I | INTRODUCTION |
Brazil, one of the world’s largest and most populous
countries. It is the largest country in South America, occupying almost half of
the continent and extending from north of the equator to south of the Tropic of
Capricorn. Its largest city is São Paulo, and its capital is Brasília. Brazil’s
large size and diverse population provide great variety in the natural
environment, culture, and economy.
The nation’s natural beauty is reflected in a
wide variety of geographic locations, from the distinctive dome shape of Sugar
Loaf Mountain in the city of Rio de Janeiro, to the magnificent Iguaçu Falls in
the far south, to the strange limestone formations in the state of Minas Gerais
in the Southeast region. A broad contrast exists between the nation’s two main
physical features: the densely forested lowlands of the Amazon Basin in the
north and the generally open uplands of the Brazilian Highlands to the south.
The climate is generally tropical, but areas located at higher elevations or
farther from the equator tend to be more temperate. Vegetation varies from rain
forests to pine forests to savannas and semiarid scrub. The forests are a rich
source of timber. Brazil sustains a diverse agriculture, producing tropical
crops such as sugar, coffee, and newly developed tropical varieties of soybeans.
In recent years environmentalists have become increasingly concerned over the
future of the Amazon region, where human encroachment has threatened the world’s
largest intact rain forest.
Brazil’s population is very diverse. This
diversity is the result of intermingling between Native Americans, Portuguese
settlers, and African slaves, which produced a society of racial and ethnic
complexity. Brazil is the only Latin American country settled by the Portuguese.
Before the Portuguese arrived in 1500, many Native American tribes sparsely
populated the country. In the mid-16th century the Portuguese began
to import African slaves to work on agricultural production. The ethnic mix
between these three groups, along with other European peoples who immigrated to
Brazil after 1850, has contributed to some distinctly Brazilian cultural forms,
especially in music and architecture. Distinct cultures also continue to survive
among Afro-Brazilians, non-Portuguese immigrants from Europe and Asia, and
isolated pockets of Native Americans. However, Portuguese cultural influences
remain strong, with Portuguese as the primary language and Roman Catholicism as
the principal religion.
The economic development of Brazil has been
strongly influenced by a series of economic cycles in which different resources
were exploited in different parts of the country. The first commodity to be
exploited was the dyewood pau brasil (brazilwood), from which the country
takes its name. In the mid-16th century colonists introduced sugar cultivation,
taking advantage of the good soil and tropical climate along the Northeast
coast. Gold was discovered in the 1690s in what became the state of Minas
Gerais. This provoked a gold rush that brought the first significant settlement
of the interior and shifted the country’s economic focus and population center
from the Northeast to the Southeast.
The gold began to be exhausted in the late 18th
century, and there was a gap before the next, but most important, economic
cycle. Coffee production dominated the economy from about the mid-1800s to the
1930s. It was particularly important in São Paulo, and was closely linked to the
building of railways into the interior. Since the 1940s Brazilian society has
undergone dramatic changes due to efforts—largely encouraged by government
policy—to boost industrialization and to diversify the economy. Brazil is now
one of the most industrialized nations in South America, with a rapidly
modernizing economy and a largely urban population. Tropical crops and minerals
remain significant exports, but manufactured goods are increasingly important.
Brazil has by far the largest economy in South America.
Although Brazil holds the potential to become
an economic powerhouse, social conditions stemming from Brazil’s early years as
a plantation society have continued to cause inequalities in the distribution of
wealth and power. A small and wealthy elite still controls most of the land and
resources, and much of the population continues to live in poverty, especially
in rural areas. Extensive slums have sprouted up on the outskirts of the larger
cities as rural workers move to these areas seeking employment.
Until the 1960s the majority of the people
lived in rural areas rather than in cities or towns, but that situation is now
reversed. Some 84 percent of the population is now classed as urban, and in 2005
Brazil had an urban population of 154 million.
Brazil was a Portuguese colony from 1500 to
1822, when it achieved independence. Unlike many Latin American countries,
Brazil’s transition from colony to independent nation was a relatively peaceful
process that spared the country bloodshed and economic devastation. After
becoming independent, Brazil was ruled by an emperor. The abolition of slavery
took place in 1888. The following year a bloodless revolution led by army
officers overthrew the emperor and established a federal republic.
Wealthy landowners in the economically
powerful states of Southeastern Brazil dominated the republic until 1930, when
another revolution established a provisional government and led to a
military-backed dictatorship; this dictatorship lasted from 1937 to 1945, when
democracy was restored. Economic problems and political tension led to another
military coup in 1964. The military regime remained in power until 1985, ruling
with particularly repressive methods from 1968 to 1974. The regime began to
relax its controls in the early 1980s and moved to restore democracy. Since then
Brazil has worked to reestablish democratic institutions.
II | LAND AND RESOURCES |
Brazil occupies an immense area along the
eastern coast of South America and includes much of the continent’s interior
region. The factors of size, relief, climate, and natural resources make Brazil
geographically diverse. Planners divide the country into five macro-regions: (1)
North, (2) Northeast, (3) Southeast, (4) South, and (5) Center-West.
The North includes most of the Amazon Basin
and covers 45 percent of the national territory, but only 7 percent of the
population lives there. The Northeast is the eastward bulge of the country. It
was the first area to be settled by Europeans. Its semiarid interior, the
sertão, is largely given over to low-density livestock ranching. Much of
the population of the Northeast lives in poverty. The mainly upland area of the
Southeast is the demographic and economic core of the nation. Brazil’s two
largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are located here. The Southeast
contains only 11 percent of Brazil’s land, but 43 percent of the population
lives there. The South is the smallest region. It is distinct not only because
of its temperate climate, but also because it was primarily settled by European
immigrants in the late 19th century, giving the region a culture that is more
European than other areas of the nation. The Center-West is a landlocked, thinly
populated region that includes Brasília, the national capital.
Two geographic features dominate the
landscape of Brazil: the vast Amazon Basin, which spans the width of northern
Brazil, and an extensive highland plateau, known as the Brazilian Highlands,
which covers most of the South and Southeast. The Amazon Basin consists of a
huge drainage area that contains the world’s largest river and the world’s
largest tropical rain forest. The population remains sparse in this region due
to thick vegetation and an oppressively hot and humid climate. The Brazilian
Highlands is an eroded plateau dotted with irregular mountains and crossed by
river valleys. The highlands separate Brazil’s inland regions from a narrow
coastal plain that stretches from Ceará in the Northeast to the Uruguayan border
in the South.
In spite of Brazil’s size, the broad pattern
of climate is less varied than might be expected. The equator passes through
northern Brazil, running adjacent to the Amazon River. Because of its equatorial
location and low elevation, the extensive Amazon region has a climate with high
temperatures and substantial rainfall. Farther to the south, temperatures become
slightly more moderate. The state of Rio Grande do Sul in the extreme south
exhibits a more temperate climate, with seasonal weather patterns resembling
those of the southern United States. Rainfall is plentiful in Brazil, except in
the sertão, a semiarid region of the Northeast that is subject to
occasional droughts.
Brazil contains a wealth of mineral and plant
resources that have not yet been fully explored. It possesses some of the
world’s largest deposits of iron ore and contains rich deposits of many other
minerals, including gold and copper. Brazil’s fossil fuel resources are modest,
but this limitation is offset by the considerable hydroelectric potential of the
nation’s many rivers. Although Brazil is an important producer of tropical
crops, areas of highly fertile land are limited, and only a small proportion of
the land is actually under cultivation. There is substantial livestock ranching,
and the forests are important sources of timber, rubber, and palm oil.
A | Natural Regions |
Much of Brazil lies between 200 and 800 m
(700 and 2,600 ft) in elevation. The main upland area occupies most of the
southern half of the country. It is an enormous block of geologically ancient
rocks that rises from the northwestern region towards the southeast. As a
consequence it has a steep edge near the Atlantic coast and in places drops in a
single escarpment of up to 800 m (2,600 ft). The northwestern parts of the
plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills. The
southeastern section is more rugged, with a complex mass of ridges and mountain
ranges reaching elevations of up to 1,200 m (3,900 ft). These ranges include the
Serra da Mantiqueira, the Serra do Espinhaço, the Chapada Diamantina, and the
Serra do Mar. The Serra do Mar forms a sharp edge along the coast from Rio de
Janeiro south for about 1,000 km (about 600 mi) into Santa Catarina. Behind the
Serra do Mar, an extensive plateau reaches through the state of São Paulo and
into the southern states. The highest points in southern Brazil are the Pico da
Bandeira (2,890 m/9,482 ft) and Pico do Cristal (2,798 m/9,180 ft), both in the
Serra da Mantiqueira.
In the far north the Guiana Highlands cover
only 2 percent of the country. These highlands form a major drainage divide,
separating rivers that flow south into the Amazon Basin from rivers that empty
into the Orinoco river system of Venezuela to the north. The highest point in
Brazil—the Pico da Neblina (2,994 m/9,823 ft)—is in the mountains of the Guiana
Highlands.
The most extensive lowland is the Amazon
Basin. Most of its terrain is gently undulating, rarely rising more than 150 m
(490 ft) above sea level. Seasonal flooding occurs along the Amazon River and
its tributaries in stretches of flat, swampy land called varzeas. A
second major lowland is the Pantanal in western Mato Grosso near the border with
Bolivia and Paraguay. Seasonal flooding occurs in this region along the
headwaters of the Paraná and Paraguay river system. It is a significant area for
ranching, but has recently come to be recognized as an important wetland
environment that needs to be conserved.
The third lowland area is the coastal
plain. In the Northeast it may be up to 60 km (40 mi) wide, but in some places
it is very narrow, and between Rio de Janeiro and Santos it disappears entirely.
This coastal plain has been a major area of settlement and economic activity
since colonial times, and 12 of the country’s state capitals are located along
it. The plain widens in southern Rio Grande do Sul and extends into
Argentina.
B | Rivers and Lakes |
Brazil has a dense and complex system of
rivers. The most impressive river system is that of the Amazon and its
tributaries, ranked the largest in the world based on the volume of water it
drains. The Amazon is the world’s second longest river, after the Nile in Egypt.
Its major tributary, the Tocantins, joins the Amazon near its mouth. The second
largest river basin in Brazil is that of the Paraná, which flows south between
Argentina and Uruguay to empty into the Río de la Plata estuary. It drains much
of the Southeast, South, and Center-West. The principal river of the eastern
plateau region, the São Francisco, flows north through the highlands in the
states of Minas Gerais and Bahia before turning east and entering the Atlantic.
The remainder of the country is drained by a series of smaller and shorter
rivers along the Atlantic seaboard.
The Amazon is navigable to oceangoing ships
as far as Iquitos, in Peru, and its major tributaries are suitable for inland
navigation. Parts of the São Francisco and Paraná are also navigable. However,
except in the case of the Amazon, river transport is relatively unimportant in
Brazil. The rivers are more important as sources of hydroelectricity, which
Brazil depends on for economic development because the country is short of solid
fuel.
Most of Brazil’s large lakes are created by
dams constructed to produce hydroelectric power or to provide water for
irrigation. The largest lakes are Sobradinho, on the São Francisco; Tucuruí, on
the Tocantins; Balbina, on the Amazon; and Furnas, on the Paraná. The São
Francisco is also used for irrigation, and there are a number of reservoirs in
the Northeast that provide irrigation and drinking water during the dry season
and drought years.
C | Coastline |
The nature of the Brazilian coastline
varies considerably. In the North the mouth of the Amazon is the dominant
feature, with major river channels, lowlands subject to seasonal flooding,
swamps of mangrove trees, and numerous islands, of which Marajó is the largest.
The coast of the Northeast is smoother, with substantial areas of beaches and
dunes along the northern strip, and more varied forms—dunes, mangroves, lagoons,
and hills—south of Cape São Roque. Major features of this area are the mouth of
the São Francisco River and Todos os Santos Bay.
The Southeastern coast is also varied, with
lagoons, marshlands, sand spits, and sandy beaches. Particularly in the states
of Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, and in much of the South, the
mountains are very close to the coast, leaving a coastal plain that is narrow or
nonexistent. Only in Rio Grande do Sul does the plain widen again. The major
natural harbors are those of Salvador, Vitória, Rio de Janeiro, Santos,
Paranaguá, and Rio Grande. Portuguese settlers established their first
communities along the coast, and most Brazilians still live within about 300 km
(about 200 mi) of the coast.
D | Climate |
The climatic pattern is largely shaped by
Brazil’s tropical location and by topographic features. Most of Brazil has high
annual average temperatures, above 22°C (72°F). Only in the South and in the
highest elevations does the average fall below this. In the higher elevations,
the seasonal variation in temperature is more marked.
A tropical wet climate characterizes much
of northern Brazil, with abundant rainfall and little or no dry season.
Temperatures average 25°C (77°F), with more significant temperature variations
between night and day than between seasons. Rainfall averages about 2,200 mm
(about 90 in) a year. Over central Brazil rainfall is more seasonal,
characteristic of a savanna climate. Eighty percent of the rain falls in summer
(October through March), and there are more seasonal variations in temperature.
Here rainfall averages about 1,600 mm (about 60 in) a year. In the interior
Northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme. The semiarid region receives
less than 800 mm (30 in) of rain, which falls in a period of two or three
months. In addition to its scarcity and seasonal nature, the rain occasionally
fails completely, causing serious drought conditions.
In the Southeast the tropical climate is
modified by elevation, with a winter average temperature below 18°C (64°F) and
an average rainfall of about 1,400 mm (about 55 in) concentrated in summer. The
South has subtropical conditions, with average temperatures below 20°C (68°F)
and cool winters. Rainfall averages about 1,500 mm (about 60 in), with no
differences between seasons. The region is also subject to frost, which occurs
on average ten days a year and may damage crops. There are occasional snowfalls
in the higher areas.
E | Plant and Animal Life |
The plant life of Brazil depends on
climate, elevation, and soil conditions. A broad distinction can be made between
the forests and grasslands, but considerable variety exists within these areas.
The Amazon rain forest is the largest tropical rain forest in the world. It has
luxuriant vegetation, with tall trees and several lower layers of vegetation
that include woody vines and unusual varieties of plants that do not root in the
soil, but grow by attaching themselves to other plants. The east coast and the
uplands in the Southeast also had a tropical forest cover, although less dense
and diverse than the Amazon region; however, much of this has been cleared since
1500. In the South, the Araucária pine forest grows under subtropical
conditions.
