Part 34

Rio de Janeiro was first occupied by French settlers. Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon, a bold and skilful seaman, having visited Brazil, saw at once the advantages which might accrue his country from a settlement there. In order to secure the interest of Coligny, he gave out that his projected colony was intended to serve as a place of refuge for the persecuted Huguenots. Under the patronage of that admiral, he arrived at Rio de Janeiro in 1558 with a train of numerous and respectable colonists. As soon, however, as he thought his power secure, he threw off the mask, and began to harass and oppress the Huguenots by every means he could devise. Many of them were forced by his tyranny to return to France; and ten thousand Protestants, ready to embark for the new colony, were deterred by their representations. Villegagnon, finding his force much diminished in consequence of his treachery, sailed for France in quest of recruits; and during his absence the Portuguese governor, by order of his court, attacked and dispersed the settlement. For some years the French kept up a kind of bush warfare; but in 1567 the Portuguese succeeded in establishing a settlement at Rio.

Mem de Sa continued to hold the reins of government in Brazil upon terms of the best understanding with the clergy, and to the great advantage of the colonies, for fourteen years. On the expiration of his power, which was nearly contemporary with that of his life, an attempt was made to divide Brazil into two governments; but this having failed, the territory was reunited in 1578, the year in which Diego Laurenco da Veiga was appointed governor. At this time the colonies, although not yet independent of supplies from the mother country, were in a flourishing condition; but the usurpation of the crown of Portugal by Philip II. changed the aspect of affairs. Brazil, believed to be inferior to the Spanish possessions in mines, was consequently abandoned in comparative neglect for the period intervening between 1578 and 1640, during which it continued an apanage of Spain.

English and French aggressions.

No sooner had Brazil passed under the Spanish crown, than English adventurers directed their hostile enterprises against its shores. In 1586 Witherington plundered Bahia; in 1591 Cavendish made an abortive attack on Santos; in 1595 Lancaster attacked Olinda. These exploits, however, were transient in their effects. In 1612 the French attempted to found a permanent colony in the island of Marajo, where they succeeded in maintaining themselves till 1618. This attempt led to the erection of Maranhao and Para into a separate _Estado_. But it was on the part of the Dutch that the most skilful and pertinacious efforts were made for securing a footing in Brazil; and they alone of all the rivals of the Portuguese have left traces of their presence in the national spirit and institutions of Brazil.

Struggle with the Dutch.

The success of the Dutch East India Company led to the establishment of a similar one for the West Indies, to which a monopoly of the trade to America and Africa was granted. This body despatched in 1624 a fleet against Bahia. The town yielded almost without a struggle. The fleet soon after sailed, a squadron being detached against Angola, with the intention of taking possession of that colony, in order to secure a supply of slaves. The fall of Bahia for once roused the Spaniards and Portuguese to joint action, and a great expedition speedily sailed from Cadiz and Lisbon for Bahia. Once more, though strongly garrisoned, the town was retaken without any serious fighting in May 1625. The honours bestowed upon the Indian chiefs for their assistance in this war broke down in a great measure the barrier between the two races; and there is at this day a greater admixture of their blood among the better classes in Bahia than is to be found elsewhere in Brazil.

Dutch settlement in Brazil.

In 1630 the Dutch attempted again to effect a settlement; and Olinda, with its port, the Recife-Olinda, was destroyed, but the Recife was fortified and held, reinforcements and supplies being sent by sea from Holland. The Dutch were unable, however, to extend their power beyond the limits of the town, until the arrival of Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen in 1636. His first step was to introduce a regular government among his countrymen; his second, to send to the African coast one of his officers, who took possession of a Portuguese settlement, and thus secured a supply of slaves. In the course of eight years, the limited period of his government, he succeeded in asserting the Dutch supremacy along the coast of Brazil from the mouth of Sao Francisco to Maranhao. The Recife was rebuilt and adorned with splendid residences and gardens and received from its founder the name of Mauritstad. He promoted the amalgamation of the different races, and sought to conciliate the Portuguese by the confidence he reposed in them. His object was to found a great empire; but this was a project at variance with the wishes of his employers--an association of merchants, who were dissatisfied because the wealth which they expected to see flowing into their coffers was expended in promoting the permanent interests of a distant country. Count Maurice resigned his post in 1644. His successors possessed neither his political nor his military talents, and had to contend with more difficult circumstances.

