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HISTORY OF BRAZIL

The Tordesillas Line: AD 1493-1500

When Columbus returns to Spain in 1493, with the first news of the West Indies, Ferdinand and Isabella are determined to ensure that these valuable discoveries belong to them rather than to seafaring Portugal. They secure from the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, a papal bull to the effect that all lands west of a certain line shall belong exclusively to Spain (in return for converting the heathen). All those to the east of the line shall belong on the same basis to Portugal.

The pope draws this line down through the Atlantic 100 leagues (300 miles) west of the Cape Verde islands, Portugal's most westerly possession.

The king of Portugal, John II, protests that this trims him too tight. The line cramps the route which Portuguese sailors must take through the Atlantic before turning east round Africa.

Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors, meeting in 1494 at Tordesillas in northwest Spain, resolve the dispute. They accept the principle of the line but agree to move it to a point 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. The new line has a profound significance which no one as yet appreciates. It slices through the entire eastern part of south America from the mouth of the Amazon to SÑo Paulo.

The east coast of south America is first reached by Spanish and Portuguese navigators in the same year, 1500. The agreement at Tordesillas gives the territory to Portugal.

Thus the vast area of Brazil, the largest territory of south America, becomes an exception in the subcontinent - the only part not to be in the Spanish empire, and the only modern country in Latin America with Portuguese rather than Spanish as its national language.

Portugal and Brazil: 16th - 18th century AD

The Portuguese, with imperial ambitions focussed originally on the east Indies, are slower than the Spanish in setting up any form of administration in America. Brazil is deemed to be part of their share of the globe, through the accident of the Tordesillas Line. The coast is reached in 1500 by a Portuguese navigator, Pedro Cabral. Vespucci explores the rest of the Brazilian coastline for the king of Portugal in 1501-2.

But it is not until 1533 that steps are taken to colonize this rich territory. The Portuguese call it Brazil because of a valuable natural product - pau-brasil, a red wood much in demand for the dye which can be extracted from it.

The first attempt to establish a Portuguese presence in Brazil is made by John III in 1533. His solution is ingenious but idle. He divides the coastline into fifteen sections, each about 150 miles in length, and grants these strips of land on a hereditary basis to fifteen courtiers - who become known as donat?rios. Each courtier is told that he and his heirs can found cities, grant land and levy taxes over as much territory as they can colonize inland from their stretch of coast.

Only two of the donat?rios make any success of this venture. In the 1540s John III is forced to change his policy. He brings Brazil under direct royal control (as in Spanish America) and appoints a governor general.

The first governor general of Brazil arrives in 1549 and makes his headquarters at Bahia (today known as Salvador). It remains the capital of Portuguese Brazil for more than two centuries, until replaced by Rio de Janeiro in 1763.

Colonists gradually move into the interior. Accompanying the first governor general in 1549 are members of the newly founded order of Jesuits. In their mission to convert the Indians they are often the first European presence in new regions far from the coast. They frequently clash with adventurers also pressing inland (in great expeditions known as bandeiras) to find silver and gold or to capture Indians as slaves.

These two groups, with their very different motives, bring a Portuguese presence far beyond the Tordesillas Line. By the late 17th century the territory of Brazil encompasses the entire basin of the Amazon as far west as the Andes. At the same time Portuguese colonists are moving down the coast beyond Rio de Janeiro. A Portuguese town is even established on the river Plate in 1680, provoking a century of Spanish-Portuguese border conflicts in the region which is now Uruguay.

Meanwhile the use of the Portuguese language gradually gives the central region of south America an identity different from that of its Spanish neighbours.

Bahia and Rio de Janeiro: 16th-18th century AD

The economic strength of Portuguese Brazil derives at first from sugar plantations in the north (established as early as the 1530s by one of the only two successful donat?rios). But from the late 17th century Brazil benefits at last from the mineral wealth which underpins Spanish America. Gold is found in 1693 in the inland region of Minas Gerais, in the southern part of the colony.

The discovery sets off the first great gold rush of the American continent - opening up the interior as the prospectors swarm westwards, and underpinning Brazil's economy for much of the 18th century. Diamonds are also discovered in large quantities in the same region in the 18th century.

The shift in Brazil's economy from sugar to mineral wealth brings a change in the colony's centre of gravity. For the first two centuries Bahia, in the north, is the seat of colonial government. But the gold and diamonds make their way to Europe through the port of Rio de Janeiro, greatly adding to the prosperity and sophistication of this southern city.

Rio de Janeiro also benefits from the reforms imposed on Brazil in the 18th century by Pombal, the chief minister in Portugal. Among other new measures (ending the rights of the donat?rios, giving Indians legal equality with the rest of the population, reserving the diamond mines as a royal monopoly), Pombal moves the capital in 1763 from Bahia to Rio.