In central Brazil the rain forest gradually
gives way in the south to the cerrado, an area of more open vegetation
that trends from woodland to a mix of trees, shrubs and grass, and open
grassland. In the semiarid Northeast vegetation is adapted to the low rainfall.
It consists of low scrub, called caatinga. The trees lose their leaves in
the dry season, and cacti and other plants that can survive very dry conditions
are common.
The South contains open grassland known as
the campos. Other small grassland areas occur in the northern Amazon
region and in the mountains. The Pantanal near the border of Bolivia and
Paraguay has distinct vegetation of trees, shrubs, and grasses that have adapted
to the conditions of seasonal flooding. Along the coast several vegetation types
exist, including salt marshes, mangrove swamps, and sand dunes.
The rich wildlife of Brazil reflects the
variety of natural habitats. Of an estimated 750 species of mammals in South
America, 417 are found in Brazil. Larger mammals include pumas, jaguars,
ocelots, rare bush dogs, and foxes. Peccaries, tapirs, anteaters, sloths,
opossums, and armadillos are abundant. Deer are plentiful in the south, and
monkeys of many species abound in the rain forests. The country has one of the
world’s most diverse populations of birds and amphibians, with 1,500 species of
birds and 581 species of amphibians. There is a great variety of reptiles,
including lizards, snakes, turtles, and caimans. There are estimated to be more
than 1,500 species of freshwater fish in Brazil, of which more than 1,000 are
found in the Amazon Basin. The number of invertebrates is enormous, calculated
at more than 100,000 species, of which 70,000 are insects. However, Brazil’s
wildlife remains largely unknown, and new species are found on nearly a daily
basis. Scientists estimate that the total number of plant and animal species in
Brazil could approach 2 million.
Despite its abundance, Brazil’s animal and
plant life are threatened by human activity. Removal of the vegetation cover has
been a continual process since the Europeans arrived; people have cut and burned
the land to clear it for farming and settlement. Concern about this process
intensified as people, settlements, and industry moved into the Amazon rain
forest in the 1970s. Clearing land for agriculture and felling trees for timber
have reduced the habitats of wildlife. Some species are also threatened with
extinction by sport and subsistence hunting and by industrial and agricultural
pollution. At the beginning of the 21st century, hundreds of species were
considered at risk, including the jaguar, several species of monkey, and
Pantanal deer. Numerous birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects are also
threatened.
F | Natural Resources |
In 2005, 56.1 percent of Brazil was
covered in forests, including a large area of tropical rain forests. These rain
forests yield not only timber, but also a range of products such as rubber, palm
oil, charcoal, and Brazil nuts.
The country also produces many different
types of crops and livestock although fertile soil is limited. Despite its
importance as an agricultural producer, just 8 (2003) percent of Brazil’s total
land area actually produces crops; the remainder is either grassland, woodland,
or uncultivated fields.
Mineral resources are particularly
important for export and as raw material for industrial use. The most important,
in terms of value of output, are iron ore and gold. Copper, zinc, bauxite,
manganese, and tin are also significant. Limestone, sea salt, diamonds, and
phosphates are leading nonmetallic minerals.
G | Environmental Issues |
Concern for the environment in Brazil has
grown in response to global interest in environmental issues. The clearing of
rain forests in the Amazon Basin to make room for agriculture and new
settlements has drawn national and international attention over possible damage
to the rain forest. Environmentalists are concerned that the extensive loss of
rain forest vegetation, which produces large amounts of oxygen, could have a
wider impact on the global environment. During the 1990s, forests in Brazil
disappeared at a rate of 0.4 percent per year.
In many areas of the country, the natural
environment is threatened by development. Highway construction has opened up
previously remote areas for agriculture and settlement; dams have flooded
valleys and inundated wildlife habitats; and mines have scarred and polluted the
landscape. Rapid growth of urban areas has also contributed to pollution. There
have been some efforts to deal with the problems of urban pollution, including
cleaning up Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, the Tietê River in São Paulo, and
the heavily polluted industrial town of Cubatão, near São Paulo.
Brazil has many different types of
environmental conservation units throughout the country, including national and
state parks, reserves, forests, and natural monuments. The first national parks
were created in 1937 in an effort to provide environmental protection. The
largest national park in Brazil is Jaú in the state of Amazonas, with 2.3
million hectares (5.6 million acres). In 1973 a government department for the
environment was established. There is now a wide range of protected areas in
addition to the national parks; they include forest parks, ecological parks,
natural monuments, biological reserves, and areas of ecological protection. Many
state governments have designated protected areas, and land set aside for
indigenous peoples also serves as nature reserves.
In 2006 the governor of the state of Pará
designated an undeveloped area the size of England as a protected area. Under
the governor’s decree the area, located in the Amazon rain forest and totaling
150,000 sq km (58,000 sq mi), was protected from unsustainable logging and
slash-and-burn agriculture. Nearly a third of the area—about 57,600 sq km
(22,200 sq mi)—was placed off limits to any development and even excludes the
general public, being accessible only to indigenous people and scientific
researchers. The remaining area was designated only for sustainable development,
permitting limited logging under strict management and allowing local
communities to harvest some natural resources. The area links to existing nature
reserves in French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname, forming a vast corridor known
as the Guiana Shield that contains about 25 percent of Earth’s tropical rain
forests and harbors many endangered species.
Designating sites as protected does not
necessarily mean that they can be securely preserved, however. The government
often lacks the resources or the will to stop ranchers and farmers who move into
these protected areas. The country also faces conflicts in reconciling economic
development and environmental conservation, and in allocating scarce investment
funds to preserving the environment. The decision to create a vast reserve in
Pará, however, was thought to have broken the power of large ranchers, some of
whom owned plots of land the size of small countries.
III | PEOPLE AND SOCIETY |
Brazil’s population is a mixture of Native
American, European, and African peoples. These groups have intermingled over the
years to create a society with considerable ethnic complexity. The Native
American population has been in Brazil the longest, but is now the smallest
group. The Portuguese began arriving in 1500, and other European groups came
after 1850. The ancestors of African Brazilians arrived as slaves, beginning
about the mid-1500s and ending in 1850 when the slave trade was abolished.
Brazil’s population growth was generally
high during the 20th century, but it began to slow in the 1980s. Until recently
the population was predominantly rural and agricultural. The last half of the
20th century brought rapid urbanization due to population growth and the
migration of people from rural areas seeking employment in the expanding
industries of the cities.
A | Population |
Brazil was first settled by Native
American peoples, many of them members of the Tupí-Guaraní cultures. It is
difficult to estimate the size of the Native American population at the time the
Europeans arrived. There are no written records, and because of the scattered
distribution of the tribes there is little substantive evidence remaining about
their history. Recent calculations suggest that between 1 and 6 million Native
Americans lived in Brazil prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500.
However, as a consequence of war, enslavement, and the introduction of European
diseases, the indigenous population decreased rapidly. Estimates for 1819
suggest that the Native American population had fallen by two-thirds. In 2000
Native Americans made up less than 1 percent of the population, living in
isolated groups in remote regions of the rain forest.
Portuguese settlement was slow and
small-scale. When they arrived in 1500, they established settlements along the
coast and exported agricultural products to Europe. By 1600 there were no more
than 30,000 European settlers in the country. The population increased during
the 18th century as a result of natural increase and immigration to Brazil’s
gold fields, which were discovered in the late 17th century. Population also
increased when the Portuguese brought slaves from Africa to Brazil to provide
labor for the sugar plantations and gold mines. More than 2 million slaves
arrived during the colonial period. By 1800 Brazil’s total population was
estimated at around 3.25 million, of which about 1 million were Europeans, 2
million were free or enslaved Africans or of mixed race, and about 250,000 were
Native Americans.
During the early part of the 19th century
more than 1 million more slaves were imported. After the slave trade was
abolished in 1850, the country’s population continued to grow by natural
increase and immigration. Immigrants from Italy, Portugal, Germany, and Spain
started coming to Brazil after 1850. Brazil’s first census, in 1872, recorded a
population of 9,930,478; by 1900 the population was just over 17 million.
Immigration continued to be substantial until the 1930s, with many Japanese
arriving after 1908. Since then, population growth has been primarily due to
natural increase.
In 1950 Brazil had 51,944,000
inhabitants, and by 1980 the population had more than doubled, rising to
119,002,700. The most recent census, in 2000, recorded a population of
169,799,170. A 2008 estimate placed the population at 191,908,598. Contributory
factors to these high growth rates were immigration, a high birth rate, and a
death rate that has declined steadily since 1870.
In Brazil, there are considerable
regional variations in population density. The most densely peopled states are
Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in the Southeast and the Federal District in the
Center-West. The least populous states are Roraima and Amazonas, both in the
North. About 80 percent of the population lives within 350 km (220 mi) of the
coast. Until the mid-1960s there were more rural dwellers than people living in
towns; since then the urban population has increased as industrialization lures
workers to the larger cities. About 84 percent of the population is now classed
as urban, and a significant proportion lives in big cities.
B | Principal Cities |
The largest city in Brazil is São Paulo,
the main industrial center of the nation. São Paulo is also the largest city in
South America, with an estimated population in 2007 of 10.9 million. The former
capital, Rio de Janeiro, ranks second. It is an important port and commercial
center. Other important cities include Salvador, the regional capital of the
Northeast; Belo Horizonte, a major industrial and commercial city in Minas
Gerais; and Brasília, the capital of Brazil. Each of these cities forms the core
of a larger urban area. In 2000 there were eight other cities in Brazil with
more than 1 million inhabitants: Manaus, a port on the Río Negro near its
confluence with the Amazon; Belém, a northern port on the mouth of the Amazon;
Fortaleza and Recife, along the northeast coast; Curitiba and Porto Alegre in
the south; Goiânia, in the south central; and Guarulhos, a suburb of São
Paulo.
C | Ethnic Groups |
Brazil’s population is derived from three
main ethnic sources. The earliest secure date for the arrival of Native
Americans in Brazil is about 10,000 years ago. Europeans arrived in 1500, and
for the next three centuries European immigration was restricted to only the
Portuguese. African slaves came from West Africa, the Congo, Angola, and
Mozambique. Relations between these groups created a complex population pattern
of mixed races, described by an often subtle terminology based on color—for
example, preto (black), escuro (dark), mulato escuro
(dark brown), or mulato claro (light brown).
Racial classifications in Brazil are not
as sharply defined as in other nations. The Portuguese colonists who settled
Brazil had a more relaxed attitude toward interracial relationships than other
Europeans and often intermarried with Africans and Native Americans. In
addition, racial classification often reflects an individual’s economic or
social standing. For example, a Brazilian of mixed racial heritage who has done
well economically may be classified as white.
The white population tends to be slightly
more prevalent in urban areas while the black and mulatto population is slightly
more populous in rural areas. There are also some strong regional variations. In
the Northeast, where large numbers of slaves were imported during colonial times
to work the sugar plantations, more than 70 percent of the people were recorded
as black or mulatto in 1999. In the Southeast the population was classified as
64 percent white and 35 percent black or mulatto; in the South, which was
settled mainly by European immigrants, more than 84 percent of the people were
recorded as white. Brazil is widely regarded as a racially open society, with
few ethnic tensions, and there is no recent history of legal discrimination.
However, whites tend to occupy positions at the top of Brazil’s social
structure, while blacks often occupy the lower economic levels of society.
Considerable room for social mobility exists among individuals with a mixed
racial heritage.
D | Languages |
Portuguese is the official and prevailing
language of Brazil, although there are some regional variations in pronunciation
and slang words. Since 1938 Portuguese has been the compulsory language for
teaching in schools, but German and Italian are still spoken in homes in the
South by some descendants of immigrants. English and French are the main second
languages of educated Brazilians.
There are also more than 100 indigenous
languages, of which the most important are Tupí, Gê, Arawak, and Carib. The
Portuguese borrowed some Indian words, particularly from Tupí, which was the
common language used in interactions among the Native Americans of the coastal
regions, Jesuit missionaries, and early settlers. Many settlements and physical
features still have Indian place names. The settlers also borrowed some words
from the vocabulary of African slaves.
E | Religion |
Roman Catholicism is the dominant
religion, with 90 percent of the population claiming at least nominal
affiliation. About 6 percent are defined as members of non-Catholic Christian
churches. In recent years Pentecostal groups, which believe in the experience of
holiness, or Christian perfection, have grown rapidly. The Spiritist movement,
which believes in multiple incarnations and communication with spirits of the
dead, has a small following, mainly among the urban middle classes. Traditional
African beliefs, brought by slaves, have blended with Catholicism to create
Afro-Brazilian religions such as Macumba, Candomblé, and Umbanda. These
incorporate possession by spirits, the use of African music and dance, and the
identification of West African deities with Catholic saints. Such religions are
strongest in former slave areas, such as Bahia in the Northeast. Native
Americans practice a wide variety of indigenous religions that vary from group
to group.
The formal link between the state and the
Catholic Church was severed in the late 19th century. However, the Catholic
Church has continued to exert an influence on national affairs. It has
traditionally been a conservative force, but in recent years a movement known as
liberation theology has emerged among members of the Roman Catholic clergy. This
movement teaches that Christians must work for social and economic justice for
all people; it has encouraged greater church involvement in social issues,
particularly those that affect the urban poor and the landless rural
population.
F | Education |
Primary education is compulsory from age
7 to 14; high school education lasts for four years. Education is free in
official primary and high schools. There was a major reform of education in 1971
that provided a basic education of eight years, with a common core of studies.
Students may then continue on to pursue training for employment or higher
education. Despite provisions in the 1988 Constitution decreeing federal
expenditures for education, schooling remains underfunded and considerable
variations exist in opportunity between urban and rural children, among the
nation’s regions, and among social class.
Nearly all children complete both primary
and high school. The level of adult literacy is similar for both sexes. In 1950
only half of the population over 15 years of age was literate. Despite a
literacy campaign begun in 1971, the current level is just 87 percent. Literacy
levels vary regionally and between rural and urban areas. Illiteracy is
highest—around 27 percent—in the Northeast, which has a high proportion of rural
poor.
The University of Rio de Janeiro was
Brazil’s first university, created out of separate faculties in 1920. The
University of São Paulo followed in 1934. In 2003 there were 125 universities.