In 1640 the revolution which placed the house of Braganza on the throne of Portugal restored Brazil to masters more inclined to promote its interests and assert its possession than the Spaniards. It was indeed high time that some exertion should be made. The northern provinces had fallen into the power of Holland; the southern, peopled in a great measure by the hardy descendants of the successive colonists who had issued on all sides from the central establishment of Sao Paulo, had learned from their habits of unaided and successful enterprise to court independence. They had ascended the waters of the Paraguay to their sources. They had extended their limits southwards till they reached the Spanish settlements of La Plata. They had reduced to slavery numerous tribes of the natives. They were rich in cattle, and had commenced the discovery of the mines. When, therefore, the inhabitants of Sao Paulo saw themselves about to be transferred, as a dependency of Portugal, from one master to another, they conceived the idea of erecting their country into an independent state. Their attempt, however, was frustrated by Amador Bueno, the person whom they had selected for their king. When the people shouted "Long live King Amador," he cried out "Long live John IV.," and took refuge in a convent. The multitude, left without a leader, acquiesced, and this important province was secured to the house of Braganza.

Revolt against the Dutch.

French expedition to Brazil, 1710.

Rio and Santos, although both evinced a desire of independence, followed the example of the Paulistas. Bahia, as capital of the Brazilian states, felt that its ascendancy depended upon the union with Portugal. The government, thus left in quiet possession of the rest of Brazil, had time to concentrate its attention upon the Dutch conquests. The crown of Portugal was, however, much too weak to adopt energetic measures. But the Brazilian colonists, now that the mother country had thrown off the Spanish yoke, determined even without assistance from the homeland to rise in revolt against foreign domination. The departure of Count Maurice, moreover, had seriously weakened the position of the Dutch, for his successors had neither his conciliatory manners nor his capacity. Joao Fernandes Vieyra, a native of Madeira, organized the insurrection which broke out in 1645. This insurrection gave birth to one of those wars in which a whole nation, destitute of pecuniary resources, military organization and skilful leaders, but familiar with the country, is opposed to a handful of soldiers advantageously posted and well officered. But home difficulties and financial necessities prevented the West India Company from sending adequate reinforcements from Holland. In 1649 a rival company was started in Portugal known as the Brazil Company, which sent out a fleet to help the colonists in Pernambuco. Slowly the Dutch lost ground and the outbreak of war with England sounded the knell of their dominion in Brazil. In 1654 their capital and last stronghold fell into the hands of Vieyra. It was not, however, till 1662 that Holland signed a treaty with Portugal, by which all territorial claims in Brazil were abandoned in exchange for a cash indemnity and certain commercial privileges. After this, except some inroads on the frontiers, the only foreign invasion which Brazil had to suffer was from France. In 1710 a squadron, commanded by Duclerc, disembarked 1000 men, and attacked Rio de Janeiro. After having lost half of his men in a battle, Duclerc and all his surviving companions were made prisoners. The governor treated them cruelly. A new squadron with 6000 troops was entrusted to the famous admiral Duguay Trouin to revenge this injury. They arrived at Rio on the 12th of September 1711. After four days of hard fighting the town was taken. The governor retreated to a position out of it, and was only awaiting reinforcements from Minas to retake it; but, Duguay Trouin threatening to burn it, he was obliged on the 10th of October to sign a capitulation, and pay to the French admiral 610,000 crusados, 500 cases of sugar, and provisions for the return of the fleet to Europe. Duguay Trouin departed to Bahia to obtain fresh spoils; but having lost in a storm two of his best ships, with an important part of the money received, he renounced this plan and returned directly to France.

After this the Portuguese governed their colony undisturbed. The approach of foreign traders was prohibited, while the regalities reserved by the crown drained the country of a great proportion of its wealth.

