The permanent settlement of Brazil was begun by deserters and mutineers set on shore from ships on their way to India or to cut brazil-wood. In 1509 a certain Diego Alvarez, nicknamed by the Indians "Caramuru," or "man of lightning," landed at Bahia and escaped being eaten by frightening the Indians with his musket. He married a chief's daughter, and when a real colony was established years later he and his numerous half-breed descendants proved of great use to his compatriots. Two years later John Ramalho did much the same near Santos, hundreds of miles to the south. The story of the last of the three authenticdegradadosis even more romantic. His name was Aleixo Garcia, and with three companions he landed about 1526 in the present state of Santa Catharina. Collecting an army of Indians he led them on a conquering and gold-hunting expedition over the coast-range, across the great plateau, into the valley of the Paraguay, and even penetrated ten years before Pizarro into territory tributary to the Incas of Peru. Hefinally perished in the centre of the continent, but when, years afterwards, the Spaniards penetrated the valley of the Paraná they found that the Indians already knew of white men and firearms.
As early as 1516 the Portuguese government offered to give farming utensils free to settlers in Brazil, and it is probable that shortly afterwards some sugar was planted. The first serious and official effort to cultivate sugar was made in 1526. Christovão Jaques founded a factory on the island of Itamarica, a few miles north of Pernambuco. It was shortly destroyed by the French brazil-wood hunters, and the settlers fled to the site of Pernambuco and renewed the effort pending the arrival of re-enforcements. Seekers of brazil-wood hailing from Honfleur and Dieppe were swarming along the coast. The value of the region for sugar raising began to be appreciated. When the news came of the failure of the Spanish expedition which Cabot had led to the Plate, the Portuguese government determined to fit out a considerable expedition, composed of colonists and families as well as soldiers and adventurers. Seduced by the cry, "We are going to the Silver River," four hundred persons enlisted. The five vessels were commanded by Martim Affonso da Souza, a great general and navigator, who had already proved his capacity and who later went to the very top in the East Indian wars. He was instructed to expel all intruders and establish a permanent fortified colony. Early in 1531 he reached the coast near Pernambuco, captured three French ships laden with brazil-wood, and sent two caravelsnorth to explore the coast beyond Cape St. Roque, while he himself sailed south with the idea of founding a colony on the Plate. But after passing Santa Catharina he was unfortunate in losing his largest ship with most of his provisions, and deemed it safer to return toward the north. At São Vicente, now a little town near the great coffee port of Santos, he dropped anchor, and there, January, 1532, founded the first Portuguese colony in Brazil. Near this point lived the solitary Portuguese, John Ramalho, surrounded by his half-breed descendants, and he gave his countrymen a glad reception. He soon showed them the way up the mountains to the high plateau which begins only a few miles from the sea. Another settlement was founded on these fertile plains near the site of the present city of São Paulo.
In the west of Brazil the settlements were established at a striking distance from the coast, but in São Paulo the colonists could more easily spread over the open plains of the interior than along the mountainous coast. On top of their plateau they were cut off from ready communication with the mother country; they struck out for themselves, and their development was something like that of the British in North America. They were the pioneers of Brazil, corresponding closely in character and habits, in the virtues of daring, hospitality, and self-confidence, and in the vices of cruelty, rudeness, and ignorance, with the pioneers of the Mississippi valley.
The Paulistas were all profoundly influenced by their intimate association with the Indian tribes. In the early days intermarriages were frequent, butthe continual re-enforcement of the European element, and the inferiority in capacity of reproduction which the Indian has shown in Brazil, make the traces of that intermixture hard to discover at the present time. The Paulistas and their descendants in the interior states are taller, slenderer, darker, and more active and graceful than the modern Portuguese. Their hands and feet are smaller, their movements more nervous, their manners more self-confident.
The successful founding of a considerable colony in Brazil aroused interest at home, and many courtiers solicited the Crown for grants. It was decided to partition the whole coast into feudal fiefs, each proprietor undertaking the expenses of colonisation and being given virtually sovereign powers in return for a tax on the expected production. Each of these "captaincies" measured fifty leagues along the coast, and extended indefinitely into the interior. In 1534 twelve such fiefs were created, covering the whole coast from the mouth of the Amazon to the island of Santa Catharina—these being the points where the Tordesillas line met the seaboard.