Each state (except the newest, Tocantins) has a federal university, and there
are several in the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do
Sul. There are state universities in most of the states of the Northeast,
Southeast, and South. The Roman Catholic Church also has some universities, and
there are dozens of private universities, many of them in São Paulo state.
G | Way of Life |
Historically Brazilian society has been
patriarchal, with a strong tradition of male social dominance. This has weakened
with immigration, urbanization, and the decline of the rural sector. Also,
independence for women has grown under the influence of feminism and the
expansion of urban employment opportunities for women. The family is still a
crucial social unit, and there is some survival, even in the cities, of
parentela, a kind of kinship system. This extended network involves close
family and distant relatives, godparents and godchildren, and even family
servants. Such linkages are generally stronger among the middle and upper
classes.
There are significant differences in
housing standards between social classes in Brazil. Striking contrasts exist in
the cities between the luxurious mansions and apartments of the affluent and the
favelas (shantytowns) of the poor. In the countryside the casa
grande (big house) of the rancher or plantation owner and the simple shacks
of rural laborers also illustrate the disparities. In the cities there is a
social spectrum of rich, middle class, working class, and poor, but in the
countryside distinctions tend to be more polarized between the rich and the
poor, with few working-class or middle-class individuals.
Clothing in Brazil is not very
distinctive, and formality has diminished over the past 30 years. Although high
society is very fashion-conscious, only senior managers and public servants wear
suits and ties to work in the cities; office workers wear casual clothes. In the
countryside, jeans, shirts, and dresses of inexpensive cotton are typical. The
cowboys of Rio Grande do Sul, known as gauchos, still wear
distinctive clothing consisting of ponchos and baggy trousers, while the cowboys
of the Northeast, known as vaqueiros, wear hats, coats, and chaps
made of leather. In Bahia some women maintain traditional African
clothing consisting of long, full skirts, colored shawls, and turbanlike
headscarves. Native Americans may wear few clothes and make use of beads and
other decorations for personal adornment. They may also use body paint and have
distinctive hairstyles. However, except on ceremonial occasions, many Native
Americans who are in contact with mainstream Brazilian society have exchanged
traditional dress for more contemporary clothing.
Important staples in the Brazilian diet
include beans, rice, wheat, and manioc, a plant grown in tropical areas and also
known as cassava. These are consumed throughout the country, although manioc is
an especially important element in the diet of the poor in the Northeast. Meat,
particularly beef, is also widely consumed, although only occasionally by the
poor. Despite the extensive coastline and river system, levels of fish
consumption are low, except along the Northeast coast and in the Amazon region.
Traditional dishes include feijoada completa, a combination of pork,
black beans, and rice, and churrasco, barbecued meat that is common in
the South. In the Northeast there is an important African legacy in spicy dishes
such as vatapá, a fish stew made with onion, tomato, coconut, and spices.
Coffee is the most popular beverage, often drunk as cafezinho, a small
cup of strong and very sweet black coffee. A potent alcoholic beverage, known
as cachaça, is distilled from sugarcane, and light beer is widely
consumed. More affluent Brazilians may drink wine produced in Rio Grande do Sul.
International brand soft drinks are also popular.
Soccer is the most popular sport, played
in the massive stadiums of the big cities and as recreation. The game was
introduced in the 19th century and was established as a professional sport in
1933. Although there is great rivalry between local teams, there is strong
popular support for the national team, which has won the World Cup, soccer’s
major international competition, four times. Pelé, one of the world’s legendary
soccer players, led the Brazilian team to three of those victories, in 1958,
1962, and 1970. Motor racing is also very popular, and Brazil has produced a
number of championship winners, including Emerson Fittipaldi and Ayrton Senna.
Major participant sports include swimming, tennis, sailing, and golf.
The festival of Carnival, with its
spectacular street parades and vibrant music, has become one of the most potent
images of Brazil. Its roots lie in the European Mardi Gras, a lively festival,
which precedes the fasting and prayers of the Roman Catholic holy season of
Lent. Carnival begins on the Friday before Ash Wednesday and lasts for five
days. In Brazil it seems to have first occurred in Bahia in the mid-17th century
and in Rio de Janeiro in the 1850s, where it was associated with street parades
and elegant private balls.
Carnival did not take on its present
spectacular form in Rio until the 1930s, when the dance known as the samba
emerged in the favelas (shantytowns) of the city. Samba “schools” based
in the favelas compete to create the most spectacular groups of extravagantly
costumed dancers and original samba songs. In Rio they now parade through the
sambadrome (a street stadium) before vast crowds of Brazilians and
foreign tourists. The more traditional street parties and balls also continue.
Carnival is celebrated throughout Brazil, but the most spectacular celebrations
outside Rio take place in Salvador, Recife, and Olinda, although the nature of
the events varies.
H | Social Issues |
Brazilian society displays marked
inequity between the city and the country, between regions, and between social
classes. The gap between rich and poor is among the most substantial in the
world. In 1998 the richest 20 percent of the population received 64 percent of
the nation’s income, while the poorest 20 percent earned only 2 percent. Besides
access to wealth, this inequality is also reflected in access to education,
medical care, and services such as water supply, sewerage, and electricity.
Despite the rich resources, rapid
economic development, and the overall size of Brazil’s economy, the nation has
major problems with poverty, hunger, disease, and inadequate services. In the
cities, overcrowding compounds these problems. Rapid urbanization has brought
people to the cities at a rate that has outpaced the growth of the job market
and the urban services that they need to survive comfortably. Many of the larger
cities have extensive slums. Homelessness—particularly among children and young
teens whose families cannot support them—constitutes another major problem.
Despite these urban problems, poverty and
lack of access to clean water, electricity, health care, and schooling may be
more acute in the countryside. For example, 96 percent of urban dwellers have
access to safe drinking water as opposed to just 57 percent in the countryside.
Such distinctions are also evident between regions. The average head of a
household in the Northeast is likely to earn only half as much as a counterpart
in the Southeast, twice as likely to be illiterate, and have a life expectancy
five years lower. A key challenge for the government remains the inequality of
opportunity among citizens.
Among other social issues, overt racism
is rare, although there is some evidence of a social segregation in which the
poor are more likely to be black or of mixed race. Organized crime has links to
gambling and drugs, and the favelas often serve as bases for drug dealers.
Street crime remains a problem in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and
Salvador.
IV | CULTURE |
Cultural development in the colonial period
(1500-1822) was primarily a transfer of Portuguese traditions to Brazil,
particularly under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Architecture was
the earliest art form to develop a distinctly Brazilian tradition through the
blending of European and African influences. During the 18th century, wealth
generated by sugar plantations and gold mines went into the building of
flamboyant churches and public buildings in the regions of Bahia, Pernambuco,
and Minas Gerais.
After independence in 1822, intellectuals
rejected their Portuguese inheritance and sought models elsewhere. Artistic
movements from throughout Europe had a significant influence on Brazilian art
during the 19th century. A major milestone for Brazilian culture was the Week of
Modern Art in São Paulo in 1922, an international arts festival that introduced
modernist ideas in Brazil. Brazilian modernism emerged in response to artistic
movements in Europe and to the social, political, and economic changes that
Brazil was experiencing. After its introduction, modernism exercised a powerful
influence on Brazilian literature, art, music, and painting. From 1968 to the
1980s the military regime that ruled Brazil repressed artistic expression by
censoring the press, popular music and theater, and by establishing state
control over radio and television. After the end of military rule in the 1980s,
the government lifted restrictions on artists and journalists.
A | Literature |
Brazilian colonial literature followed
classical traditions, drawing from Portuguese and Catholic influences. After
Brazil attained independence in 1822, artists looked for inspiration from other
sources in an effort to create a uniquely Brazilian literary style. Ideas were
drawn from French, English, and German literature, which introduced romanticism,
a movement in the arts that emphasized a highly imaginative and subjective
approach to artistic expression. There was a strong nationalistic element in
these writings. A leading figure was José de Alencar, who wrote about Brazil and
its history. His Iracema (1865; translated as Iracema the Honey-lips,
a Legend of Brazil, 1886) portrayed a romance between an indigenous
Brazilian princess and a Portuguese colonist.
The major literary figure in the late
19th century was Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, whose works include Quincas
borba (1891; Philosopher or Dog?, 1954) and Dom Casmurro
(1899; translated 1953). Many of his works provide searching comments on the
human condition. Another major novel of this period is Euclides da Cunha’s Os
sertões (1902; Rebellion in the Backlands, 1944), a powerful portrait
of rebellion and massacre in the Northeast.
The modernist influence has encouraged an
exploration of national character and of distinctive regional cultures, and an
interest in social issues. The regional novel has been particularly strong in
the Northeast, where an important group of writers have portrayed the nature of
the region and the experiences of its people in the cane fields, the dry
interior, and in the cities. One of Brazil’s most popular novelists, Jorge
Amado, wrote about his native state of Bahia in such works as Gabriela, cravo
e canela (1958; Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, 1962), which portrays
the experience of migrants from the interior of the Northeast to the cocoa port
of Ilheus. Other important regional novels from the Northeast include Graciliano
Ramos’s Vidas secas (1938; Barren Lives, 1965) and José Lins do
Rego’s Menino de engenho (1932; Plantation Boy, 1966). The
country’s first important female novelist, Rachel de Queiroz, wrote about the
challenges that women faced in Brazilian society in O quinze (1930;
The Year 1915).
Among the best post-1945 writers are João
Guimarães Rosa, whose Grande sertao: veradas (1956; Devil to Pay in
the Backlands, 1963) provides a powerful portrait of rural life in the
interior of Minas Gerais, and Clarice Lispector, best known for her short
stories such as Laços de família (1960; Family Ties, 1972).
Important contemporary writers include Autran Dourado, author of Ópera dos
Mortos (1967; The Voice of the Dead, 1980); Darcy Ribeiro, author of
Maíra (1978; translated 1985); João Ubaldo Ribeiro, author of Sergeant
Getúlio (1977; translated 1980); and Paulo Coelho, author of O
alquimista (1988; The Alchemist, 1993) and Veronika decide morrer
(1998; Veronika Decides to Die, 1999).
In poetry, major figures in the 19th
century were Antonio Gonçalves Dias and Antonio de Castro Alves, who wrote on
native Brazilian themes in their works. Important poets of the modernist
movement have been Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and Jorge de
Lima. See Brazilian Literature.
B | Art and Architecture |
Portuguese religious influences dominated
colonial art. In the 19th and 20th centuries, artistic movements in
Europe provided inspiration for Brazilian artists. For example, the Week of
Modern Art, an international arts festival in São Paulo in 1922, introduced
cubist ideas, which focused on abstract forms rather than lifelike
representation of objects. Important modern artists Anita Malfatti and Tarsila
do Amaral were both early pioneers in Brazilian modern art. Cándido Portinari
depicted people and landscapes of his homeland in a patriotic manner, and Lasar
Segall helped introduce expressionist paintings to Brazil with an exhibit in Rio
de Janeiro in 1913.
Colonial architecture was strongly
influenced by the Jesuit priests and the Roman Catholic Church. In the 20th
century, modern artistic movements provided inspiration for architecture as they
had for art, particularly after the 1936 visit of Swiss French architect Le
Corbusier, who collaborated with Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa on the Ministry
of Education building in Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer and Costa have been key
figures in the high reputation of Brazil’s modern architecture. Their
masterpiece is the capital city of Brasília (constructed in the 1950s), which
Costa planned and for which Niemeyer designed many of the public buildings.
Other important figures include Jorge Moreira Machado and Afonso Reidy.
Buildings designed by these architects tend to be light, graceful, and airy,
incorporating features appropriate to tropical heat and strong sunlight. They
also frequently combine the skills of the architect with those of sculptors,
painters, and landscape gardeners such as Roberto Burle Marx, who designed many
parks and gardens in Brazil and overseas.
One of Brazil’s most famous sculptors and
architects is the colonial artist known as Aleijadinho, who worked in a baroque
style on the churches of colonial Minas Gerais. In the modern period, more
abstract styles have dominated. Important figures such as sculptors Bruno Giorgi
and Maria Martins contributed works to the design of Brasília.
Photography was introduced in Brazil in
1840, and early photographs provide an important record of society and
landscape. In recent years photographer Sebastião Salgado has created powerful
images of Brazilian poverty.
There is a strong folk-art tradition in
Brazil, deriving from and often blending together the legacies of the Native
Americans, Africans, and Portuguese. Indigenous art traditionally focused on
three forms: pottery, weaving, and body art, which involved painting designs on
the skin. Goods that have utilitarian functions have come to be appreciated for
their aesthetic qualities. Such items include pottery, leatherwork, basketry,
lace, and embroidery.
C | Music and Dance |
The National Conservatory was established
in 1841, and classical music drew upon European and ethnic traditions. There is
a strong nationalist element in the work of composer Antônio Carlos Gomes.
Brazil’s leading classical composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, blended European
traditions and melodies with those of Brazil’s African and Native American
populations. This blend is perhaps best heard in his Bachianas Brasileiras
(1930-1945), a series of nine suites.
The best-known form of popular music is
samba, which grew from the rhythm and vocal styles of the Native Americans,
Portuguese, and Africans. Samba has come to be particularly associated with the
spectacular dance and music competitions that take place each year in Rio de
Janeiro during Brazil’s Carnival celebration. Although samba, as a dance form,
is best seen during Carnival, there are other dances of African origin, such as
the ritualized fighting of capoeira, which originated among African
slaves. Bumba-meu-boi is a dance that uses drama, dance, instrumental music, and
song to recount the mythical tale of the death and resurrection of an ox.
In the 1950s and 1960s bossa nova emerged
from a blending of Brazilian popular music with American jazz. Key composers of
bossa nova were João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Vinicius de Morães. In
the mid-1960s the addition of electric guitars and elements of rock music
resulted in the creation of música popular brasileira (MPB), associated with
musician Chico Buarque and others. MPB focused on urban protest against the
military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. In the late 1960s
tropicalismo drew upon a range of musical traditions, with Maria Bethânia and
Caetano Veloso as leading performers. It combined Brazilian folk traditions with
rock and roll and popular music styles. Lambada, originating in the Amazon
region in the 1970s, is a sensual dance based on Afro-Brazilian rhythms. There
are also elements of regional popular music, such as sertanejo in the South and
Center-West, which resembles American country music, with simple tunes and
themes of love, nostalgia, and hardship.
