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.

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 parts, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Spaniards. The Treaty of Tordesillas was arguably the most decisive event in all Brazilian history, since it alone determined that a portion of South America would be settled by Portugal instead of Spain. The present extent of Brazil's coastline is almost exactly that defined by the treaty of Madrid, which was approved in 1750.

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

Captaincies

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.

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.

Jesuit missions

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 São 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Territorial evolution of colonial Brazil

References

• Colonial history of Brazil in the Rio de Janeiro Municipality website (in Portuguese).
• Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, Vol. III of Civilization and Capitalism, 1984.