Six of these proprietors succeeded in establishing permanent colonies. Martim Affonso's settlement has already been described. In 1536 his brother, Pero Lopes, established Santo Amaro within a few miles of São Vicente. Naturally its history soon became confounded with that of the larger settlement. Duarte Coelho founded Pernambuco in 1535, and in it was soon absorbed Itamarica, the second of the two colonies founded by Pero Lopesin 1536. The other three permanent settlements were Victoria, the nucleus of the present state of Espirito Santo, Porto Seguro, and Ilheos. No one of them prospered, and their territories are still among the most backward parts of the Brazilian coast. The donatory of the territory which included the bay of Bahia, started a town, but it was destroyed by Indians. The other five captaincies were not taken hold of seriously by their proprietors. The four nuclei for the settlement of Brazil were São Paulo, Pernambuco, and the later colonies of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro.
Martim Affonso recked little of his fief or its revenues and left his Paulistas to work out their own destiny. Pernambuco was on the track of every ship which came to South America, the neighbouring interior was level and easily accessible from the coast, the soil and climate were suitable for sugar, and from the beginning relations with the mother country were intimate and continuous. Its proprietor, Duarte Coelho, determined to devote himself to his colony, and he personally headed a numerous and carefully selected colonising expedition. He spent the rest of his life there, and died twenty years later, surrounded by a large and prosperous colony, which was already a self-supporting state with all the elements of permanence. A good business man and liberal for that age, he granted land on easy terms; its possession was secure; contributions were moderate; and he resolutely defended himself and his grantees from the exactions of the Crown.
The Portuguese occupation of Brazil was induced solely by commercial considerations. Explorers and emigrants went out to make their fortunes, not to escape religious or political tyranny. When the first voyagers were disappointed in not finding gold mines, they turned their attention to brazil-wood. Soon the suitability of the territory for sugar was discovered. The European demand for this luxury was increasing, and the Portuguese had become familiar with its culture in Africa. Cane was taken from Madeira and the Cape Verdes to Brazil before 1525, and there is a record of exportation at least as early as 1526. Here was found the basis for the real colonisation. From the very start the industry prospered in Pernambuco, and Brazil became the main source of the world's supply.
Near Pernambuco little trouble was experienced with the Indians. Many of the tribes were allies of the Portuguese, though the fierce Aymorés fought the settlers and once reduced the infant colony to the verge of destruction. Although the law of Portugal forbade the enslavement of Indians except as a punishment for crime, they were reduced to bondage on a large scale in Pernambuco, and the Paulistas never paid any attention to this prohibition.
By the middle of the sixteenth century Brazil contained one rapidly expanding colony of sugar-planters, Pernambuco, which gave sure promise of wealth if not attacked from without,—a half dozen moribund settlements on the thousand miles of coast to the south, and an isolated but vigorous andself-sufficing group in São Paulo, whose inhabitants produced little for export, but who were reducing the aborigines to slavery in an expanding circle. In the last there was a considerable proportion of Indian blood and in the first a large number of negroes. The smaller captaincies were little more than resorts for pirates and contraband traders in brazil-wood. The settlers were powerless to prevent the French expeditions which yearly became more numerous. Serious apprehensions were felt that the French would occupy the coast and make Brazil a basis for attacks on Portugal's African and Indian empires.
The best blood of the Portuguese nation was being drained away in exhausting wars and expeditions to India and Africa; absolute government was sapping civic vitality; the extravagances of Court and nobles were impoverishing the country. However, enough vitality remained, before the terrific destruction of Portuguese power and pride at Alcacer-Kibir in 1580, to secure such a firm establishment of the Portuguese race on the whole coast of Brazil that it never has been dislodged, and only once seriously threatened. This result was largely due to the founding of a strong military and naval post at Bahia, around which grew up a prosperous colony, and under whose protection Pernambuco spread out over the north-east coast, São Paulo developed uninterruptedly, and Rio Bay was saved from the French.
The first proprietary settlement in Bahia Bay had been destroyed by the Indians, but this magnificent and central harbour was manifestly the most convenient point whence to send assistance to the other settlements and guard the whole coast. In 1549 the king determined to build a fortress and city there. Thomas de Souza, the illegitimate scion of a great house, was chosen the first governor-general. He sailed in April, 1549, with six vessels, and accompanied by three hundred and twenty officials and a number of colonists. The new capital commanded the entrance to a magnificent inland sea which offered splendid facilities for the establishment of a flourishing state. Bahia Bay is nearly a hundred miles in circumference; its shores are fertile and penetrated by rivers; each plantation has its own wharves. Within a few months a town of a hundred houses had been built, surrounded by a wall and defended by batteries; a cathedral, a custom house, a Jesuit college, and a governor's residence were under way.
