8.2: History of Brazil

8.2: History of Brazil

Early History

• In 1493 Christopher Columbus returned to Spain with news of his exploration and of new lands.

• Spain asked the pope for help as they felt that Portugal would try to claim these lands for themselves.

• The pope declared that lands west of a certain line would belong to Spain and lands east would belong to Portugal.

• This is why Brazil is the only South American country that has a Portuguese heritage.

Multiple Choice

Why is Brazil the only country with Portuguese heritage?

• It's not; it's Spanish heritage.

• The pope declared a line that split territory up between Spain and Portugal. Brazil ended up on the Portuguese side!

• It's not; all countries in South America have Portuguese heritage.

• It is because the king of Portugal split the territory up.

Indigenous Populations

• The first Portuguese ships stopped in Brazil in 1500, but their destination was India so they did not stay long.

• They had peaceful encounters with some of the indigenous, or native, peoples who lived along the coast.

• The Portuguese commander, Pedro Cabral, claimed the land for Portugal.

• The people the Portuguese met were the Tapi who lived along the coast and in rain forests south of the Amazon River.

• They grew cassava, corn, sweet potatoes, beans, and peanuts.

• They hunted fish and other water animals with arrows and harpoons from large log canoes, but they did little hunting on land.

• Brazil's native peoples had lived there for more than 10,000 years when the Portuguese arrived, and there were between 2 million and 6 million people there.

Multiple Choice

How were the first interactions between the natives of Brazil and the Portuguese?

• violent

• peaceful

Daily Life

• Brazil's native peoples in lowland and rain forests were mainly farmers.

• They lived in permanent, self-governing villages and practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, which is when trees are cut down and underbrush burned away to create fields for growing crops.

• Farther south, many in the Brazilian Highlands were nomads, meaning people who moved place to place and have no permanent home.

• In the dry season, they lived as hunter-gatherers.

• In the wet season, they built temporary villages and practiced slash-and-burn agriculture.

Europeans Arrive

• For more than 30 years after Cabral's visit, the Portuguese did not pay much attention to Brazil as their main focus was on their colonies and trade in Asia.

• Portuguese sailors established a few trading posts along Brazil's coast and collected brazilwood.

• The red dye extracted from this wood was highly valued in Europe.

• It was because of this trade that Brazil got its name.

• The valuable brazilwood trade made other Europeans more interested in Brazil.

• To bring Brazil under tighter Portuguese control, Portugal's King John III established a permanent colony and government there.

• The first Portuguese settlers arrived in 1533.

Multiple Choice

Where did Brazil get its name from?

• the king of Portugal

• the natives were called this

• a river

• brazilwood

Colonial Rule

• Portugal's rule of Brazil lasted more than 300 years.

• The expansion brought wealth to Portugal, though much of it came at a great cost to Brazil's indigenous peoples.

The Portuguese Conquest

• King John III gave wealthy supporters huge tracts of land in Brazil that extended west from the coast about 150 miles inland.

• In return, the people who received a land grant were responsible for developing it.

• They founded cities and gave land to colonists to farm.

• Because the colonists could not do all the work that was required, they soon began enslaving nearby native peoples as laborers.

• Many of them resisted and were killed; thousands more died from European diseases; others fled into Brazil's interior.

• These conditions and other complaints caused King John to end the land-grant system in 1549.

• He put Brazil under royal control and sent a governor from Portugal to rule the colony.

Multiple Select

What happened to most of the natives when the Portuguese arrived? Choose all that apply.

• Many of them resisted and were killed

• Others fled into Brazil's coast

• Thousands more died from European diseases

• They lived side by side with the Portuguese.

Spread of Christianity

• The new governor brought more colonists with him, which included Jesuit Catholic priests who belonged to a missionary group called the Society of Jesus.

• Those natives who converted were settled in special Jesuit villages and were protected from slavery.

• In 1574 the king ruled that native peoples who did not live in Jesuit villages could be enslaved only if they were captured in war.

