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Christiana Garretson
Dr. Arguello
150 History Latin America to 1824
13 December 2011
Life in Colonial Brazil
On April 22, 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in Brazil as the first person to
explore the land. Brazil was one of Portugal’s colonies from the 16th century until the
19th century. Brazil declared its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822 and
became a constitutional monarchy known as the Empire of Brazil.
Portugal gained a lot of profit off of trading with China, India, and Indonesia,
which is why it did not have interest in Brazil. This changed in 1530 when the
Portuguese Crown figured out how to take control over Brazil without having to lose
money over it. A system called the Hereditary Captaincies was used, wherein Brazil was
divided into strips of land that were donated to noblemen of Portugal to occupy these
strips of land and report to the Portuguese king about the condition of the land. This
system, however, failed when only two of the strips of land were successfully occupied
by these noblemen. Since this plan failed, the Portuguese Crown decided to just take
over all of the land and gave it the name Brazil based on the land’s major export, brazil
wood.
Competition over the newly-claimed land was presented to Portugal during the
first two centuries of the colonial period when other European countries made attempts to
set up colonies in multiple parts of the territory claimed by Portugal. French colonists
attempted to settle in what is today Rio de Janeiro, but were driven out by the Portuguese

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with the help of Jesuits and some of the natives who were evangelized by the Jesuits.
The Dutch also made an attempt to take over some land, but their attempt was more
successful and lasted longer than the attempt of the French. Instead of going for the
interior, the Dutch had a strategy - they would begin at the coast. They took Bahia and
the capital, Salvador, and controlled a good part of the coast from 1630 to 1654, until
they were finally worn down by several years of constant attack and siege. In the year
1661, the Dutch withdrew from Brazil, with little ethnic or cultural influences left behind.
The relationship between Portugal and the native Indians of Brazil started out as
somewhat of a civil business relationship, wherein Portugal traded with the Indians for
items such as brazil wood, which Portugal wanted the Indians to bring to the coast of
Brazil. In return for these forest items, Portugal gave the Indians household items such as
pots an tools. When the Indians gained all of the tools and other items that they needed,
they no further showed interest in the trade arrangement with Portugal. This
discontinuation of the agreement led Portugal to switch from civil to violent. Because the
Indians would no longer participate in the agreement that they had, the Portuguese then
decided to enslave the Indians. This resulted in the Indians being viewed by the Crown
as slave labor. Portugal’s economy in Brazil was indeed based on the slavery of the
Indians. Much of the occurrences after this event were indeed shaped by the enslavement
of the Indians.
At one point, cane sugar was Brazil’s main product that they focused on.
However, this changed in the mid to late 1690s. In São Paulo and to the south of it,
newly-discovered gold fields were present. Most likely, the Paulistas found more than
they claimed they found, out of fear that the Portuguese would become greedy and the

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Portuguese authorities would take over São Paulo and rid them of what little
independence they had. Although this discovery of gold occurred between 1693 and
1695, the news of the mines was spread rather slowly. The largest deposit of gold was
along the Serra do Espinhaço, Brazil’s oldest geological formation. Throughout the Serra
do Espinhaço, it “seemed that every river, stream, and brook glittered with gold.” When
the news of the gold discoveries finally did get out, it sparked a gold rush that would not
be replicated or anything close to such, until the California gold rush of 1849. Most of
the miners of the gold were slaves owned by whites. Many of the African slaves ran
away from the hard lifestyle of mining gold, though the first few decades of life in Brazil
were inevitably difficult for everyone, slaves and non-slaves alike. Seemingly simple
items such as corn, meat, and flour were rare and also expensive. For example, a small
flask of salt would cost as much as a half pound of gold. Although gold mining replaced
sugar as the leading economic product of the colony, the value of Brazil’s gold exports
never managed to exceed the value of sugar-led agricultural exports.
Due to the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in November of 1807, Portuguese
officials declared that it would be wise to move the crown to Brazil for safety. They were
faced with a dilemma - lose Portugal to the French and have the British take over Brazil,
or move the crown to Brazil and continue to fight for Portugal. No movement was made
until Portugal was invaded in late 1807. The Portuguese crown then had to essentially
duplicated from scratch the government it had left behind in Lisbon. A Supreme Military
Council was set up along with boards of treasury, trade, agriculture and so on, among
with other necessities for a successful government. The British liberated Portugal from
the French in 1811, stayed in Brazil, and somehow managed to keep British influence to

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a minimum. In 1815, the Portuguese crown raised Brazil to a kingdom that was equal
with Portugal. The crown then arranged marriages between the two princesses and the
Spanish king and his brother, and also between Crown Prince Pedro and the daughter of
Franz of Austria, who was the Archduchess of Leopoldina.

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Sources Used
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brazil
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0015%29
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0018%29
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+br0019%29