Thomas de Souza was instructed to strike at the root of the difficulties that were supposed to have prevented the success of the proprietary captaincies. He was the direct representative of the king and had supreme supervisory power. Other officers, however, were associated with him who were independently responsible in judicial, financial, and naval matters. He was closely bound by instructions covering every detail that could be foreseen, and these instructions clearly show the centralising and jealous spirit of Portuguese institutions and ideas.
Few Portuguese of that age were capable of rising to an appreciation of the economical advantages of freedom. The liberal concessions to the originalproprietors—free trade with the mother country, the right of communication with foreign countries, and judicial and administrative independence—availed nothing. Neither colonists, proprietors, nor the central government could understand or apply them. Brazil was subjected to a systematic and continually more rigorous exploitation by the home government, and to the irresponsible and uncontrolled military despotism of little satraps.
BAHIA.BAHIA.
In Bahia, as in Pernambuco, the sugar industry prospered from the beginning. Bahia is close to Africa and navigation across is safe and easy. The importation of blacks began immediately, and the port continued to be the greatestentrepôtand distributing point for the trade during three centuries. Bahia's population is more largely black than that of any other city in Brazil, and the pure African type is frequently seen on its streets. The local cuisine includes many dishes of African origin, and the local dialect many African words. Certain African dialects are spoken to this day, and a few Mohammedan negroes there still perform the rites of the Koran in the most absolute secrecy.
The municipal government of the town, though under the overshadowing power of the governor, showed some vitality and independence. The fertile island of Itaparica, just opposite the city, had been granted to the mother of a minister. Though the donation was repeatedly confirmed by the king himself, she and her heirs were never able to put their agents in possession. The municipal council successfully insisted that the original royal instructions to the governor required all grantees to occupy their estates in person.
One of John III.'s strongest reasons for undertaking a more extensive colonisation of Brazil was the pious conviction that it was his Christian duty to promote the dissemination of the true religion in dominions which he owed to the gift of the Holy Father. He was the first and most steadfast friend of the Jesuits, then just organised and San Francisco Xavier, the Apostle of the East Indies, was sent out to one hemisphere, while the conversion of the Brazilian aborigines was determined upon in the other. With Thomas de Souza sailed an able Jesuit, Manuel Nobrega, accompanied by several other Fathers. They began a carefully planned campaign to convert the Indians and, incidentally, to exploit them in the interests of the Order.
It is impossible not to admire the courage, shrewdness, and devotion of the Jesuits. They went out alone among the savage tribes, living with them, learning their languages, preaching to them, captivating their imaginations by the pomp of religious paraphernalia and processions, baptising them, andexhorting them to abandon cannibalism and polygamy. Tireless and fearless, they plunged into an interior hitherto unpenetrated by white men. The reports they made to their superiors frequently afford the best information that is yet extant as to the customs of the Indians and the resources of the regions they explored.
The Indians were easily induced to conform to the externals of the Christian cult. Wherever the Jesuits penetrated, the aborigines soon adopted Christianity, but to hold the Indians to Christianity the Fathers were obliged to fix them to the soil. As soon as a tribe was converted, a rude church building was erected, and a Jesuit installed, who remained to teach agriculture and the arts as well as ritual and morals. His moral and intellectual superiority made him perforce an absolute ruler in miniature. Thus that strange theocracy came into being, which, starting on the Brazilian coast, spread over most of central South America. In the early part of the seventeenth century the theocratic seemed likely to become the dominant form of government south of the Amazon and east of the Andes.
The Jesuit wanted the Indian to himself, and fought against the interference or enslavement by the lay Portuguese. The colonists wanted the Indians to work on their plantations, to incorporate them as slaves, or in some analogous capacity, with the white man's industrial and civil organisation. The home government stood by the Jesuits, but the colonists constantly evaded restrictions and steadily fought the priests. The encouragement of the negroslave trade was an attempt at a compromise—intended to induce the colonists to leave the Indians alone by furnishing another supply of labour.