D | Theater and Film |
Theater was not an important art form in
Brazil until the 1940s, when playwrights such as Nelson Rodrigues and Alfredo
Dias Gomes began to contribute more original works. In the 1950s the theater
became more experimental and socially concerned, and the Teatro de Arena in São
Paulo became an important place of innovation and a center of social protest
against the military regime in the 1960s.
Interest in cinema has a long history, but
motion-picture production was constrained by the limited market for films in
Portuguese. However, the cinema nôvo (new cinema) movement of the
mid-1950s began to attract international attention through films such as
Vidas Secas (Barren Lives, 1963), a dramatization of the novel by
Graciliano Ramos. A major figure was Glauber Rocha, who made several striking
films on Brazilian themes, most notably Deus e o diabo na terra do sol
(Black God, White Devil, 1964). More recently, Bruno Barreto has produced
films based on several novels by Brazilian writer Jorge Amado, and a novel by
Paulo Lins about two boys growing up in the slums of Rio de Janeiro was turned
into a film, Cidade de Deus (2002, also released as City of God).
V | ECONOMY |
Before 1930 the Brazilian economy was
dominated by a number of agricultural and mineral products for export. The world
economic depression of the 1930s encouraged the government to diversify the
economy, particularly through industrialization. The state led much of this
development, through economic plans and government participation in key sectors
of public services, such as electricity, telephones, and postal services. The
government was also directly involved in some of the country’s largest firms,
particularly in the mining, steel, oil, and chemical industries. At the same
time, it encouraged foreign investment in areas such as automobile
manufacturing, engineering, and the production of electrical goods. As a result,
the importance of agriculture and mining in output and trade fell
significantly.
Despite success in growing its industrial
sector, Brazil encountered economic difficulties. Periodic world recessions, the
oil crises of 1973 and 1979, the accumulation of high foreign debt, and periods
of rapid inflation all contributed to slow the progress of development in
Brazil. In response to these difficulties, the government reduced its role in
planning the economy and in financing the development of new industries. The
government also opened up a number of state-owned companies to private investors
in areas such as steel, petroleum, electricity, and telecommunications. In 2001
services accounted for 57 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP);
industry, 34 percent; and agriculture, forestry, and fishing, 9 percent.
A | Labor |
In 2006 the labor force in Brazil was 93.1
million people, of whom 43 percent were women. Unemployment was estimated at 9.7
percent in 2003, but that figure may be imprecise, due to the number of people
holding part-time jobs or working in unreported employment, particularly in the
cities. Urban-based employment surpasses agricultural-based employment, with
much of its growth in service jobs rather than manufacturing. In 2006 the
service sector employed 64 percent of the workforce.
The government first granted legal
recognition to labor organizations in 1907. In 1931 President Getúlio Vargas
created a government-supervised trade union structure. Strikes were forbidden,
but labor courts assessed workers’ grievances. The Vargas government also
instituted social legislation that was advanced for its time, regulating hours
of work and establishing a minimum wage, worker training, and health care. By
1944 there were 800 unions, with over 500,000 members. During the 1950s labor
became more militant, and there was pressure for a central labor organization
and moves to unionize rural labor.
Following the 1964 military coup, the
government purged the leadership of unions and placed many unions under direct
government control. However, continued union activism at the factory level and
strikes organized by workers were factors in ending the military regime. Unions
reemerged following the return of civilian rule in 1985, and central labor
organizations were legalized. During the 1990s the number of unions grew into
the thousands and included factory and rural workers, employers, and
professionals. In addition to umbrella organizations such as the Central Union
of Workers and the General Confederation of Workers, both formed in 1983, there
are unions for specific industries, such as metal workers, and for sectors of
the economy, such as commerce, transport, and education.
B | Agriculture |
After the 1930s agriculture declined in
importance in the economy and employment. However, today agriculture generates
about one-third of export earnings. Brazil’s development of its savannas by
improving the quality of its soil with phosphorus and lime fertilizers has made
it an agricultural superpower. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of
soybeans and the largest producer of sugarcane and coffee. Soybeans became an
important crop after Brazil experimented with developing tropical varieties.
Soybeans and coffee are now Brazil’s leading agricultural exports. Sugar output
has more than doubled since 1975, partly to meet the demand for cane alcohol as
a substitute for gasoline.
Brazil is also one of the world’s largest
producers of oranges, bananas, and papaws, a small tropical fruit. In addition
to coffee, sugar, and soybeans, the leading crops are maize, various beans,
rice, and manioc, or cassava. Cotton, grown mainly in the savannas, is also
becoming a fast-rising export. Pastoral farming is also important. There are 207
million head of cattle in Brazil; pigs, sheep, and goats are also
important.
There has been considerable modernization
in agriculture, through mechanization, the use of fertilizers and irrigation,
and improvements in storage and transport. Settlements have advanced into the
lands in the Center-West and the Amazon region, via planned settlement schemes
and spontaneous colonization. This advance is partly a result of the
displacement of farm workers by modernization. Brazil has a large number of
landless rural dwellers, and the pattern of land ownership is very unequal.
C | Forestry and Fishing |
The forests are an important source of a
range of products for domestic use and export. Timber products such as paper and
cellulose are important export commodities. Other valuable forest products
include açaí fruit; babaçu nut; yerba maté, whose leaves are made into a tealike
beverage; piaçava fiber, which is used to make brooms and cords; and charcoal,
used largely in the iron industry.
Fish provide a modest contribution to the
Brazilian diet. Two-thirds of the catch comes from sea fishing and the remaining
one-third comes from inland waters. However, there is a marked contrast between
the two systems. Commercial companies take in a majority of the saltwater fish
catch, whereas private individuals catch most of the fish in the inland region.
Fishing is particularly important in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Santa
Catarina.
D | Mining |
Minerals are a vital source of industrial
raw materials and provide 9.1 percent of export earnings. In 2001 Brazil was the
world’s leading producer of iron ore and one of the world’s largest exporters of
the mineral. The country is also an important source of gold, tin, and
manganese. Iron ore comes from Minas Gerais and more recently from the Serra da
Carajás in Pará. Minas Gerais is also a major producer of manganese, bauxite,
nickel, zinc, gold, diamonds, and semiprecious gemstones. Carajás has gold,
nickel, copper, and the metallic element molybdenum. Other significant minerals
are tin in Amazonas, manganese in Amapá, and bauxite, an important ore of
aluminum, in Pará. A wide range of nonmetallic minerals are mined, including
limestone, dolomite, phosphates, and quartz. Low-grade coal is produced in
Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul, but output has fallen by more
than half since 1988.
Oil was first discovered in the Northeast
in 1939, and in 1953 the government established a state company, Petrobrás, to
control production, refining, and distribution of petroleum. The country
remained heavily dependent on oil imports until large oil fields were discovered
off the shore of Rio de Janeiro in 1974. In 1997 the government ended the
Petrobrás oil monopoly and opened the oil industry to competition. New oil
fields were discovered near Rio de Janeiro—the nation’s largest oil producer—and
off the shore of Sergipe in 1996. In 2001 Brazil was one of the top 20 producers
of crude petroleum in the world. Significant oil and natural gas fields have
also been found in the Amazon region.
Brazil is also home to Companhia Vale do
Rio Doce, a company that ranks as one of the world’s largest iron ore producers
and exporters. The Brazilian government had controlled the company but in 1997
it privatized Companhia Vale do Rio Doce as part of an economic plan to raise
revenue. Companhia Vale do Rio Doce runs large iron mines in Minas Gerais and a
mineral complex in Carajás.
E | Manufacturing |
The manufacturing sector has been a key to
Brazil’s economic development, with periods of rapid growth, especially in the
late 1950s and the 1970s. A major objective of Brazil’s industrialization policy
was to replace imported manufactures with Brazilian-made ones. As a result,
industry has become highly diversified, including a range of high-technology and
heavy industries. This diversification includes such manufactured items as food,
drink, textiles, clothing, vehicles, and chemicals. Industrialization involved a
mixed pattern of investment by domestic capital; by the government in areas such
as steel, petrochemicals, and aircraft; and by foreign capital in the
manufacture of automobiles, chemicals, and electrical goods. As a result, Brazil
is one of the world’s major steel producers and car manufacturers. The vehicle
industry has developed since 1956, with Fiat, Ford, General Motors, and
Volkswagen as the largest firms.
The leading industries are machinery and
transportation equipment, food and metal processing, automobiles, steel,
chemicals, and textiles and clothing. Industry is highly concentrated
geographically, with the leading concentrations in metropolitan São Paulo, Rio
de Janeiro, Campinas, Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte. Technologically advanced
industries are also highly concentrated in these locations.
F | Energy |
Most of Brazil’s energy comes from
renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity, which generated 84 percent of
the country’s energy in 2003. Oil and natural gas are the main nonrenewable
sources, followed by coal. Renewable resources are domestically produced, but
Brazil also imports about 10 percent of its total energy needs, principally oil
and coal.
Almost half of the hydroelectric capacity
is located on major rivers in the Southeast, close to the highest concentrations
of population and industry. Improved transmission technology and the
construction of industries, such as metal smelting, that use large amounts of
electricity have begun to tap into the considerable hydroelectric resources of
the Amazon region. The biggest hydroelectric station is Itaipú, in Paraná, which
Brazil shares with Paraguay. Other large stations are Tucuruí in the Amazon
region, Paulo Afonso in Bahia, Itumbiara in Minas Gerais, and Ilha Solteira in
São Paulo. In the South, burning coal supplies thermal power, and there are
oil-fired power stations elsewhere. Brazil has taken some tentative steps in the
production of nuclear power; in 2003 nuclear power provided 4 percent of
Brazil’s energy.
Wood and charcoal are still widely used in
rural areas for cooking. They are also important commercial sources of energy,
particularly in iron smelting and lime making. Sugarcane is also significant,
both as a source of commercially distilled fuel known as ethanol for motor
vehicles and as bagasse, the remains of crushed sugarcane stalks, which
is used as fuel in sugar mills. From 2003 to 2006, more than 77 percent of the
automobiles sold in Brazil, about 2 million vehicles, were flex-fuel cars, which
operate on either ethanol or gasoline.
G | Foreign Trade |
Before 1980 there were persistent deficits
in Brazil’s balance of trade, with imports costing more than exports. In the
1980s this moved into a surplus as a result of a policy of export promotion,
increased self-sufficiency in manufactured goods, and a reduced need for
petroleum imports. Trade deficits returned in the 1990s partly due to a global
economic stagnation. By the beginning of the 21st century, Brazil had
reestablished a trade surplus. Although Brazil traditionally has been an
exporter of primary agricultural and mineral products, manufactured goods made
up 53 percent of Brazil’s exports in 2004.
Brazil is a member of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), an international body that seeks to coordinate monetary
funds in order to expand trade, and the Inter-American Development Bank, an
organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that promotes economic
development in Latin American nations. It was a pioneer in the International
Coffee Agreement of 1957, seeking to protect its interests in one of its major
export crops. By establishing export quotas, the agreement between
coffee-producing and coffee-consuming countries tried to stabilize prices and
overcome the problems caused by fluctuations in supply and demand. In 1960
Brazil joined the Latin American Free Trade Area (which became the Latin
American Integration Association in 1980), to foster trade within the continent,
and since 1995 has been a member of Mercosur, a customs union with Argentina,
Paraguay, and Uruguay.
H | Currency and Banking |
The country’s economic difficulties in the
early 1990s resulted in frequent devaluations of the currency along with
frequent name changes to the unit of currency, including cruzeiro,
cruzeiro novo, and cruzado. The present currency is the
real, which replaced the cruzeiro real in 1994, and has
approximate parity with the U.S. dollar (2.20 real equal U.S.$1; 2006
average).
The Banco de Brazil is the largest
commercial bank, established in 1808. In 1965 the Central Bank of Brazil became
responsible for the supply of currency and the control of circulation. In
addition to the federal bank and private banks, there are a number of state
banks.
The largest stock exchange is that of São
Paulo, followed by the exchange in Rio de Janeiro. There are a number of smaller
exchanges.
I | Transportation |
Sheer size, mountains, and river rapids
have all been obstacles to transportation in Brazil, but the country has an
expanding transport network. Roads are a key element, encouraged in the late
1950s by the implementation of a national highway plan and the creation of an
automobile industry. A national highway system with Brasília at the center links
all the state capitals. There are other major interurban and interregional
highways, including the Trans-Amazon Highway, an east-west artery linking
isolated regions of Brazil and Peru. Dependence on motor vehicles has created
serious traffic congestion in some of the major cities, especially those on
sites with limited geographic access, such as Rio de Janeiro. It has also
resulted in increased air pollution.
Two-thirds of the tracks on Brazil’s
railway system are located in the Southeast and South. Railways have suffered
because of their high costs compared to the highways and because they were built
as separate lines, rather than as an integrated system. Many of these systems
have variations in track gauges (the distance between the two sides of the
track); this makes it impossible to run trains designed for one system on the
tracks of a system built for a different gauge. In 1962 a federal agency was
created to oversee the state-controlled railways. These and the railways of São
Paulo are the largest systems. The remaining rail operations are suburban
commuter systems connecting in the major cities or specialized railways carrying
minerals, timber, or tourists.
Coastal shipping has also declined in the
face of highway competition, but there was some modernization in shipping and
ports in the late 1970s through the creation of export corridors to the ports of
Rio Grande, Paranaguá, and Santos, and through the construction of specialized
oil and ore ports. Major ports include Santos, Rio de Janeiro, and Angra dos
Reis; the specialized ports of Tubarão, Sepitiba, and São Sebastião in the
Southeast; Paranaguá and Rio Grande in the South; and Aratu and São Luis in the
Northeast.
Brazil’s large size makes air transport
important. Sixty-seven airports, controlled by the state company Infraero,
handle most of the air traffic. There are also many small airstrips that serve
remote areas in the Amazon region. The airports of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
are the two largest in South America in terms of traffic handled. Varig is the
principal international and domestic airline, with Vasp and Transbrasil as the
leading domestic carriers. Several sectors of the transport system—including
railways, metro systems, highways, ports, and airports—were opened to private
investment in the 1990s as part of the government’s privatization program.
J | Communications |
Major newspapers are based in Rio de
Janeiro and São Paulo. There are six major television networks, with Globo
Organisations, one of the biggest media organizations in Latin America,
controlling a major television, radio, publishing, and newspaper business.