Tiradentes: AD 1788-1792

Rio de Janeiro witnesses the first coherent expression of republicanism in Latin America. The occasion is the two-year trial of the rebel known as Tiradentes ('puller of teeth'), a nickname deriving from his occasional practice of amateur dentistry.

His real name is Joaquim Jos» da Silva Xavier, and he is above all a child of the Enlightenment. Educated by his brother, a priest, Silva Xavier is widely read in the French philosophes. He is also profoundly influenced by the American revolution, and is in the habit of distributing copies of the US constitution.

In discussion with like-minded friends in his home province of Minas Gerais, Silva Xavier argues for the emancipation of Brazil's slaves and for independence from Portugal. These are merely debating points until he leads an uprising, in 1788, in response to a campaign by Portuguese officials to recover overdue taxes.

The rebellion is soon put down, but it acquires its significance (and Tiradentes wins his fame as Brazil's first martyr for independence) because of his eloquence in proclaiming at his trial the ideals of liberty and republicanism. Only he, of the various conspirators, is condemned to death. He is beheaded in public in Rio in 1792 as a warning to would-be revolutionaries.

The accident of independence: AD 1807-1825

As it turns out, Brazil is the only Latin American country in which there is no need to deter revolutionaries. The colony drifts into independence in almost complete unanimity, and with the minimum of disruption.

The catalyst, as elsewhere, is Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian peninsula. But whereas the Spanish colonies in Latin America are confronted with a complex choice of allegiances (to a deposed Bourbon monarch, to a usurping Bonaparte monarch, or to neither), the Portuguese in Brazil have no such problem. Rio de Janeiro finds itself, unexpectedly, the centre of the Portuguese empire.
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The reason is the flight of the court from Lisbon, in 1807, to escape the approach of a French army. The royal party (headed by the mad queen Maria I and her son Dom John, the regent) stays briefly in Bahia and reaches Rio de Janeiro in March 1808.

The prince regent immediately takes measures to improve Rio's status and economy. Portugal's commercial monopoly is ended, bringing much new trade to the city - particularly from British merchants. Appropriate institutions are founded (royal treasury, national bank, printing office, library, military academy, court of justice) in keeping with a royal capital. In 1815 Brazil is even given equal standing with Portugal, as a kingdom in its own right.


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In 1816 the regent succeeds to the Portuguese throne, as John VI. His initial popularity in Brazil has by now faded. The extravagance of his court arouses republican opposition, fuelled by the example of the neighbouring Spanish colonies - all of which fight vigorously for their independence during this same decade.

An uprising in 1817 in the north of Brazil, in the province of Pernambuco, is only suppressed after a three-month military campaign. But it is a revolution across the Atlantic, in Portugal, which transforms the situation. John VI hurries home in 1821 to confront this threat to his crown. He leaves his 22-year-old son, Dom Pedro, as regent.

From this point events in Brazil move quickly, but again they are driven by politics in Portugal. The Cortes in Lisbon takes steps to reduce Brazil to its former colonial status. In Rio de Janeiro this causes outrage and an upsurge in republican sentiment. Fearful that the young Dom Pedro might be persuaded to lead Brazil into independence, the Cortes now makes a fatal mistake. It orders the regent to return to Portugal 'to complete his political education'.

This provokes precisely what was feared. Defying the Cortes, Dom Pedro stays in Brazil and forms a ministry. His chief minister is Jos» Bonif?cio de Andrada e Silva, a keen advocate of Brazilian independence.

In September 1822, in a great open-air assembly at Iparanga (today a suburb of SÑo Paulo), Dom Pedro proclaims the independence of Brazil. Three months after this grito do Iparanga (cry of Iparanga) he is crowned emperor, as Pedro I. During 1823 the practical necessity is undertaken of driving out of Brazil the various Portuguese garrisons. With the help of Admiral Cochrane, recently arrived from Peru to guard the coast against relief from Portugal, this task is largely completed by the end of 1823.

With independence now an accomplished fact, the United States becomes the first nation to recognize Brazil - in May 1824. Portugal follows suit as early as 1825. The prize has been won with astonishing ease.

Pedro I: AD 1822-1831

The early years of this inexperienced empire are politically difficult. The problems are predictable. One question, in a continent elsewhere coming out in a rash of new republics, is the extent of the emperor's personal power. The other is the clash between native-born Brazilians of European stock and newly arrived Portuguese (the equivalent of the rivalry in the Spanish colonies between Creoles and peninsulares).