Primarily, at least, the Jesuit purpose was altruistic, though the material advantages and the fascination of exercising authority were soon potent motives. The Jesuits gave the South American Indian the greatest measure of peace and justice he ever enjoyed, but they reduced him to blind obedience and made him a tenant and a servant. Though virtually a slave, he was, however, little exposed to infection from the vices and diseases of civilisation; he was not put at tasks too hard for him; and under Jesuit rule he prospered. On the other hand, if this system had prevailed there would have been little white immigration, the Indian race would have remained in possession of the country, and real civilisation would never have gained a foothold.
Immediately after the founding of Bahia, Nobrega sent members of the Order to the other colonies. He himself visited Pernambuco, where the stout old proprietor met him with effective opposition. Duarte did not welcome a clergy responsible solely to a foreign corporation, and over which he could have no control. In Bahia and the south the Jesuits, however, prospered amazingly. In São Paulo they laboured hard, spread widely, converted a large number of Indians, and perfected their system, but it was there they came most sharply in conflict with the spirit of individualism, and there they suffered their first and most crushing overthrow.
Thomas de Souza laboured diligently during the four years of his administration, fortifying posts, driving away contraband traders, dismissing incompetent officials, and even building jails and straightening streets where the local authorities had neglected them. He visited all the captaincies south of Bahia and entered Rio Bay, then the principal rendezvous for the French privateers and traders. He appreciated its strategic and commercial importance, and was only prevented by lack of means from establishing a strong post there. In São Paulo he prohibited the flourishing trade which had grown with the Spaniards in Paraguay and Buenos Aires. Duarte da Costa, his successor, was accompanied by a large re-enforcement of Jesuits. Among them was Anchieta, one of the most notable men in the history of the Order, whose genius, devotion, and pertinacious courage laid the foundations of Jesuit power so deeply in South America that its effects remain to this day. This remarkable man was born in Teneriffe, the son of a banished nobleman, who had married a native of the island. Educated at home, from his infancy he showed marvellous talents. At fourteen, his father, not daring to risk his son's life in Spain, sent him to the Portuguese University at Coimbra. His career was so brilliant, the reputation he acquired for profound and ready intelligence, his eloquence, and his pure and elevated ideals so remarkable, that he attracted the attention of Simon Rodrigues, John III.'s great Jesuit minister, who, like all the leaders of the Order, was on the watch for talented young men. The ardentyouth was easily convinced that no career was so glorious as that of a missionary, and when only twenty years old he solicited and obtained permission to go to Brazil. Nobrega, the Provincial, selected him to go to São Paulo and establish a school to train neophytes and proselytes into evangelists. His own letter to Nobrega best tells what a life he found and what sort of man he was:
"Here we are, sometimes more than twenty of us together in a little hut of mud and wicker, roofed with straw, fourteen paces long and ten wide. This is at once the school, the infirmary, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, and store-room. Yet we covet not the more spacious dwellings which our brethren have in other parts. Our Lord Jesus Christ was in a far straiter place when it was His pleasure to be born among beasts in a manger, and in a still straiter when He deigned to die upon the cross."
"Here we are, sometimes more than twenty of us together in a little hut of mud and wicker, roofed with straw, fourteen paces long and ten wide. This is at once the school, the infirmary, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, and store-room. Yet we covet not the more spacious dwellings which our brethren have in other parts. Our Lord Jesus Christ was in a far straiter place when it was His pleasure to be born among beasts in a manger, and in a still straiter when He deigned to die upon the cross."
PADRE JOSE DE ANCHIETA.PADRE JOSE DE ANCHIETA.[From an old wood-cut.]
They herded together to keep warm, for in winter it is cold on the São Paulo plateau. They had no food except the mandioc flour, fish, and game which the Indians gave them. To the little college came Creoles and half-breeds and learned Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tupi. Anchieta was indefatigable. Within a year he had acquired a complete mastery of the Indian tongue, and had devised a grammar for it. He wrote his own text-books, and employed his great poetical talents in composing hymns and verses to be chanted to the pupils, recounting the stories of Holy Scripture. He visited the most savage tribes in person, and acquired a marvellous moral supremacy over them. When the Tamoyos attacked the Portuguese, and the destruction of all the southern settlements seemed inevitable, he fearlessly went to the Indian camps and persuaded the chiefs to consent to a truce while he remained among them three years as a hostage to guarantee its faithful performance by his countrymen. The savages regarded him as more than human, and tradition tells of the miracles he performed. It is related that during these three years of solitary captivity he composed, without the aid of pen or paper, his Latin "Hymn to the Virgin," celebrated as one of the masterpieces of ecclesiastical poetry.