Brazilian telenovelas (soap operas) have become an important export to
other South American countries and to Europe. Telecommunications is a growing
sector, with rapid expansion of cellular phones and cable subscriptions.
K | Tourism |
Tourism brings in substantial foreign
exchange. Brazil’s increased affluence and improved transportation facilities
have greatly increased tourist activity. In 2006, 5 million tourists entered
Brazil. South America is the major source, followed by Europe and North America.
The leading individual countries are Argentina, the United States, Uruguay,
Paraguay, and Germany. Major tourist attractions are the beaches of Rio de
Janeiro, the historic cities of Bahia and Minas Gerais, and natural formations
such as the waterfall at Iguaçu. The yearly Carnival festival in Rio de Janeiro
also attracts large numbers of tourists. In recent years the beaches of the
Northeast have become important attractions, and the rain forest has begun to
attract ecological tourism.
In the early 1990s the volume of visitors
fell because of press reports of crime in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and
Salvador. However, foreign tour operators recognized Brazil’s potential, and the
government began to stimulate the industry. In 1992 the government tourist
agency, Embratur, began to improve the infrastructure for tourism, particularly
hotels and transport, and sought to increase the marketing of Brazil overseas.
In addition to overseas tourism, rising prosperity within Brazil has also
stimulated domestic tourism.
VI | GOVERNMENT |
Brazil has been a republic since 1889, but
democratic government was suspended during the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas
from 1937 to 1945 and during military rule under a series of presidents from
1964 until 1985. Since its founding the republic has functioned under five
constitutions; the current constitution became effective in 1988. It created a
republic with 26 federated states and one federal district. This constitution
gave considerable powers to the legislative branch, the National Congress, to
counter those of the president. It also shifted substantial responsibility and
funding from the national government to the states and municipalities, which now
have considerable autonomy over their internal affairs. It also provides for
equality for all citizens under the law and universal suffrage.
Brazil’s government has three distinct
elements. A president exercises executive power; a congress, consisting of the
Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, controls legislative power; and the Supreme
Federal Tribunal heads the judicial branch of government. In the federal capital
of Brasília these powers are expressed symbolically by the placement of the
President’s Executive Office, the Congress, and the Supreme Court on three sides
of the Square of Three Powers.
All citizens 16 years of age or older are
eligible to vote by secret ballot in elections for president, congress, state
governors, and state legislatures. Voting is compulsory for literate persons
from 18 to 70 years of age, and optional for those who are illiterate, over 70
years of age, or aged 16 or 17.
A | Executive |
A candidate for the presidency must be a
native-born Brazilian over 35 years of age. The president must be elected by an
absolute majority of votes cast. If no candidate receives a majority in the
first round of voting, votes proceed to a second round. The president holds
office for four years. A constitutional amendment passed in 1997 allows the
president to run for a second term. The president appoints his own cabinet
ministers, directs foreign policy, can initiate legislation, and serves as
commander in chief of the armed forces.
Members of the Council serve as advisers
to the president. The Council consists of 14 members: the vice president, the
minister of justice, the presidents of the two houses of Congress, the majority
and minority leaders from both houses of Congress, two members elected by the
Senate, two elected by the Chamber of Deputies, and two appointed by the
president. A National Defense Council advises the president on matters of
national sovereignty and defense.
B | Legislature |
Elections for both houses of Congress
take place simultaneously. Congressional candidates must be Brazilian by birth.
Deputies must be over 21 years of age, and senators must be over 35. Senators
are elected by majority rule to serve for eight years, with each of Brazil’s 26
states and the Federal District of Brasília electing three members. Deputies are
elected for four years by a system of proportional representation. There are 513
members in the Chamber of Deputies. Although the number of deputies for each
state is theoretically related to its population, this relationship is not
strictly observed in practice. Congress is responsible for all matters within
the states, the federal district, and the municipalities. These include fiscal
and budgetary matters; international treaties; national, regional, and local
planning; and matters dealing with the armed forces and territorial limits.
C | Judiciary |
The principal judicial power, the Supreme
Federal Tribunal, meets in Brasília and consists of 11 judges who are appointed
for life. When openings occur, the president appoints new judges with the
approval of the Senate. The president also appoints a Regional Federal Tribunal
for each state and the Federal District. These courts consist of at least seven
judges who are usually drawn from the area in which they serve. Specialized
tribunals deal with labor, military, and electoral matters. The states
administer their own judicial systems. Municipal judges and justices of the
peace deal with minor criminal and civil matters.
D | Local Government |
Brazil is divided into 26 states and the
Federal District of Brasília. Each state has a governor and legislature. The
basic unit of local government is the municipio (municipality). This is
similar to an American county, with an urban seat and a rural region, although
the larger cities may be entirely urban municipalities. Population growth and
the advance of populations into unsettled areas have resulted in the creation of
new municipios. Municipios are administered by a mayor and council, who deal
with matters of local taxation, planning, and basic services.
E | Political Parties |
During the 20th century few political
parties developed clear ideological positions in Brazil. Parties either
represented regional or sectional interests or served as vehicles for individual
political leaders. The military regime dissolved the existing parties in 1965
and created a two-party structure consisting of the government-sponsored party,
the National Renovating Alliance, and an opposition, the Brazilian Democratic
Movement. As the military moved to restore democracy, new parties were approved
in 1979. The major parties to emerge were the Brazilian Social Democratic Party
and the Democratic Workers’ Party on the center-left; the centrist Brazilian
Democratic Movement Party; the Liberal Front Party and the Brazilian Labor Party
on the center-right; and the right-wing Progressive Party. Most of these had
roots in the parties that were dissolved in 1964. The only significant new group
was the socialist Workers’ Party, which emerged from militant labor opposition
to the military dictatorship, particularly in São Paulo.
F | Social Services |
The Brazilian government first
established a social security provision in 1911. During the 1930s dictator
Getúlio Vargas implemented a welfare system that was advanced for its time,
providing workers with minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and retirement
benefits. During the 1960s a range of benefits covering medical assistance,
sickness benefit, workmen’s compensation, and pensions were brought together
under the National Institute for Social Provision (INPS), which was financed by
contributions from workers and employers. In 1988 the framers of the new
constitution sought to provide equality of access to welfare, health care, and
social assistance. They extended equal benefits for pensions and maternity
rights to rural and urban workers.
Financial constraints have led to a
decline in the quality of the public health service, and many of the more
affluent people belong to private health programs. The federal government
finances the majority of the public health services, the balance coming from the
states and municipalities. Considerable inequity also exists in access to
medical services, favoring cities and the more populated Southeast.
Despite these difficulties, life
expectancy at birth rose from 57 years in 1960 to an average of 73 years—69
years for men and 76.6 years for women—in 2008. The infant mortality rate fell
from 95 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 27 deaths per 1,000 live births
in 2008. As a reflection of increasing prosperity, the principal causes of death
match those found in developed countries. However, parasitic diseases, gastric
ailments, and malnutrition are still threats to the impoverished and the young.
Tropical diseases, which are endemic to some areas, include malaria, yellow
fever, Chagas’ disease, hookworm, and schistosomiasis.
G | Defense |
The army is the largest military force,
and almost 60 percent of its members are drafted. Men between the ages of 18 and
45 must serve a compulsory tour of duty ranging from 12 to 18 months. The navy
and the air force have lower proportions of draftees. There is also a
paramilitary public security force and a large military reserve. With the end of
military rule in 1985, good relations with neighboring countries, and little
internal political violence, the role of the armed forces has been diminishing.
A new ministry of defense was created in 1999, replacing separate ministries for
the army, air force, and navy; this ministry was headed by a civilian, ending
the long tradition of military control of the armed forces. Defense currently
absorbs 3.5 percent of government expenditure, falling from 4 percent under the
military government.
H | International Organizations |
Brazil became an original member of the
United Nations (UN) in 1945. It joined the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Organization of American States in 1948.
VII | HISTORY |
Brazil’s history can be divided into two
major parts: the colonial period from the arrival of the first Portuguese
explorers in 1500 until independence in 1822, and the national period since
independence from Portugal. During the colonial period Brazil became the first
great plantation slave society in the Americas, producing sugar and later coffee
on large agricultural estates worked by slaves. During the 1700s Brazil
experienced the first major gold rush in the Americas after explorers discovered
gold on frontier territory inland from the coast. After Brazil broke away from
Portuguese rule in the 1820s, members of the Portuguese royal family ruled as
emperors until 1889, in the only sustained monarchy in the western hemisphere.
Since 1889 Brazil has been a republic, experiencing two periods of dictatorship:
from 1937 to 1945 and from 1964 to 1985. The interaction of Europeans, Native
Americans, and Africans in Brazil has produced one of the most racially mixed
societies in the world, and one with enormous economic and social
inequalities.
A | Discovery |
Most of the hundreds of indigenous peoples
who inhabited eastern South America prior to the arrival of the Europeans were
members of the Tupí-Guaraní cultures. These Native American groups spoke
variations of the Tupian language and inhabited an area along the eastern coast
of South America south of the Amazon River and inland to the foothills of the
Andes. They generally lived by hunting and gathering. Those who did farm used
simple slash-and-burn techniques to clear the land. Their main crop was manioc,
also known as cassava. After a few years the soil would be exhausted and the
farming groups would move on. These people had no metal tools, no written
language, no beasts of burden, and no knowledge of the wheel. They worshiped
spirits and relied on religious figures known as shamans for healing, divination
of future events, and connection to the world of spirits. Accurate numbers for
the size of the indigenous population are difficult to determine, but best
estimates place the native population of eastern South America in 1500 at
somewhere between 1 and 6 million.
The Portuguese claim to Brazil stemmed
in part from the Treaty of Tordesillas, which Portugal and Spain had signed in
1494 with the pope’s blessing. Both nations had undertaken voyages in search of
a sea route to the spice-rich regions of the Indian Ocean and claimed land based
on these voyages. In 1492 Italian Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus made his
historic voyage and claimed land in the West Indies for Spain. Spain sought
international recognition of its right to the newly discovered western lands,
and the Treaty of Tordesillas was the result. The treaty drew an imaginary line
far out into the western Atlantic. With a few exceptions, the Portuguese laid
claim to conquered territories to the east of the line, along the African coast;
Spain laid claim to territories to the west of the line. Much of Brazil lies to
the east of the Tordesillas line and thus fell under Portugal’s
jurisdiction.
The Portuguese, however, did not arrive in
Brazil until 1500. They landed on the coast of South America by mistake while
seeking a route to the Indian Ocean. In 1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama
had made the first successful voyage around the southern tip of Africa to India
and back. The Portuguese quickly outfitted a second expedition, led by Pedro
Álvares Cabral, a young nobleman. Cabral’s fleet strayed too far west in the
South Atlantic as it moved around Africa. They spotted land on April 22, 1500.
Unaware that he had stumbled on a huge continent, Cabral named his discovery
Terra da Vera Cruz (Portuguese for “Island of the True Cross”).
B | Early Settlements |
As they had done along the African coast,
the Portuguese established trading posts, which they called feitorias
(factories), along more than 1,600 km (more than 1,000 mi) of the South American
coastline. Portuguese traders visited the factories with some frequency,
primarily to load cargoes of a hard wood that produced a red dye known by its
Latin name, brasile. Eventually, the land became identified on maps with
the brazilwood it produced, and the Portuguese began to call their small colony
Brazil.
At the same time, France was attempting to
establish trading relationships along the coast. In 1530, to counter this French
threat, the Portuguese crown sent an expedition to Brazil led by the nobleman
Martim Afonso de Sousa. He founded the settlement of São Vicente (near
present-day Santos) and introduced sugarcane cultivation, cattle raising, and an
administrative presence in the colony. The king attempted to divide up 4,000 km
(2,500 mi) of coastline into a dozen captaincies, giving control of these new
territories to nobles. In exchange for developing and protecting their
captaincies, these nobles, known as donatários, received control over
lands that were sometimes larger than Portugal itself. Many of the donatários
never even saw their land grants. Four of the captaincies were not settled, and
just two—São Vicente in the south and Pernambuco in the north—experienced any
initial success. The captaincies also failed to discourage the French, who
continued raids against Portuguese shipping in the area.
In 1549 the king again attempted to
establish centralized authority in the colony and sent out a larger and more
ambitious expedition of some 1,200 colonists, soldiers, priests, and royal
officials led by Tomé de Sousa. He founded a permanent colonial capital on the
coast of the captaincy of Bahia, calling the city Salvador (Portuguese for “the
Savior”). Within two decades the sugarcane that the colonists had brought from
the Portuguese islands off the coast of West Africa spread in the rich soils of
the countryside around Salvador. As the demand for agricultural labor increased,
conflict between Native Americans and colonists intensified. Plantation owners
tried a number of methods to coerce the indigenous people to work in the sugar
fields: forcing them into slavery, attempting to turn them into peasants who
were obligated to work on the agricultural estates, and offering wages in
exchange for labor. None of these attempts succeeded on a large scale.
The Native Americans found a staunch
ally against the pressure from the colonists in the Roman Catholic Church, or
more precisely, in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Jesuit priests had arrived
with Tomé de Sousa in 1549, and they founded the Roman Catholic Church in
Brazil. A new and very effective religious order, the Jesuits created the first
schools in Brazil and sought to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. A
group of priests, led by Manoel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, eventually
created a system of aldeias (villages) to Christianize the Native
Americans. By the 1560s and 1570s the Jesuits had gathered thousands of
indigenous people in dozens of aldeias.
In the 1560s disease, most likely
smallpox, swept through the Native American villages, and large numbers of the
indigenous people died. Given the Native Americans’ resistance to plantation
work and their susceptibility to epidemics introduced by European settlers, the
Portuguese colonists began to use African slave labor to satisfy their rapidly
increasing labor needs.
C | Colonial Brazil |
With the establishment of early
settlements along the coast and the successful introduction of sugar
cultivation, Brazil began developing an economy based on plantation agriculture
and powered by slave labor. The introduction of large numbers of African slaves
transformed areas of Brazil into multiracial societies where Native American,
European, and African peoples mingled. Following the discovery of gold in the
captaincy of Minas Gerais (General Mines) in the late 1600s, Brazil
expanded its borders into the interior of the continent. Gold made Brazil the
most economically important region of the Portuguese Empire and caused a major
shift in the concentration of Brazil’s population. Settlements in southeastern
Brazil, nearer the gold regions, grew at a rapid pace. Eventually the wealth and
influence of the southeastern region eclipsed that of the older settlements of
northeastern Brazil.