The important part which the inhabitants of Sao Paulo have played in the history of Brazil has been already adverted to. The establishment of the Jesuit college had attracted settlers to its neighbourhood, and frequent marriages had taken place between the Indians of the district and the colonists. A hardy and enterprising race of men had sprung from this mixture, who, first searching whether their new country were rich in metals, soon began adventurous raids into the interior, making excursions also against the remote Indian tribes with a view to obtaining slaves, and from the year 1629 onwards repeatedly attacked the Indian reductions of the Jesuits in Paraguay, although both provinces were then nominally subject to the crown of Spain. Other bands penetrated into Minas and still farther north and westward, discovering mines there and in Goyaz and Cuyaba. New colonies were thus formed round those districts in which gold had been found, and in the beginning of the 18th century five principal settlements in Minas Geraes had been elevated by royal charter to the privileges of towns. In 1720 this district was separated from Sao Paulo, to which it had previously been dependent. As early as 1618 a code of laws for the regulation of the mining industry had been drawn up by Philip III., the executive and judicial functions in the mining districts being vested in a _provedor_, and the fiscal in a treasurer, who received the royal fifths and superintended the weighing of all the gold, rendering a yearly account of all discoveries and produce. For many years, however, these laws were little more than a dead letter. The same infatuated passion for mining speculation which had characterized the Spanish settlers in South America now began to actuate the Portuguese; labourers and capital were drained off to the mining districts, and Brazil, which had hitherto in great measure supplied Europe with sugar, sank before the competition of the English and French. A new source of wealth was now opened up; some adventurers from Villa do Principe in Minas, going north to the Seria Frio, made the discovery of diamonds about the year 1710, but it was not till 1730 that the discovery was for the first time announced to the government, which immediately declared them _regalia_. While the population of Brazil continued to increase, the moral and intellectual culture of its inhabitants was left in great measure to chance; they grew up with those robust and healthy sentiments which are engendered by the absence of false teachers, but with a repugnance to legal ordinances, and encouraged in their ascendancy over the Indians to habits of violence and oppression. The Jesuits from the first moment of their landing in Brazil had constituted themselves the protectors of the natives, and though strenuously opposed by the colonists and ordinary clergy, had gathered the Indians together in many _aldeas_, over which officials of their order exercised spiritual and temporal authority. A more efficacious stop, however, was put to the persecution of the Indians by the importation of large numbers of negroes from the Portuguese possessions in Africa, these being found more active and serviceable than the native tribes.

Reforms of Pombal.

The Portuguese government, under the administration of Carvalho, afterwards marquis of Pombal, attempted to extend to Brazil the bold spirit of innovation which directed all his efforts. The proud minister had been resisted in his plans of reform at home by the Jesuits, and, determining to attack the power of the order, first deprived them of all temporal power in the state of Maranhao and Para. These ordinances soon spread to the whole of Brazil, and a pretext being found in the suspicion of Jesuit influence in some partial revolts of the Indian troops on the Rio Negro, the order was expelled from Brazil under circumstances of great severity in 1760. The Brazilian Company founded by Vieyra, which so materially contributed to preserve its South American possessions to Portugal, had been abolished in 1721 by John V.; but such an instrument being well suited to the bold spirit of Pombal, he established a chartered company again in 1755, to trade exclusively with Maranhao and Para; and in 1759, in spite of the remonstrance of the British Factory at Lisbon, formed another company for Parahyba and Pernambuco. Pombal's arrangements extended also to the interior of the country, where he extinguished at once the now indefinite and oppressive claims of the original donatories of the captaincies, and strengthened and enforced the regulations of the mining districts. The policy of many of Pombal's measures is more than questionable; but his admission of all races to equal rights in the eye of the law, his abolition of feudal privileges, and the firmer organization of the powers of the land which he introduced, powerfully co-operated towards the development of the capabilities of Brazil. Yet on the death of his king and patron in 1777, when court intrigue forced him from his high station, he who had done so much for his country's institutions was reviled on all hands.

The most important feature in the history of Brazil during the first thirty years following the retirement of Pombal was the conspiracy of Minas in 1789. The successful issue of the recent revolution of the English colonies in North America had filled the minds of some of the more educated youth of that province; and in imitation, a project to throw off the Portuguese yoke was formed,--a cavalry officer, Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tira-dentes (tooth-drawer), being the chief conspirator. But the plot being discovered during their inactivity, the conspirators were banished to Africa, and Tira-dentes, the leader, was hanged. Thenceforward affairs went on prosperously; the mining districts continued to be enlarged; the trading companies of the littoral provinces were abolished, but the impulse they had given to agriculture remained.

Portuguese royal family in Brazil, 1807.

Reorganization on Portuguese model.