He and his companions did not disdain to labour with their hands. They used the spade and trowel,made their own shoes, taught the Indians agriculture, introduced new plants from Europe, practised medicine, and studied the botany, topography, and geology of the country. The villages of converted Indians under their government and protection rapidly spread over the São Paulo plains, and they were refuges for Indians flying from slavery on the plantations. The colonists pursued their fugitive slaves, and soon were at open war with the Jesuits. In the course of this conflict the original half-breed settlement on the plateau was destroyed and the lay Portuguese came near being wiped out. Peace was temporarily patched up, but the Paulistas soon turned the tables and compelled the Jesuits to devote themselves to their educational institutions in the towns, or to withdraw farther and farther into the wilderness.
During Duarte's administration troubles with the Indians broke out along the whole coast. In Bahia itself the new governor had disobeyed the orders of the home government to protect the Indians. He joined with the colonists in exploiting them. A formidable Indian conspiracy was formed and the settlements on both sides of the city were simultaneously attacked. Many farms and villages were sacked, but soon the Indians were finally and crushingly defeated. The coast towns of São Paulo were menaced by a great confederation of tribes who used war canoes and had learned to overcome their terror of firearms. At Espirito Santo the Indian slaves roseen masse, killed most of the Portuguese, and destroyed the sugar plantations.
A more serious danger was the settlement of the French at Rio de Janeiro. They had formed friendly relations with the Indians, and the name of Frenchman was sufficient to insure good treatment from most of the tribes, while that of Portuguese was a signal for its bearer to be killed and devoured. Thiswas the epoch of the religious wars in France, and the traders to Brazil came mostly from Huguenot ports. Admiral Coligny conceived the idea of establishing a Huguenot settlement in South America, and Rio was chosen as the most available site. In 1555 a considerable expedition was sent under the command of Nicolas Villegagnon, a celebrated adventurer, who had distinguished himself in escorting Mary Queen of Scots from France to Scotland. He fortified the island in Rio harbour that still bears his name—a barren rock which commanded the entrance and was safe from attacks by land. The French kept on good terms with the neighbouring Indians, and remained unmolested by the Portuguese for four years. But Villegagnon was not faithful to his employers, though most of his party were Protestants, and Huguenot leaders had furnished the money for the expedition. He quarrelled with the Huguenots and finally gave up the command and returned to France in the Guise interest. Coligny's project of establishing a new and Protestant France in South America lost its very good chance of success. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been the history of Brazil if Villegagnon had stuck to the Huguenot side. In all probability re-enforcements would have been sent, and St. Bartholomew's Day—fourteen years later—might have been followed by a great emigration like that which went to New England during the Laud persecution. Rio and perhaps the whole of South Brazil would have become a French possession or a French-speaking state.
Not until 1558 was a strong and able Portuguese governor selected, and vigorous measures taken to expel the French. The new governor was Mem da Sa, a nobleman of the highest birth, a soldier, a scholar, and an experienced administrator. His name will always be associated with the establishment of the Portuguese power in Brazil on a footing firm and broad enough to enable it to withstand the Dutch attacks and the lean years of Spanish domination.
Upon his arrival he took measures to quiet the Indian slavery question by reducing the import duties on black slaves and by aiding each planter to acquire as many negroes as he needed to work his plantation. When his ships and armament arrived he proceeded to the south. He found that the French, though weak in numbers, could count on Indian allies. As he himself writes to the Court: "The French do not treat the natives as we do. They are very liberal to them, observing strict justice, so that the commander is feared by his countrymen and beloved by the Indians. Measures have been taken to instruct the latter in the use of arms, and as the aborigines are very numerous the French may soon make themselves very strong." He harassed the French and destroyed their fortifications but could not completely dislodge them, and returned to Bahia with his work only half accomplished. Porto Seguro and Ilheos were attacked by the ferocious Aymorés and with difficulty saved from total destruction. In the South another great Tamoyo confederation had been formed with thedeliberate purpose of rooting the Paulistas out of the country and putting a stop once for all to their slave-hunting. When all seemed lost, Anchieta intervened, and succeeded in fixing up a peace. The Tamoyos were cajoled into becoming allies of the Portuguese in a final attempt to expel the French from Rio. Mem da Sa's nephew appeared with a considerable fleet, and after a desultory campaign of a year the French were obliged to retire. France did nothing to prevent or recover this inestimable loss, and Mem da Sa immediately laid out and fortified a city on a site which to-day is the business centre of the capital of Brazil. From the time of its founding Rio was the most important place in southern Brazil and the key to the whole region, but its great prosperity dates from a hundred and fifty years later, when gold was discovered in Minas Geraes.