The Brazilian royal court, which has itself arrived from Portugual as recently as 1807, tends to favour the Portuguese - inevitably causing local resentment.

The issues come to a head within the first twelve months. In 1823 the constitutent assembly, under the leadership of the liberal Jos» Andrada, puts forward a constitution reducing the powers of the emperor and of his Portuguese advisers. In response Pedro I dissolves the assembly and exiles Andrada.

Nevertheless the emperor soon recognizes that absolutist rule along European lines is impossible in Brazil. In 1824 he accepts a liberal constitution. It serves very effectively as the basis of the country's government until the end of the empire in 1889.

The second half of the 1820s is a period of mounting difficulties for the emperor Pedro. In 1826, on the death of his father John VI, he succeeds to the throne of Portugal. His attempt to rule his European kingdom without returning from Brazil proves disastrous; in 1828 his younger brother Miguel seizes the throne.

Meanwhile Brazil becomes involved in a war with Argentina over the disputed region known to the Brazilians as the Provincia Cisplatina (this side of the river Plate, on the Roman analogy of 'Cisalpine'). A defeat of the Brazilian army in 1827 leads to the loss of this neighbouring area, which becomes the republic of Uruguay.

Pedro II: AD 1831-1889

Overwhelmed by these difficulties Pedro I abdicates in favour of his five-year-old son, also Pedro, and returns in 1831 to Portugal. Against all the odds the dynasty in Brazil somehow survives a chaotic ten-year regency, interrupted by frequent disturbances and civil war in the provinces. In 1840 parliament decrees that the 14-year-old Dom Pedro has come of age. In 1841 he is crowned emperor.

During the next half-century Pedro II proves the very model of a constitutional and conscientious monarch. He is modest in his personal life (he is even credited with the remark 'Were I not a monarch, I would be a republican'). He is modern in his passionate interest in developing Brazil's industries, banks, railways and telegraph network.

Even Brazil's military adventures go well under this mild monarch. Brazilian involvement in the War of the Triple Alliance leads to the toppling of the Paraguayan dictator L€pez in 1870 and the annexation of a large slice of Paraguay.

A major issue throughout Pedro's reign is slavery. African slaves have been brought to Brazil in large numbers, from the 17th century onwards, to work in the sugar plantations. At the time of independence, in the 1820s, the slaves comprise half the population (of nearly four million, about 52% are Negro, 24% European, 17% mestizo, 7% indigenous Indian). With these numbers Brazil ranks second only to the USA on the most urgent moral topic of the times, slavery and the slave trade.


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Pedro is firmly on the side of abolition, but the influence of the plantation owners means that progress is slow. However the slave trade is finally ended in 1850. Attention then moves to freeing the existing slaves. An act of 1871 liberates all slaves owned by the state and all slave children born from this date onwards (liberty being granted when they reach the age of twenty-one).

Many plantation owners follow the government's example, but in 1888 some 700,000 Negroes are still enslaved in Brazil. In that year Pedro passes a law emancipating these remaining slaves. Done without compensation to their owners, this act of emancipation becomes a contributing factor in the sudden end of the Brazilian empire.

Though revered by most of his subjects, to whom his long reign has brought a great increase in prosperity, there are significant and powerful pockets of opposition to Pedro's rule. Republicans find imperial Brazil an embarrassing anomaly in Latin America. High-ranking army officers resent Pedro's determination to keep the military out of politics. The clergy are unhappy with his measures to limit the influence of the church. Now, in addition, the pockets of powerful plantation owners have been hit by the emancipation of the slaves in 1888.

The result, in 1889, is a military coup bringing a very sudden end. Pedro accepts the situation and abdicates. He and his family go into exile in Europe.

Old Republic and New State: AD 1889-1945

The first five years of the republic are a military dictatorship, but in 1894 Brazil's first civilian president is elected. For the next four decades the presidency changes hands peacefully after regular elections (albeit based on a small electorate, making the regime more of an oligarchy than a democracy).

Progress is made in areas such as the control of tropical diseases, and a major building programme in Rio de Janeiro during the early years of the 20th century transforms the capital into one of the world's most beautiful cities. The population increases dramatically in the coastal regions because of large-scale immigration - in particular from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Many come to work in the production and marketing of coffee, which replaces sugar as the nation's main crop - accounting for more than 50% of Brazil's exports by 1908, and completing the transfer of economic power from the northern semi-tropical parts of the country to the southern regions inland from Rio de Janeiro and SÑo Paulo.

At the same period a world-wide demand for rubber, still a very scarce product, brings extraordinary prosperity to a small river port far up the Amazon. Manaus develops into a lavish European city, miles from anywhere, boasting even a baroque opera house (in which Caruso sings on the opening night).