• This ruling sent Jesuits into Brazil's interior to protect and convert people; sent slave hunters into the interior to attack and enslave the native peoples; and cattlemen and prospectors followed and spread development inland.

Sugar and Gold

• The rise of large sugarcane plantations, mainly in the northeast, pushed ranching westward.

• In the 1600s, sugar became Brazil's main export and Portugal's greatest source of wealth.

• Coffee and cotton plantations also developed.

• The discovery of gold in the eastern highlands in the 1690s further boosted the development of the interior and brought more colonists to the area.

• The discovery of diamonds in the region in the 1720s added to the population boom.

• Plantation agriculture and mining required large numbers of workers.

• This increased the need for enslaved workers.

• When native populations could not fill the need, the Portuguese began importing large numbers of enslaved Africans.

• By 1820, some 1.1 million enslaved people accounted for nearly one-third of Brazil's total population.

Independence and Monarchy

• In 1805, Britain joined by its allies Russia, Austria and Sweden, went to war with France to crush Napoleon.

• Instead, Napoleon defeated them and conquered much of Europe; he invaded Portugal in 1807.

• As the French army closed in on Portugal's capital city of Lisbon, government leaders fled to Brazil.

• Brazil's status within the empire changed from a colony to a kingdom, which gave Brazil equal status with Portugal within the empire.

• After Napoleon was defeated, the Portuguese people wanted their king back.

• In 1821 Dom Joao and the rest of the government returned to Portugal and left his son Pedro to rule Brazil.

• In 1822 Brazil's status as a colony was restored and Pedro was ordered to return home.

• Pedro didn't want to give up the throne, so he declared independence and crowned himself Emperor Pedro I becoming a constitutional monarchy.

Multiple Choice

Who ultimately was the cause for Brazil's independence?

• King John III

• Dom Joao

• Napoleon

• Pedro I

• Most Brazilians had supported independence from Portugal, but they soon tired of Pedro's harsh rule and he was forced to turn over the throne to his five-year-old son.

• In 1840, at age 14, he became Emperor Pedro II and ruled for nearly 50 years.

• Under his reign, Brazil's population grew; land was offered to attract European immigrants; sugar, coffee, and cotton production rose; Brazil's first railroads were built to get products to the coast for export.

• In 1850 Brazil stopped importing enslaved people from Africa.

• In the 1860s, a new movement began to emancipate, or free, the enslaved.

• Pedro II opposed slavery, but he thought it should be ended gradually.

• In 1871 a law granted freedom to all children born to people in slavery; In 1885 law freed enslaved people who were over age 60; In 1888, all remaining enslaved people were freed.

Multiple Choice

In what year were ALL slaves freed?

• 1885

• 1860

• 1850

• 1888

The Brazilian Republic

• Brazil's powerful plantation owners were angered by the loss of their enslaved workers and supported Brazil's army in overthrowing Pedro II.

• A new government was established, with a constitution based on the Constitution of the United States and became a republic.

• The right to vote was limited to wealthy property owners.

• Coffee became Brazil's main export and by 1902 was supplying 65% of the world's coffee.

• Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro also became the country's industrial and commercial centers.

• In 1930 Getulio Vargas overthrew the newly elected "coffee president" and seized power.

• He raised wages, shortened work hours, and let workers form labor unions, but governed as a dictator.

Brazil Under Military Rule

• Vargas was forced from office by military in 1954.

• For over 30 years, government in Brazil alternated between dictators and elected leaders.

• Manufacturing thrived throughout this period with rapid growth in the steel, auto, and chemical industries.

• People who opposed the government were arrested and others were frightened into silence.

• The military gave up power in 1985 and allowed the election of a civilian president.

Modern Brazil

• Today Brazil is a democratic republic in which people elect a president and other leaders.

• In Brazil, voting is compulsory and people from ages 18 to 70 are required to vote by law.

• In 2010 voters elected Dilma Vana Rousseff as the 36th president of Brazil and the 1st woman president in the country's history.

Multiple Choice

If you are ages 18 to 70, do you have a choice to not vote?

• Yes

• No