Mem da Sa continued to rule Brazil until his death in 1572. The work of centralisation went on apace, fiscal and administrative officers were multiplied, and taxes and restrictions imposed at will. The Lisbon government laid the foundations of that restrictive system which finally confined Brazil to communication with the mother country. Nevertheless most of the settlements grew rapidly. Sugar-planting, cattle-raising, and general agriculture flourished. The Indians were expelled or reduced to impotence within striking distance of the centres of population.
PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH.PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH.[From an old print.]
At Mem da Sa's death the civilised population numbered about sixty thousand, of whom twentythousand were white. The provinces of Pernambuco and Bahia had each twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Rio had some two thousand and São Paulo perhaps five, the remainder being divided between the smaller settlements—Parahyba, Rio Real, Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo. Except in São Paulo most of the inhabitants were engaged in sugar-raising. The hundred and twenty plantations produced annually forty-five thousand tons of sugar, while Portuguese goods to the value of a million dollars a year were imported.
A sugarfazenda, or plantation, constituted a little independent village, where the owner lived surrounded by his slaves in their cabins, his shops and stables, mills and mandioc fields. The grantees had paid no purchase price for the land, and held it on condition of paying a tenth of the product and a tenth of that tenth, a tax which survives to the present time, only it is now called an export duty of eleven per cent. Land was not otherwise taxed, and to this day direct taxes on farm property are almost unknown, though imposts of every other conceivable kind have been multiplied. The tracts granted were large; the owner could hold them unused without expense; the most powerful incentive to sale and division of land did not, therefore, exist. Brazil became and remains a country of large rural proprietorship. Landowners are reluctant to sell or divide their estates, taxes on transfers are excessive, and land is not freely bought and sold. Consequently the rural population is widely scattered, grants extend far beyond the limits of actual settlement, there are few small farmers and very little careful culture. Brazil is a country of staple crops and non-diversified agriculture. A fall in sugar or coffee produces a disproportionate disturbance in financial conditions, and land not suitable to the staple crop of a region is left to lie idle. Immigration has been retarded because land has been hard to obtain except by special government concession, and because private owners do not care to sell their land to settlers. Except in restricted cases, the rural immigration—negro and South European—has been for the purpose of furnishing labour for the large proprietors, and not to form a landowning and permanently established population.
The Jesuit travellers describe the Brazilian people in 1584 as pleasure-loving and extravagant. In the sugar provinces fortunes were very unequal. In Pernambuco alone more than a hundred planters had incomes of ten thousand dollars a year. Their capital, Olinda—now the northern suburb of the city of Pernambuco—was the largest town in Brazil and the one where there was most luxurious living and the most polite society. In general the people were spendthrifts, and notwithstanding large incomes were heavily in debt. Great sums were spent on fêtes, religious processions, fairs, and dinners. The simple Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such velvets and silks, such luxurious beds of crimson damask, such extravagance in the trappings of the saddle-horses. Carriages were unknown, and instead litters and sedan chairs were used, and theseremained in common use in Bahia until very recent times.
A CADEIRA.A CADEIRA.
From Pernambuco and Bahia communication with the mother country was constant and easy. São Paulo, however, differed radically from the sugar districts. Wheat, barley, and European fruits grew on the São Paulo plateau, but there was little export to Portugal, and imported clothes were scarce and dear. The Paulistas were constantly on horseback and wore the old Portuguese costume of cloak and close-fitting doublet long after it had been disused at home.
Bahia and Pernambuco were fairly well built towns, though unfortunately in the Portuguese styleof architecture, whose solid walls, few windows, and contiguous houses make it ill adapted to a tropical climate. In spite of its unsuitability it was universally adopted, and even yet largely prevails in Brazil.