C1 | Plantation Society |
The Portuguese initiated the Atlantic
slave trade in the 1440s, bringing black Africans back to Lisbon, the capital of
Portugal. Slavery dated from ancient times in both Europe and Africa, but the
enslavement of black Africans by Europeans was new. For three centuries (roughly
1550 to 1850) Europeans transported their human cargo from Africa to the
Americas. More than 10 million Africans survived this forced passage, with about
3 to 4 million going to Brazil alone.
Along the coastal zones of the
Northeast, especially in the captaincies of Bahia and Pernambuco, the slave
trade created a black majority. (Some 80 percent of the people of the
northeastern coast today are descendants of Africans.) As the decades passed,
the mulatto population of mixed European and African ancestry grew increasingly
larger. The mixing of Native Americans and Portuguese produced the racially
mixed mamelucos. The mulattoes and mamelucos formed racial, social, and
cultural groups midway between the dominant white elite and the African slaves
and indigenous population at the bottom of the social structure.
Probably three-fourths of the 50,000
Portuguese colonists lived near Salvador and Olinda, the capital of Pernambuco.
For every white colonist in the early 17th century, there may have been as many
as three African slaves. There was probably a total of several hundred thousand
Native Americans in the interior. By the early 17th century, the sugar boom had
created one of the fundamental patterns that would long plague Brazil: A small
white elite controlled vast landholdings and dominated an economic and political
system with a nonwhite majority.
In 1580, after the death of King
Sebastian of Portugal, who left no heir, King Philip II of Spain placed himself
on the Portuguese throne through bribery and the threat of war. The merging of
the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies lasted until 1640 when the Portuguese
regained their independence. The union created the second largest empire in
world history, to be eclipsed later only by the British Empire. It included
control of most of the Americas, the Philippines, the Portuguese trading empire
in Asia and Africa, and Spanish possessions across Europe—The Netherlands,
Sicily, and southern Italy.
Unfortunately for the Portuguese, the
forced coalition with Spain drew them into bitter European power struggles
between the Spanish and the Dutch. Involvement in this struggle was very costly
for the Portuguese. By 1650 the Dutch had taken the Asian spice trade from the
Portuguese and had gained control of the Indian Ocean. In Africa, Dutch
attackers captured Portuguese territory in Angola as well as Portugal’s West
African slave ports and held them for decades. In the 1620s the Dutch attacked
Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Recife. After a bloody struggle they were driven
back. A second incursion in 1630 left the Dutch in control of Recife and Olinda,
which the Dutch occupied until the 1650s. After their expulsion, the Dutch
(followed by the English, French, and Spanish) set up their own sugar
plantations in the islands of the Caribbean. Although sugarcane remained
Brazil’s major crop, the new competition sent the colony’s economy into decades
of decline.
C2 | Discovery of Gold and Diamonds |
In the late 17th century, Brazilian
explorers known as bandeirantes began to find gold in the mountain
streams to the north of Rio de Janeiro. Word of the discovery of gold filtered
back slowly to the coast and to Lisbon. By 1700 the western world’s first great
gold rush had begun. Thousands of colonists and slaves poured into the rugged
mountains north of Rio de Janeiro. The rush eventually spread on a smaller scale
to the west, to present-day Goiás and Mato Grosso. It received new stimulus in
the 1720s with the discovery of diamonds in the region north of the gold fields.
Gold and diamond production rose dramatically until 1760. Probably 80 percent of
the gold circulating in 18th-century Europe came from Brazil. The discovery of
gold revitalized Brazil’s economy, which had been stagnating since the decline
of the sugar plantations, although the increase in available cash also caused
prices to rise in the colony. In Lisbon, the Portuguese monarchy grew rich from
collecting its one-fifth share of the gold that was mined in Brazil. Sugar,
gold, and diamonds established Brazil as the economic heartland of the battered
and reduced Portuguese Empire.
For the first time, the Portuguese
established effective colonization in the interior. The area of Minas Gerais
became the most populous in Brazil. The bandeirantes and prospectors had
extended the reach of Portugal far into the interior, creating a Brazil of
continental dimensions. The Treaty of Madrid signed by Spain and Portugal in
1750 moved the old Tordesillas line westward to reflect the lands effectively
occupied by the two major colonial powers in South America. The present
boundaries of Brazil roughly follow that line.
The flow of goods and people into the
southeast also drained an already weak northeastern plantation economy. In 1763
the king moved the colonial capital from Salvador to the booming city of Rio de
Janeiro, which served as the main entry and exit point for colonists, slaves,
and goods to and from Minas Gerais. The result of the gold rush in Brazil is
evident in the dozens of beautiful baroque churches and hundreds of statues and
paintings, principally in Minas Gerais.
In Portugal the wealth from Brazil
made the monarchy very powerful. The dictatorial Marquis of Pombal, the chief
minister of King Joseph Emanuel of Portugal, used this power to modernize the
imperial system. In 1755 he abolished slavery in Portugal and prohibited the
enslavement of Native Americans by declaring them free citizens of Brazil.
Pombal wanted to outlaw African slavery in Brazil as well, but he realized that
slavery formed a central part of Brazil’s plantation-based economy. Recognizing
the importance of Brazil to the economic well-being of Portugal, Pombal tried to
improve the efficiency of the Brazilian economy and administration and to lessen
tensions between colonists and their Portuguese rulers. He involved
Brazilian-born individuals in the colonial government, promoted new crops, and
expelled the Jesuits, who had opposed his economic programs.
D | Independence |
In 1789 elites in the captaincy of Minas
Gerais revolted, protesting the reassertion of imperial control and the
imposition of new taxes. An early sign of Brazilian nationalism, the Minas
Conspiracy involved prominent figures as well as military officers. The revolt
failed and royal courts sentenced most of the conspirators to prison or exile.
The only nonaristocratic member of the conspiracy, a military officer by the
name of Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, became the scapegoat. Best known by his
nickname, Tiradentes (Toothpuller)—one of his many professions was
dentistry—he was hanged in 1793 and became a martyr for the cause of Brazilian
independence.
The connection between Portugal and
Brazil was severed when Napoleon I and his armies invaded Portugal and Spain in
1807 and 1808. Napoleon, who had become emperor of France following the French
Revolution (1789-1799), deposed and imprisoned the Spanish king Ferdinand VII in
1808. This left the Spanish American colonies isolated from royal control and
set off a chain reaction that led to a series of long and bloody wars for
independence (see Latin American Independence). Brazil avoided a similar
fate when the monarchy fled Lisbon shortly before French troops entered the city
in 1807. With the help of their British allies, who were fighting Napoleon’s
forces, the royal family and 10,000 Portuguese followers made an unprecedented
voyage across the Atlantic to Brazil, transferring the center of the empire to
Rio de Janeiro. For the first and last time in Western history, a European
monarchy would rule its empire from the colonies.
Portugal’s prince regent, the future
King John VI, arrived in Brazil in early 1808 and for the next 13 years ruled
Portugal’s Asian, African, and American colonies from Rio de Janeiro. In 1815
John VI elevated Brazil to the status of a kingdom, placing it on an equal
footing with Portugal. The presence of the monarchy and court in Rio brought
Brazilian and Portuguese elites together and paved the way for a gradual
transition to independence.
By 1815 Napoleon had been defeated in
Europe, opening the way for the monarchy to return to Lisbon. John VI, however,
decided to remain in Brazil, but in 1820 the Portuguese army headed a revolution
designed to bring about a constitutional government. The revolutionaries agreed
that John VI would serve as constitutional monarch of the empire, but only on
the condition that he return to Portugal. Threatened with the loss of his crown,
John reluctantly left for Portugal in 1821. His 23-year-old son Pedro remained
in the colony as prince regent of Brazil.
Pedro and his advisers realized that
revolutions in other Latin American countries were encouraging a movement for
national independence in Brazil. A new and aggressive Cortes (parliament)
in Portugal contributed to the demand for independence through a series of inept
actions that offended many influential Brazilians. Portuguese members of the
Cortes showed open hostility toward the Brazilian representatives, whom they
regarded as unsophisticated residents of a backward province. Then the Cortes
further alienated Brazilians by attempting to restore Brazil to colonial status.
Rather than trying to resist the growing momentum for independence, Pedro and
his advisers decided to take control of this movement. On September 7, 1822,
after receiving orders from the Portuguese Cortes curtailing his authority in
Brazil, Pedro declared Brazil’s independence. Thus Brazil became one of the few
Latin American colonies to make a peaceful transition to independence.
Pedro became Brazil’s first emperor as
Pedro I. His greatest challenge was to keep this new nation of continental
dimensions from fragmenting into several countries, as had happened in Spanish
America. He hired Lord Thomas Cochrane, an admiral who had been thrown out of
the British navy, to enforce his authority in Brazil. Cochrane defeated the
small Portuguese fleet and crushed separatist revolts in the major regional
centers along the coast. With a small, hired navy and very few battles, Brazil
retained its unity after gaining its independence. Portugal recognized Brazil’s
independence in 1825.
Despite his role in leading Brazil to
independence, Pedro soon lost much of his support. He had been a resident of
Brazil since the age of ten, but he was still Portuguese. Although Pedro
abdicated the Portuguese throne, which he inherited in 1826, many Brazilians
remained suspicious of his continued involvement in the affairs of his native
Portugal. Members of the Brazilian elite were dissatisfied with Pedro for a
number of reasons. Many of them opposed the new constitution written under his
supervision and enacted in 1824. They were also displeased when he overrode the
decision of the newly created Brazilian parliament and surrounded himself with
Portuguese-born cabinet ministers. In the 1820s Pedro chose to renew a
longstanding struggle with Argentina over the southern border of Brazil. The
struggle erupted into the Cisplatine War (1825-1828). The war was unpopular with
many Brazilians, especially after Brazil suffered a major military defeat at the
hands of the Argentines in 1827. Faced with widespread opposition to his rule,
Pedro abdicated his Brazilian throne in 1831 and returned to Portugal.
E | Pedro II and the Brazilian Empire |
Like his father, Pedro I left behind his
eldest son, the future Pedro II, to take his place in Brazil. Barely four years
old when his father and family returned to Portugal in 1831, the young Pedro
grew up a virtual orphan and received an extraordinary education. Carefully
chosen tutors taught the future emperor Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish,
and English and gave him a broad education in the arts and sciences.
While the young emperor-to-be grew up, a
council of regents appointed by Parliament ruled the country. For the first
time, Brazilians governed Brazil. As in most of 19th-century Latin America, two
political parties contended for power. Conservatives looked back to Portuguese
values and traditions for their inspiration. They sought to maintain a strong
centralized monarchy, a slave economy, and the influence of the Catholic Church.
Liberals sought to mold their country in the image of England, France, and the
United States. They wanted to diminish the influence of the church, restrain
centralization and monarchy, and move toward a free labor economy. These were
the ideals. When in power, each faction tended to be practical, sometimes
implementing programs fought for by their opponents.
Throughout the 1830s the absence of a
strong executive, disputes between liberals and conservatives, and powerful
regional revolts threatened to shatter the fragile unity of the new nation. The
constitution did not allow for the coronation of young Pedro until his 18th
birthday, in December 1844. However, several factors combined to result in his
coronation in 1840. Pedro was exceptionally mature, and both parties hoped that
a monarch would provide the stability to prevent rebellions. In addition, both
parties hoped that they might dominate the teenage emperor. In 1840 the
Parliament offered the 13-year-old Pedro the crown. He accepted, beginning an
era known as the Second Reign that lasted from 1840 to 1889.
E1 | A Changing Economy |
The 1840s also mark the emergence of
coffee cultivation, which became the engine of economic growth that transformed
Brazil during the next century. Like sugar, coffee was not native to the
Americas, but had been transported there from its place of origin in Africa.
Cultivation spread through the fertile valleys near Rio de Janeiro in the 1820s
and 1830s. During the next century, coffee cultivation also spread rapidly in
the area north and west of Rio, in southern Minas Gerais and, most prominently,
in the province of São Paulo. The rapid expansion of coffee fields quickly made
Brazil the world’s leading exporter, a position it continues to hold today.
Revenue generated by coffee drove the Brazilian economy until the Great
Depression of the 1930s caused the collapse of national economies around the
world. Coffee established southeastern Brazil—principally the states of Rio de
Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo—as the economic and political core of the
nation.
In 1839 the discovery of
vulcanization—a process that stabilizes products manufactured from rubber—caused
rapid financial growth in the frontier towns of the Brazilian forests, where
rubber was harvested from the sap of trees native to the area. Brazil produced
the vast majority of the world’s rubber until early in the 1900s, when the
British used smuggled seeds to establish more efficient plantations in East
Asia.
E2 | Slavery |
The coffee economy remained the
backbone of the Brazilian economy long after rubber production collapsed, and it
ran on slave labor. Brazil had imported half a million slaves in the 17th
century to work on the sugar plantations of the Northeast. In the 18th century
the gold fields of Minas Gerais had absorbed another 1.5 million Africans. In
the first half of the 19th century alone, Brazil imported another 1.5 million
slaves to fill the demand for labor on the coffee plantations of the southeast.
As the abolitionist movement gained strength in England and the United States in
the 19th century, British pressure forced Brazil to halt its 300-year-old
Atlantic slave trade in 1850.
The 3 to 4 million Africans who
entered Brazil as slaves up until 1850 fundamentally shaped the composition of
Brazilian society. In 1800 Brazil had the largest slave population in the world
(half of its population of 3 million), and this forced migration created a truly
African American culture in Brazil. African music, religions, foods, and
language patterns blended with the culture of the Portuguese and the Native
Americans to produce a cultural mosaic that was a mixture of African, European,
and Native American influences. European colonists adopted Native American
customs and borrowed words from the indigenous languages, while African slaves
blended their own religious rituals with those of Christianity to form such new
Afro-Brazilian religions as Umbanda, Macumba, and Candomblé.
