with contumely.

Dom Pedro I was a daring, dashing monarch, with mercurial blood running in his veins. His attempts to establish absolutism irritated the Brazilians, who had now advanced too far along the path of political freedom to tolerate that sort of thing; so, in the struggle between people and ruler, the ruler got the worst of it. In 1831, cowed by the determined front which the troops and civilians presented, Pedro I abdicated in favour of his infant son, Dom Pedro de Atcantara. His was a curious type of character, and the most that can be said of him is that he made a showy figure on the South American stage, where showy figures have in the past been so abundant. His faults were not only political; in his private life he was far from being a paragon.

Pedro II was only five years old when he succeeded to the throne of Brazil, and for ten years the country was governed by a regency of three members elected by the legislative chambers, and latterly by one chosen by the electors. As might be surmised, things did not go smoothly, and many risings, revolts, and intrigues embarrassed the Government, which, however, was successful in quelling them for the time being. In 1840, the King being fifteen years of age, he was declared to be of legal age, and he started on his long and popular reign. Two political parties represented the people, the Liberals and Conservatives, and alternately they obtained the ascendancy and grasped the ruling power. The civil wars which raged and distracted the country in the southern State of Rio Grande were followed by the terrible struggle with Paraguay, which was not concluded till 1872. The agitation for the abolition of the slave trade in 1850 was but the precursor of the total abolition of slavery itself nearly forty years afterwards. For years the voices of the abolitionists were raised in the Houses of Congress, with the result that first the trade was abolished (1857), next the declaration that slave-born children were free (1871), and finally all slaves were given their absolute liberty (1888). These drastic changes in the economical conditions of labour in the country were not brought about without much opposition. Great losses were incurred by the planters and slave-owners,[3] who, bitterly opposed to the liberation, turned hostile to the Emperor when he signed the decree, and opposed the claims they urged for compensation. The loss of the support of this wealthy and influential class was an important factor in the overthrow of the monarchy. But the spirit of republicanism which had been engendered by the French Revolution was growing in Brazil and two or three attempts had already been made to establish free institutions in the country. The Republican party had been organised for some years, and an opportunity occurred, and the combination of the anti-monarchists brought about the declaration of the republic in 1889. The feeble old Emperor recognised the strength of the forces arrayed against him, and, powerless to resist the trend of circumstances, he took his congé gracefully. In reply to the communication of the Marshal Deodoro du Fonseca, which informed the Emperor of the intention of the new republic and of his dismissal, he wrote: “Yielding to the imperiousness of circumstances I have resolved to set out with my family to-morrow for Europe, leaving this country so dear to us all, and to which I have endeavoured to give constant proof of my love during the nearly half a century in which I have discharged the office of chief of State: while thus leaving with my whole family I shall ever retain for Brazil the most heartfelt affection and ardent good wishes for her prosperity.”

The new republic with Marshal Deodoro at its head soon got to work, and a constitutional Assembly was organised to compile the constitution of the republic. This was published in the early part of 1891, and in the latter part of the same year the first President was obliged to resign owing to the trouble that arose over his arbitrary unconstitutional closing of the Congress. The army and navy were against the “dictator,” and the States threatened revolt, and peace was only restored when the Vice-President, Floriano Peixoto, took the Presidency. More conspiracies and revolts followed in several of the States, and the navy openly defied the Government, Admiral de Mello demanding the President’s resignation and surrender. Rio and Nictheroy were in a state of siege, and the army placed in positions to defend and keep open the entrance to the harbours. Rio was bombarded, and general disorder prevailed, and civil war raged all over the republic. The “Iron Marshal,” as Peixoto is sometimes called, succeeded eventually in quelling the revolting factors, and owing to the general desire he relinquished the reins of office to Dr. Prudente de Morales, a President who was acceptable to all classes, and who was elected without opposition in 1894. There have been eight Presidents since the republic was inaugurated, and under each the country, in spite of many internal dissensions, has made great strides.

Brazil is destined to assume in the future a far greater importance in the comity of nations than it can boast at present. Its people have no mean record behind them; they have shown a passion for independence and an increasing capacity for government, which argues well for the building up of that great edifice which is certain sooner or later to arise in South America. That they are capable of military valour was demonstrated many times over during the war with Paraguay. The chief need of the country is population, and when the other States emulate the example of São Paulo and invite and encourage emigration Brazil will advance with more rapid strides to the great goal that awaits her.