In 1581 Philip II. of Spain succeeded in establishing himself on the throne of Portugal as the successor of the rash Sebastian, dead fighting the Moors at Alcacer-Kebir. The decadent and demoralised Portuguese nation made hardly the semblance of a struggle for its independence. The very ease with which Philip obtained the kingdom left him no pretext for depriving it of administrative independence. Native Portuguese continued to hold office in the colonies and to enjoy a monopoly of Brazilian commerce. Internally, therefore, the change did not much affect Brazil. But in foreign relations the effect was profound. Brazil became a part of a well-nigh universal monarchy, and one of the battle-fields of the struggle which had begun between Spain and the Protestant powers.
All South America was now under the same monarch; boundary questions between Portuguese and Spanish America apparently ceased to have any importance. The enormous extension of Brazil toward the interior over territory formerly concededto be Spanish occurred during the sixty years of Spanish domination. The Spanish monarch did not have time to spend on Brazilian matters, and the colonists were less interfered with from Lisbon and Madrid than might have been expected. Portuguese historians have much exaggerated the evil effects of the English, Dutch, and French half filibustering, half-trading descents on the coast, which occurred during this period. The pillage of a few towns was more than compensated by the commerce that sprang up; much Brazilian sugar escaped paying the heavy export duties; settlement extended rapidly over new territory, and the importation of negroes continued.
As early as 1575 a settlement had been made in Sergipe, but the great expansion over northern Brazil began under the rule of Philip's first governor-general. In 1583 he sent troops to take possession of the important port of Parahyba, where some French traders had obtained a foothold that prevented the inhabitants of Pernambuco from spreading north beyond Itamarica. The Spanish mercenaries were at first successful, but they could not stifle the serious Indian war which broke out. The Pernambucanos had better success, because they knew how to take advantage of the dissensions among the savages. Fortifying a town at Parahyba, they permanently established their sugar plantations in its neighbourhood, and then these indefatigable and land-hungry Creoles pushed on farther to the north. In 1597 Jeronymo de Albuquerque, the greatest of Brazilian colonial generals, attacked and defeatedthe powerful Pitagoares Indians, and established the colony of Natal, the nucleus of the present state of Rio Grande do Norte. This brought the Pernambucanos to Cape St. Roque. To the south they had spread as far as the San Francisco River, there meeting the Bahianos who, by 1589, had taken possession of the present state of Sergipe.
North of St. Roque the Portuguese so far had done nothing except make some desultory voyages of observation, though they claimed the coast to and beyond the mouth of the Amazon. The donatories of the captaincies in that region had not succeeded in establishing any settlements. In 1541, Orellana, one of those recklessly heroic Spaniards who had helped Pizarro conquer the empire of the Incas, was a member of an expedition which crossed the Andes near Quito and descended into the forested plains, looking for another Peru—the fabled El Dorado. They finally found themselves on a great river flowing to the east, and, since their provisions were exhausted, boats were built and Orellana was sent on ahead to try to find supplies. He could not find enough to feed the main body and decided to float on down the river, well knowing it must finally bring him to the ocean. After a voyage of more than three thousand miles he came to the great estuary of the Amazon and thence made his way to Spain. No important results followed this wonderful discovery. Orellana himself shortly returned to the mouth of the river, but he could not find his way up the labyrinth of waters.
To reach the plains from the Pacific or Caribbeansettlements is nearly impracticable, and the Amazon valley remained unsettled. Meanwhile the seed planted by old Duarte Coelho germinated and grew into a vigorous tree whose branches were spreading out over all North Brazil. The seventeenth century had hardly begun when the hardy Pernambucanos invaded the country lying north and west of St. Roque, hunting Indian slaves, and good places for cattle- and sugar-raising. In 1603 Pero Coelho, an adventurous Brazilian then living at Parahyba, made a settlement far to the north-west of Natal, on the coast of Ceará, and penetrated eight hundred miles from Pernambuco. Unreasonable aggressions against the Indians brought on temporary reverses, but the Pernambucanos persevered, and the Jesuits also established missions. By 1610 the region was pretty well under white control, the Indians being incorporated to a greater extent than was usual in the settlements farther south.