Although the slave trade was abolished
in 1850, slavery remained legal in Brazil. Slavery had been central to the
fabric of life in Brazil for so long that dismantling slavery took much longer
than in any other society in the Americas. The slave system began to
disintegrate in the 1880s with the rise of a vocal abolitionist movement,
largely in the cities, and the growing tendency for slaves to flee from their
masters. Legislation by conservatives attempted to stretch the process over
decades by gradually freeing the children of slaves beginning in 1871 and by
emancipating elderly slaves after 1885. By 1888 unrest on plantations, and the
refusal of the army to step in and halt the flight of slaves from their masters,
brought the system to the brink of chaos. Ruling in place of her father, who was
in Europe for medical treatment, Princess Isabel decreed the end of slavery in
the “Golden Law” of May 13, 1888. Rather than face the anarchy and upheaval of
massive slave unrest and flight, slave owners grudgingly accepted
abolition.
With the supply of new slave labor cut
off after 1850 and the slave system in a state of disintegration, coffee
planters turned to European immigration to meet their labor needs. Some 2.7
million immigrants—mainly from Italy, Spain, and Portugal—arrived in
southeastern and southern Brazil between 1887 and 1914. These immigrants
gradually replaced slaves as the labor force in the coffee fields. They turned
southern Brazil into an area with a more urban and European culture, strikingly
different from the older mining and plantation regions of Minas Gerais and the
Northeast, where a more relaxed, rural atmosphere prevailed and where African
cultural influences remained strong among the Afro-Brazilian population.
E3 | End of the Empire |
In stark contrast to the upheaval and
instability of some Latin American countries, Brazil’s government was stable
during the middle part of the 19th century. The Liberal and Conservative parties
shared power, with the emperor acting as a moderating power between the two. The
emperor called for new elections when it appeared that the ruling party faced a
political crisis; invariably the opposition party would win the new
elections.
There were elements of Brazilian
society that did not support this power-sharing arrangement, however. In the
1870s and 1880s a republican movement emerged that called for the end of the
monarchy and the creation of a republic modeled after the United States.
Republicanism was especially strong among members of the army.
Over the last century, the military
has played a central role in Brazilian society and politics, but this was not
the case in the early years of independence. Brazil avoided most of the
bloodshed and huge military buildup that plagued the early years of the Spanish
American nations. The Brazilian army remained relatively small and did not play
a significant role in the nation’s affairs until the War of the Triple Alliance
(1864-1870). For complex reasons, Brazil joined Argentina and Uruguay in this
long and costly war against Paraguay in the 1860s. Despite the enormous
disparity in resources, Paraguay tenaciously resisted the invading armies for
years, losing the majority of its adult male population and large chunks of
territory. Brazil’s inability to defeat tiny Paraguay highlighted the weaknesses
of the Brazilian military. Disgruntled officers began to envision a future
without the monarchy.
By 1889 abolition, republicanism, and
dissatisfaction in the armed forces had all eroded Pedro’s traditional support
from landowners, the clergy, and the military. A small group of conspirators
with key support from high-level army officers initiated a coup d’etat on
November 15, 1889. The ailing, 62-year-old Pedro found himself with little
support and, like his father, chose exile over resistance. The day after the
coup the royal family sailed to exile in Portugal and France.
F | The First Republic |
Brazil’s first republic was established
in 1889. A Constituent Assembly convened to draw up a new constitution and
swiftly decreed the separation of church and state as well as other republican
reforms. In June 1890 it completed the drafting of a constitution, which was
adopted in February 1891. Similar to the Constitution of the United States,
Brazil’s constitution eliminated the monarchy and established a federal
republic, officially called the United States of Brazil. It replaced a
parliament of senators appointed for life with an elected congress consisting of
a house and senate. It also provided for an independent judiciary, and an
executive branch headed by an elected president. The balance of power shifted
significantly from a strong, centralized federalist system (see Federal
Government) to a federalist system that granted substantial powers to the
states.
Initially the military dominated the new
government under the leadership of General Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca, a
conservative general who had joined the revolt at the last minute. The assembly
elected Deodoro president of a provisional government and chose a more decidedly
republican general, Floriano Peixoto, as his vice president. An inflexible
military leader, Deodoro proved incapable of working with the new congress,
which took office in late 1890. They fought angrily over financial policy and
over the extent of federal influence in the Brazilian states. Unwilling to deal
with opposition, Deodoro dissolved Congress several months after it was elected
and attempted to rule by decree. Faced with the possibility of civil war, he
resigned the presidency in 1891. The tough Floriano assumed control and guided
the republic through difficult times. He suppressed rebellions in the state of
Rio Grande do Sul and in Rio de Janerio. Floriano supervised the republic’s
first elections in 1894 and handed power over to a civilian president, Prudente
de Morais Barros, who had served as the first republican governor of São Paulo
state.
With the election of Prudente, a
politician from one of the leading coffee-producing states, the powerful coffee
interests again dominated national politics. Under the constitution, voting was
restricted to literate adult males. Because of a high illiteracy rate, this
provision severely restricted the number of voters. Prior to 1930 no more than 4
percent of the total population voted in presidential contests. Landowners
maintained a monopoly on power through political machines—tightly controlled
political organizations that they set up in each of Brazil’s states. These
machines controlled enough votes to guarantee that landowners dominated local
and national politics. Governors in the more populous states used their
political machines to ensure that the presidency of Brazil went to an “official”
candidate of their choosing. Over the four decades following Prudente’s
election, the coffee states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais
shared political power. Nine of the 12 presidents from 1894 to 1930 came from
these three states, which produced most of Brazil’s wealth and accounted for
most of its population.
G | Social Change |
Up until the early 20th century,
Brazil’s economy and social structure reflected a pattern established in the
early days of colonial development. A small class of wealthy landowners
controlled most of the country’s wealth and power, while the majority of
Brazilians—mostly slaves, their descendents, and the mulatto population—lived in
relative poverty as agricultural workers. This situation began to change
gradually toward the end of the 19th century when large numbers of immigrants
arrived in Brazil. After the slave trade was abolished in 1850, the coffee
planters could not find enough workers and the government began actively
recruiting Europeans to immigrate to Brazil. In the last decade of the 19th
century about 100,000 European immigrants arrived each year. The numbers
increased during the early years of the 20th century, reaching a peak of about
600,000 for the period from 1911 to 1915. Many of these immigrants settled in
the cities and urban centers.
Although Brazil’s economy continued to
be based on agricultural production, industry had begun to develop by the 1920s,
especially around the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Industrialization
was accompanied by the growth of a small working class and middle class. Both
groups found themselves excluded from the power structure developed by
landowners to dominate rural workers. The immigrants, particularly Italians who
made up about a third of the immigrant population, introduced new political
ideologies from Europe, where workers and middle-class citizens were becoming
increasingly active in politics. Many of these workers were frustrated with
their lack of access to Brazil’s political system. As their numbers grew, their
demands for a place in the nation’s political system also increased. Socialists
and anarchists organized unions and strikes, but they encountered intense
repression from the government.
H | The Revolution of 1930 |
A more powerful challenge to the regime
came from disgruntled young military officers. Many of these officers supported
social reform, but they were also concerned about their professional status.
They believed that the civilian government had neglected the army, which
struggled with poor equipment, outdated training, and slim prospects for
promotion of officers. On July 5, 1922, a group of young officers known as
tenentes (lieutenants) staged a revolt in Rio de Janeiro against the
government. The revolt was unsuccessful, but two years later a more serious
uprising by tenentes in São Paulo shook the foundations of the regime for
several weeks before government forces suppressed it. By the late 1920s the
challenges of army officers, middle-class groups, and urban workers threatened
the stability of the regime.
A worldwide economic crisis and a
serious split within the landowning elites over the presidential succession
finally brought down the government. In 1929 economies throughout the world
collapsed as the Great Depression began. In Brazil the depression caused a
dramatic decline in coffee exports and a corresponding increase in the nation’s
foreign debts. President Washington Luís refused to change his economic policy
in order to deal with the crisis, and he did little to improve economic
conditions. Amid growing public discontent about the economy, the political
elite split over the 1930 presidential election. The official government
candidate, Júlio Prestes, was supported by the political machines in the larger
states. He was opposed by Getúlio Vargas, governor of Rio Grande do Sul, who had
organized a coalition of smaller states, opposition parties, and discontented
elements in the military and in urban centers. The March election went smoothly
for the government, with Prestes winning easily, but in October, before the new
government was inaugurated, a revolt erupted following the assassination of
Vargas’s running mate, João Pêssoa. After a month of fighting, President Luís
stepped down, and rebel troops marched into Rio de Janeiro. The Revolution of
1930 had triumphed.
I | Getúlio Vargas and the New Brazil |
Getúlio Vargas played a central role in
the 1930 revolt, and he emerged as the most important political figure in
20th-century Brazil. Vargas was the son of an elite ranching family near the
Argentine border. In less than a decade, from 1922 to 1930, he rose from federal
deputy to governor of his home state of Rio Grande do Sul, and then to
presidential candidate and leader of the revolutionary coalition. From 1930 to
1934 he ruled Brazil as the head of a provisional revolutionary government. The
Constituent Assembly elected him president in 1934.
In 1937, as elections approached, Vargas
led a coup with the help of the army, and for the next eight years he ruled the
nation as a dictator. He eliminated Congress, ruled by decree, and established
federal control over Brazil’s states by replacing almost all the governors with
his own appointees. With the state political machines neutralized, Vargas ruled
without the support of the landowning elite. He maintained power with the
backing of the military, the urban working and middle classes, and politicians
in smaller states, who had been excluded from power under the republic.
I1 | Estado Novo |
During this period Vargas turned
Brazil into an Estado Novo (New State). The Estado Novo was based on
corporatism, which advocates close economic collaboration between employers and
workers under the centralized direction of the government. Vargas appointed
government planners to organize industrialization programs and foreign trade
policies, and he placed labor unions under the direct control of the
government.
To satisfy his urban supporters,
Vargas worked to create new Brazilian industries in the 1930s and 1940s. The
most important new industry was iron and steel, which received a major boost in
1941 when construction began on the first integrated iron and steel mill at
Volta Redonda, in Rio de Janeiro state. Vargas also established policies to
protect domestic production from competition from foreign imports. These
protectionist policies pleased an emerging new class of entrepreneurs and
industrialists and created more jobs for blue-collar and white-collar
workers.
Vargas initiated a social welfare
revolution as well. Much like the New Deal policies of U.S. president Franklin
Roosevelt, Vargas’s legislation provided workers with basic social welfare
protections: minimum wage, maximum working hours, pensions, unemployment
compensation, health and safety regulations, and unionization.
I2 | World War II |
During World War II (1939-1945) Brazil
fought with the Allies. The Vargas regime, aided by the United States, embarked
on a vast program of industrial expansion, emphasizing increased production of
rubber and other vital war materials. Naval bases and airfields, constructed at
strategic coastal points, became important centers of Allied antisubmarine
warfare. The Brazilian navy eventually assumed all patrol activities in the
South Atlantic Ocean. In 1944 and 1945 a Brazilian expeditionary force
participated in the Allied campaign in Italy. Brazil was the only Latin American
country to contribute troops to the war effort.
In the early 1940s, Brazilians were
fighting a war against dictators in Europe while living under a dictatorship at
home. More and more Brazilians began demanding a return to democratic elections,
especially after Vargas postponed the elections he had scheduled for 1943.
Vargas responded to these demands by promising presidential elections for 1945
in which he would be ineligible to run for the presidency. Vargas realized that
he would eventually have to build a base of support among voters if he hoped to
remain active in Brazilian politics. He began to shift his policy to the left in
order to establish solid support among urban workers, poor rural laborers, and
leftists. He moved toward economic nationalism, challenging the economic and
business interests of Britain, the United States, and other foreign powers. He
also created social legislation to protect workers. These new laws established
pensions and social security benefits, and set a minimum wage and maximum work
hours.
Many Brazilians feared Vargas might
stage another coup before the elections, as he had done in 1937. To prevent this
from happening, members of the army—many of whom were alarmed at his turn to the
left—staged a coup of their own in October 1945 and forced Vargas to resign.
Vargas quietly left for his ranch in southern Brazil, and the electoral campaign
proceeded under a caretaker government.
J | The Age of Mass Politics |
The fall of Vargas ushered in a new era
of mass politics in Brazil. A new constitution was approved in 1946 that
dismantled the highly centralized government organization of the Estado Novo,
returned a great deal of power to the individual states, and provided for
regular elections. With the return of elections, politicians had to campaign for
the votes of the people through such modern methods as political rallies, radio
broadcasts, and newspapers. Although political machines returned to power in
many areas, particularly in the rural regions, a style of politics known as
populism emerged. Populist politicians challenged the traditional power of the
coffee-growing landowners by forging a political following among the masses,
especially among the growing number of urban workers and sectors of the middle
class. Vargas had used support from these groups to maintain power as dictator.
Now elected politicians competed to win the votes of workers and middle-class
Brazilians.
Another new feature on the political
landscape was the formation of truly national political parties. Three major
parties took shape in the 1940s. The National Democratic Union (UDN) attracted
the more conservative elements in national politics, while the Social Democratic
Party (PSD) appealed to more moderate and liberal voters. Labor leaders and
their political allies formed the Brazilian Workers Party (PTB) to represent the
interests of the Brazilian working class. The Brazilian Communist Party (PCB),
which was founded in 1922 and had survived severe repression for more than two
decades, competed with the Brazilian Workers Party for the support of the urban
working class.
In the elections of 1945, the Social
Democratic Party candidate, Eurico Dutra, triumphed with 55 percent of the vote.
Dutra was a former minister of war and one of the most influential officers in
the Brazilian military when he became a presidential candidate. In January 1946
he began a five-year presidential term. A hesitant and cautious president, Dutra
did not make any major changes in the political system. When he withdrew
government support for industrialization, Brazil’s economy again became heavily
dependent on coffee exports.
J1 | Vargas’s Second Presidency |
Meanwhile, Vargas won election to the
Senate and began planning his return to power. With the support of the Brazilian
Workers Party, Vargas defeated the candidates of the Social Democratic Party and
National Democratic Union in 1950. Five years after a military coup ended his
dictatorship, Getúlio Vargas returned to the presidency with an electoral
victory.