This comfortable rule by a succession of oligarchs (often referred to as the 'coffee presidents' because they favour land-owning interests) is brought to an abrupt end in 1930. The loser in this year's presidential race is Get?lio Dornelles Vargas, governor of the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul.

Robbed of the presidency in the election, Vargas seizes power later in the year at the head of a military coup. His arrival on the scene transforms Brazil. The previous era becomes known as the 'old republic'. What Vargas now introduces is Estado Novo, the 'new state'. It is characteristized by an increase in central power, at the expense of the provinces, with the reins increasingly held in Vargas' own hands.

The regime is totalitarian but Vargas' programme of industrialization and state welfare is designed to appeal to the urban working class, causing him to be known as the 'father of the poor'. In this he prefigures Per€n in Argentina.

Like Per€n, Vargas is eventually removed from office by the army. The first occasion is in 1945, when a bloodless coup brings the Estado Novo to an abrupt end. But, again like Per€n, Vargas retains the affection of the masses. He is voted back into the presidency in 1950. But he achieves little, acting now within constitutional restraints. Senior officers again demand his resignation, in 1954. He complies, and later in the same day commits suicide.

Brasilia: AD 1956

Brazil, during the ten years after the death of Vargas, returns to a chaotic and fragile democracy. But the period is outstanding for one major achievement - the creation of Brasilia.

From as early as the 18th century it has been argued that a capital far inland is required if the nation's vast interior is to be developed. Andrada makes the same point in 1822, the year of independence. The siting of a capital somewhere on the central plateau is written into the constitution of 1889 (at the start of the republic). But it is not until 1956, after an extensive analysis of the various options, that a site is finally chosen.

The president at the time, Juscelino Kubitschek, takes the bold decision that the seat of government will move as early as 1960. A competition for the overall design of the city is won by L?cio Costa and the state buildings are entrusted to Oscar Niemeyer. Both architects are deeply influenced by Le Corbusier, who visited Brazil in 1929 and again in 1936. The resulting city is an outstanding example of modernist architecture.

The federal district of Brasilia also establishes itself very rapidly as a thriving national centre. A place with no inhabitants in 1956 has 120,000 in 1960, 210,000 in 1965, 1.5 million in 1985 and 2.5 million in 1995.

In and out of military rule: AD 1964-1985

In recent decades Brazil follows the pattern of so many other Latin American republics in the late 20th century - with a period of military rule (in Brazil's case by no means so oppressive as elsewhere) followed by a return to democracy.

After three particularly unsettled years, amid a worsening economic crisis, the military intervene in 1964. In March of this year the president, JoÑo Goulart, tries to bolster his popular support by taking radical policies directly to the people. At a mass rally in Rio de Janeiro he announces new decrees of agrarian reform and oil nationalization.

Senior officers, convincing themselves that a Communist dictatorship is in the offing, stage a successful coup. Goulart flees into exile. The junta rapidly issues a decree suspending the political rights of suspected subversives.

Thousands are arrested for no reason other than political dissent. But there are not the death squads which characterize several other Latin American republics under military rule. And the Brazilian generals maintain a reasonable show of intending to return to democracy when the time is right.

A somewhat arid pretence at democracy is made in 1966 when two official parties are created to fight elections - the ARENA (Alian¡a Renovadora Nacional, National Renewal Alliance) representing the government, and the MDB (Movimento Democr?tico Brasileiro, Brazilian Democratic Movement) supposedly speaking for an opposition.

The military regime has considerable success in improving the economy. Eventually, in 1978-9, the emergency measures underpinning military rule are repealed and an amnesty restores political rights. The MDB becomes a real opposition. In the election of 1985 its candidates defeat their ARENA rivals for the posts of president and vice-president. Civilian rule is restored.


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End-of-century blues: from AD 1985

The first five years of restored civilian rule bring a certain utopian excitement, with the writing of a new constitution (based on the US model) and ambitious plans for major land reform by the year 2000. But the Brazilian economy once again gives cause for concern, and from 1992 the political process is itself in deep trouble.

In the summer of this year it is alleged that large sums of money have flowed into secret bank accounts held by President Collor de Mello, elected in 1989. In September 1992 the house of representatives votes to impeach him. In December, a few minutes after the senate opens the impeachment trial, Collor resigns. (Two years later he is acquitted of the charges of bribery).

In 1994 the democratic process is safely back on track, with the election of Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the PSDB (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy) as president.

During the mid-1990s the economy improves, with privatization measures under way (and the launch of Mercosur in 1995). But 1998 brings a major crisis with the sudden collapse of the Brazilian stock market, in a knock-on effect of the earlier slump in the Asian markets.