The next forward movement was precipitated by a formidable French attempt to colonise Maranhão. Daniel de la Rivardière, a Huguenot nobleman, conceived the idea of carrying out on the north coast Coligny's plan of a French Protestant colony. In 1612 he landed on the island of Maranhão with a large and well-appointed expedition.
Jeronymo de Albuquerque fortunately happened to be on the north coast when news came of this alarming intrusion. Sending his ships on to ascertain the truth of the report, he hastened overland to Pernambuco to get a force together. With three hundred whites and two hundred Indians he startedto expel the French. An assault on a fort defended with artillery was out of the question, so in his turn he fortified himself, cut off the French from access to the sea, and ambushed their foraging expeditions. In such a game, his men, inured to the climate, had an immense advantage. Forced to assault Albuquerque's position, the French were repulsed. They begged for a truce, and went home at the end of a year. Albuquerque took possession of the French town, and in 1616 secured all the rest of the northern coast to Portugal by founding Pará, just to the south of the mouth of the Amazon. Several settlements were made along the coast east of Pará and also west in the estuary itself. The Indians proved docile and were easily incorporated to so great an extent that the Indian element is more predominant in Pará than in any other state on the Brazilian littoral.
On the island and around the bay of Maranhão a prosperous colony grew up. Certain enterprising business men made a contract with the government and started a regular propaganda for immigrants, and induced a large number to come from the Azores. The state thus founded was one of the most prosperous in Brazil, and was especially celebrated for the politeness and cultivation of its inhabitants. Some of the greatest names in Portuguese literature are those of Maranhenses. It is commonly said that the best Portuguese is spoken in Maranhão, and not in Lisbon, Rio, or Porto—just as the English of Dublin, Aberdeen, or Boston is considered better than that of London or New York, and the Spanishof Lima and Bogotá better than that of Madrid, Barcelona, or Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile population and wealth had been increasing satisfactorily in the older provinces south of Cape St. Roque. By 1626 Pernambuco and Bahia had grown to be towns of something like ten thousand inhabitants, and the people of the respective provinces numbered about a hundred thousand. Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo had made no progress, but Rio had become a city of six thousand, while the shores of her bay and the adjacent coast were now fairly settled. Rio and Santos really performed the function of ports for the foreign commerce of Paraguay and the Argentine because the Spanish laws did not permit these colonies to have ports of their own. Campos was now settled and its sugar industry was prospering. On the São Paulo plains the Paulistas had spread to the north-east to the headwaters of the Parahyba and borders of the present state of Rio, and north-west down the navigable Tieté, along which they found an easy track for their expeditions in search of slaves. The Jesuits had long since been unable to control or check the Paulistas, and had abandoned the missions near the coast. In the remote interior, along the Paraná and its great tributaries, the defeated priests thought that they would be safe, and about the end of the sixteenth century they entered that region by way of Paraguay. The Paulistas recked little of the government, especially now that the king was Spanish, and, advancing the claim that Spanish Jesuits had established missions on Portugueseterritory, they proceeded to wipe out the new missions.
It seems incredible that their little bands could have penetrated such distances and accomplished such results, but it is on record that they tracked nearly to the Andes, and practically exterminated, the aboriginal population of half Brazil. The Jesuits tell us that between 1614 and 1639 four hundred Paulistas with two thousand Indian allies captured and killed three hundred thousand natives. In 1632 they utterly destroyed the great Jesuit settlements on the Upper Paraná, though this involved an expedition of fifteen hundred miles, much of which is to this day rarely penetrable. One of their expeditions was like an ambulating village—women, children, and domestic animals accompanying it. They sometimes were obliged to stop, sow a crop, and wait for it to mature before they could proceed. For the time being, these predatory Paulistas almost reverted to the nomadic stage.
Naturally, no complete record of these expeditions survives. Their members were not literate men, and it is only when they fought the Jesuits, or when they discovered minerals, that a record of their routes has been preserved. We know that before 1632 they had traversed all of southern Brazil, and Paraguay, and even eastern Argentina and Uruguay. Incursions to the north and west followed shortly. There is an authentic record of an expedition reaching Goyaz as early as 1647, and it is probable that by that time they had penetrated the central plateau which stretches across to the Andes,had seen the headwaters of the southern tributaries of the Amazon, and had followed the eastern mountain chain almost to the northern ocean. The Paulistas secured to their country and their race more than a million square miles of fertile and salubrious territory.