Removed from all communication with the rest of the world except through the mother country, Brazil remained unaffected by the first years of the great revolutionary war in Europe. Indirectly, however, the fate of this isolated country was decided by the consequences of the French Revolution. Brazil is the only instance of a colony becoming the seat of the government of its own mother country, and this was the work of Napoleon. When he resolved upon the invasion and conquest of Portugal, the prince regent, afterwards Dom John VI., having no means of resistance, decided to take refuge in Brazil. He created a regency in Lisbon, and departed for Brazil on the 29th of November 1807, accompanied by the queen Donna Maria I., the royal family, all the great officers of state, a large part of the nobility and numerous retainers. They arrived at Bahia on the 21st of January 1808, and were received with enthusiasm. The regent was requested to establish there the seat of his government, but a more secure asylum presented itself in Rio de Janeiro, where the royal fugitives arrived on the 7th of March. Before leaving Bahia, Dom John took the first step to emancipate Brazil, opening its ports to foreign commerce, and permitting the export of all Brazilian produce under any flag, the royal monopolies of diamonds and Brazil-wood excepted. Once established in Rio de Janeiro, the government of the regent was directed to the creation of an administrative machinery for the dominions that remained to him as it existed in Portugal. Besides the ministry which had come with the regent, the council of state, and the departments of the four ministries of home, finances, war and marine then existing, there were created in the course of one year a supreme court of justice, a board of patronage and administration of the property of the church and military orders, an inferior court of appeal, the court of exchequer and royal treasury, the royal mint, bank of Brazil, royal printing-office, powder-mills on a large scale, and a supreme military court. The maintenance of the court, and the salaries of so large a number of high officials, entailed the imposition of new taxes to meet these expenses. Notwithstanding this the expenses continued to augment, and the government had recourse to the reprehensible measure of altering the money standard, and the whole monetary system was soon thrown into the greatest confusion. The bank, in addition to its private functions, farmed many of the _regalia_, and was in the practice of advancing large sums to the state, transactions which gave rise to extensive corruption, and terminated some years later in the breaking of the bank.

Thus the government of the prince regent began its career in the new world with dangerous errors in the financial system; yet the increased

## activity which a multitude of new customers and the increase of

circulating medium gave to the trade of Rio, added a new stimulus to the industry of the whole nation. Numbers of English artisans and shipbuilders, Swedish iron-founders, German engineers and French manufacturers sought fortunes in the new country, and diffused industry by their example.

In the beginning of 1809, in retaliation for the occupation of Portugal, an expedition was sent from Para to the French colony of Guiana, and after some fighting this part of Guiana was incorporated with Brazil. This conquest was, however, of short duration; for, by the treaty of Vienna in 1815, the colony was restored to France. Its occupation contributed to the improvement of agriculture in Brazil; it had been the policy of Portugal up to this time to separate the productions of its colonies, to reserve sugar for Brazil, and spices to the East Indies, and to prohibit the cultivation of these in the African possessions. Now, however, many plants were imported not only from Guiana but from India and Africa, cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden, and thence distributed. The same principle which dictated the conquest of French Guiana originated attempts to seize the Spanish colonies of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Portugal being also at war with Spain. The chiefs of these colonies were invited to place them under the protection of the Portuguese crown, but these at first affecting loyalty to Spain declined the offer, then threw off the mask and declared themselves independent, and the Spanish governor, Elio, was afterwards defeated by Artigas, the leader of the independents.

Brazil declared an integral portion of the monarchy.

The inroads made on the frontiers of Rio Grande and Sao Paulo decided the court of Rio to take possession of Montevideo; a force of 5000 troops was sent thither from Portugal, together with a Brazilian corps; and the irregulars of Artigas, unable to withstand disciplined troops, were forced, after a total defeat, to take refuge beyond the River Uruguay. The Portuguese took possession of the city of Montevideo in January 1817, and the territory of Misiones was afterwards occupied. The importance which Brazil was acquiring decided the regent to give it the title of kingdom, and by decree of the 16th January 1815, the Portuguese sovereignty thenceforward took the title of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves. Thus the old colonial government disappeared even in name. In March 1816 the queen Donna Maria I. died, and the prince regent became king under the title of Dom John VI.

Pedro proclaims the independence of Brazil, 1822.