Despite his electoral victory,
opposition parties, which controlled the Senate and House, fought Vargas at
every turn. Vargas saw his election as a mandate to complete the unfinished work
begun during his dictatorship. The state role in economic and social development
was further expanded. Vargas created federally financed banks, corporations, and
agencies, including the national bank of social and economic development
(BNDES), the Brazilian petroleum corporation (Petrobrás), and the Brazilian
electric corporation (Eletrobrás). At the same time, Vargas turned to the
support of urban workers as a base for his political power. Business interests,
multinational corporations, and foreign governments viewed Vargas's alliance
with the lower classes with suspicion and came together to oppose him. Opponents
of Vargas controlled almost all the major newspapers, magazines, and radio
stations, and they attacked the president constantly.
By late 1954 the country had come to a
political impasse, with Vargas and his opposition in a deadlock. A dramatic
attempt to assassinate one of Vargas’s bitter enemies broke the deadlock after
investigations tied Vargas’s personal bodyguard to the attempt. The army high
command gave Vargas an ultimatum: resign or be overthrown. Facing the end of a
long and brilliant political career, Vargas chose his most dramatic maneuver as
his last: On the morning of August 24, 1954, he committed suicide in his bedroom
at the presidential palace.
J2 | Economic Expansion |
Vice President João Café Filho
completed the remaining 17 months of Vargas’s term. In the 1955 presidential
elections, the Social Democratic Party and the Brazilian Workers Party formed a
coalition. This coalition elected the governor of Minas Gerais, Juscelino
Kubitschek as president with João Goulart, Vargas’s controversial labor
minister, as vice president. Kubitschek campaigned on the slogan “fifty years in
five,” promising to achieve fifty years of progress during his five-year term.
Arguably, he succeeded. During the late 1950s the Brazilian economy surged
forward as heavy industries—iron, steel, and automobiles—and basic
infrastructure—roads, communications, and construction—expanded. The Kubitschek
government helped finance many of these modernization projects by printing
currency that had no financial backing. The government printed enough
unsupported currency to accelerate the cycle of inflation, which eventually led
to major economic problems for Brazil.
Kubitschek’s most vivid and enduring
legacy is Brasília, a new capital city built on the plains of central Brazil.
Many Brazilians thought that a new capital in the interior of Brazil would
stimulate development in the region. Although the idea of moving the capital
into the interior dated from the 18th century, it was Kubitschek who convinced
the legislature to accept the idea and to fund it. Between 1956 and 1960,
Kubitschek personally supervised the construction of this modern, futuristic
city, located 1,300 km (800 mi) north of Rio de Janeiro. Inaugurated in April
1960, Brasília now has more than 2 million inhabitants.
J3 | Descent into Chaos |
By the 1960 presidential election, a
new figure had emerged on the national political scene. Jânio Quadros, the
governor of São Paulo, was the National Democratic Union candidate for the
presidency. Quadros vowed to sweep government clean of corruption and even
brandished a broom as his symbol while campaigning. He won the presidential
election. However, because the presidential and vice presidential candidates
were elected separately in Brazil, the Brazilian Workers Party candidate, João
Goulart, was elected vice president.
Just seven months after his
inauguration in January 1961, Jânio Quadros suddenly and unexpectedly resigned
the presidency. No one, including Quadros, has ever offered a satisfactory
explanation for the resignation. Whatever the reasons behind Quadros’s
resignation, it provoked a crisis. The constitution called for Vice President
João Goulart to succeed Quadros, but powerful figures in the military high
command quickly declared him unacceptable. Many Brazilians saw Goulart as a
Communist or Communist sympathizer, whose political ideas were too far to the
left of center. The Congress, and many political leaders, rejected the
military’s position and called for respect for the constitutional process.
For nearly two weeks, the military and
Congress negotiated a solution to the impasse. Goulart was sworn in, but his
presidential powers were curtailed. New legislation created a prime minister,
who would be responsible to the legislature and who would share many of the
political powers held by the president. This legislation was reversed in 1962,
when Goulart held a national referendum in which voters restored the
presidential system of government.
The military’s hatred of Goulart must
be seen in the context of the Cold War, an intense economic and diplomatic
struggle between the United States and its allies and the group of nations led
by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). By the 1960s many Brazilian
military officers had come to see Brazil as a front-line nation in the Cold War
struggle between Communism and capitalism. This vision was fostered by Brazil’s
alliance with the United States and by ideas circulated in courses and
specialized schools for the officer corps. Many officers feared a revolution in
Brazil, and they viewed Goulart, with his support for leftist causes, as the
leader of Communist forces in Brazil.
Goulart was also confronted with
problems that sprang from the gradual disintegration of the economy. Inflation
continued to increase, and the government faced large debt payments on foreign
loans taken out to finance economic development during the Kubitschek
administration. Goulart’s economic advisers devised a plan to stabilize the
economy by controlling wages and reducing government spending. Goulart followed
this policy for several months, but then abandoned it. He feared that the
imposition of wage controls would cost him the support of workers, who were his
strongest political supporters, and that concessions to foreign bankers would
alienate Brazilian nationalists. By early 1964 inflation approached 100 percent
a year, foreign loans came to a halt, and the economy neared collapse.
Following the advice of his most
radical advisers, Goulart attempted to strengthen his support among the masses.
In the first months of 1964 he staged huge rallies in several of Brazil’s major
cities. He also signed decrees setting low-rent controls, nationalizing
petroleum refineries, seizing unused lands, and limiting profits that could be
taken out of Brazil by foreign investors. In a final, desperate move to check
the power of his enemies in the military high command, Goulart made a televised
speech to a group of sergeants. He told them to disobey their superiors if they
believed their orders were not in the best interest of the nation. Conspirators
in the military had been contemplating the overthrow of Goulart for months; on
March 31, after Goulart’s speech to the sergeants, the army took control of the
government. Goulart fled the country, never to return.
K | Military Rule |
K1 | Moderate Leadership |
The military intervened with two
primary objectives: to eradicate the left and to rebuild the collapsing economy.
Military leaders split between political hardliners and moderates over how to
achieve these goals. Led by General Humberto Castello Branco, who was named
president, the moderates dominated the early years of the regime. Rather than
shutting down civilian politics completely, the military attempted to purge the
system of “undesirable” elements. They arrested and imprisoned people they
perceived as opponents of the regime. Many fled the country. The military
dismissed thousands of civil servants, military personnel, and politicians from
their jobs and prohibited suspected political opponents from voting or holding
office.
The military hoped that these actions
would be enough to silence their opponents. This was not the case. By 1968
growing political opposition—even from former supporters of the military
government—increasingly called for a return to civilian rule. Even the Supreme
Court and the Congress, whose membership had been approved by the military
leaders, began to exhibit signs of independence. The Supreme Court ordered the
release of three students who had been detained by the government, and the
Congress refused to allow the trial of one of its members who had criticized the
military. University students in Brazil mounted huge demonstrations against the
generals in 1967 and 1968. In addition, a small guerrilla movement developed,
based largely in the cities. Its members kidnapped U.S. ambassador Charles Burke
Elbrick and demanded a ransom and the release of political prisoners held by
Brazil’s military government. Over the next four years guerrillas continued
their campaign against the government by kidnapping foreign diplomats, bombing
government buildings, and robbing banks to finance their activities.
K2 | Hardliners Take Control |
The growing opposition provoked a
sharp response from the hardliners, who launched a coup within the regime and
took the upper hand in the military high command. The coup was triggered when
General Artur Costa e Silva, who had been voted president by the legislature in
1967, suffered a series of incapacitating strokes in 1968. The three military
cabinet ministers (army, navy, and air force) then took charge.
The generals saw chaos and Communists
all around them, and they cracked down, initiating intense repression to crush
the opposition. In December 1968 they shut down Congress. The military leaders
issued a new constitution that concentrated power in the executive and they
named a new president, General Emílio Médici. Between 1968 and 1974, Médici and
the hardliners unleashed the systematic and widespread use of torture and
repression to silence their opponents. Thousands suffered at the hands of the
torturers, and hundreds died.
The regime took control of labor
unions and silenced anyone who criticized the regime. Within a few years the
guerrillas had been entirely wiped out. The government eventually shut down the
national student union, and universities purged their faculties of those
suspected of supporting leftist ideas. Large numbers of prominent Brazilian
academics and artists went into exile in other Latin American countries, the
United States, and Europe.
The years of repression coincided with
the years of the so-called Brazilian miracle when the economy grew faster than
any other economy in the world. During this period manufactured goods replaced
coffee as Brazil’s leading export. The staunchly nationalistic military wanted
to make Brazil a world power and understood that a strong industrial economy
held the key to their goal. They welcomed foreign investment, attracting
billions of dollars. The regime channeled that investment into sectors of the
economy considered critical for development. Among other things, these included
the Trans-Amazon Highway, a large hydroelectric dam at Itaipú in southeastern
Brazil, and a nuclear power program.
L | Return to Civilian Government |
L1 | Abertura |
By 1973 the economy was expanding at
an extraordinary pace, and the military appeared to have control over the
political system. Moderate forces within the military brought General Ernesto
Geisel to the presidency in 1974. The son of German immigrants, Geisel initiated
abertura (opening), a series of reforms that gradually allowed limited
political organization and elections. The legal opposition party, the Brazilian
Democratic Movement (MDB), began to win important elections.
Geisel handpicked his successor,
General João Baptista Figueiredo. Figueiredo’s presidency began in 1979 by
furthering abertura with the declaration of a general amnesty for all political
crimes since 1964. The government also allowed exiles to return home. Figueiredo
released the last few political prisoners, and official censors finally left the
pressrooms and television studios. The Figueiredo government also issued
guidelines for the formation of new political parties and for open election of
governors in 1982.
L2 | Economic Problems |
Abertura was complicated by growing
economic problems with roots going back to the enormous industrial and economic
expansion of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This expansion had made the country
heavily dependent on petroleum, much of which was imported. When Arab nations
began limiting oil exports in October 1973, the price of oil skyrocketed,
seriously crippling the Brazilian economy. The regime had already borrowed
heavily to finance the so-called Brazilian miracle. To keep the economy going,
and to avoid a recession, the Brazilian government borrowed billions from
international agencies and banks to finance continued growth. The Brazilian
foreign debt went from about $25 billion in 1974 to more than $100 billion in
the early 1980s—at that time the largest foreign debt in the world. Inflation
continued its upward trend, reaching levels far higher than during the crisis of
1963 and 1964. In 1982 Brazil halted all payments on the principal of its huge
foreign debt, and the economy entered a severe recession.
L3 | Transition to Democracy |
The battered economy severely
discredited the military regime in the eyes of most Brazilians. Furthermore, few
saw much need for a military regime, given that the threat of leftist revolution
had long since been crushed. In 1984 millions of Brazilians took to the streets
demanding immediate direct elections for president.
The government managed to fend off the
calls for direct elections by instituting an electoral college, in which
congressional delegates and state assembly members voted for the president.
However, the massive public demonstrations helped split the government party.
Many of the government’s supporters in the electoral college defected and voted
with the opposition, defeating the official government candidate for president
in 1984. The electoral college instead chose Tancredo Neves, the governor of
Minas Gerais, to become Brazil’s first civilian president since 1964. They chose
José Sarney as vice president. Sarney, a long time leader of the government
party in the Senate, had played a key role in leading government supporters to
join the opposition.
Neves, who was 74, fell desperately
ill on the eve of his scheduled inauguration in March 1985. When Neves died in
late April, before he could assume office, José Sarney was sworn in as
president. Sarney immediately faced two momentous problems: the economic crisis
and the need to continue the transition to a fully democratic regime by
instituting a new constitution that would reestablish democratic
institutions.
Inflation in 1985 approached 300
percent, the foreign debt continued to mount, and strikes broke out across the
country as workers demanded higher wages. In a drastic effort to stabilize the
economy, Sarney introduced the Cruzado Plan in February 1986. The plan froze
prices and wages and it brought Sarney to the peak of his popularity when
inflation ground to a standstill for a few months. Unfortunately, when the
government unfroze prices and wages at the end of 1986, inflation exploded
again. Interest payments on the foreign debt gobbled up nearly all of the
country’s huge trade surplus, draining the economy of badly needed capital. The
government incurred large deficits in public spending, and foreign banks refused
to extend new loans until the government implemented an economic austerity
program.
The Congress elected in November 1986
drafted a new constitution that went into effect in October 1988. The
constitution’s provisions gave wider power to the legislature and decreased the
influence of the executive branch, granted more tax revenues to the states and
municipalities, and extended the vote to 16-year-olds. It eliminated the
electoral college established by the military regime and allowed Brazilians to
vote directly for president.
M | The Collor Administration |
The election of Fernando Collor de Mello
in late 1989, and his inauguration in March 1990, marked the completion of the
long and difficult process of abertura. Finally, Brazilians had the opportunity
to elect their president directly through the ballot box rather than having one
imposed by a small clique of generals. More than 80 million Brazilians voted in
the presidential election, the vast majority for the first time. In his first
two years in office Collor implemented an economic program that brought
inflation down, but failed to contain it. More important, he began to
drastically curtail the state’s role in the Brazilian economy and to dismantle
protectionist trade policies.
The great hopes millions of Brazilians
had for the Collor presidency soon disappeared as the economic program failed to
halt extremely high inflation rates, which reached a peak of more than 1,500
percent in 1991. A corruption scandal also badly damaged the government. In 1992
legislative investigations uncovered an influence-peddling scheme that involved
hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it going to Collor. In December 1992
the Congress impeached Collor and swore in his vice president, Itamar Franco, to
serve out the last two years of Collor’s term.
N | The Cardoso Presidency |
President Franco paved the way for the
election of his successor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. One of Latin America’s
most prominent intellectual figures, Cardoso was trained as a political
sociologist at the University of São Paulo in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A
former member of the Communist Party, Cardoso spent part of the 1960s and 1970s
in exile. During the late 1970s he entered politics, eventually becoming a
senator from the state of São Paulo and an unsuccessful mayoral candidate for
the city.
Franco chose Cardoso as his finance
minister in 1993 in yet another effort to combat runaway inflation and the debt
crisis. Cardoso and a team of advisers put together the Real Plan. This plan
created a new currency, the real, in 1994 and put into place a series of
measures to reduce inflation without wage or price freezes. Inflation dropped
from a rate of 45 to 50 percent per month in early 1994 to a rate of about 1 to
2 percent per month over the next two years, giving Brazilians their lowest
inflation rates in decades.
The success of the plan made Cardoso a
national hero and the leading contender for the presidency. Cardoso forged a
coalition of his Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), the conservative
Liberal Front Party (PFL), and several other parties. The former Communist
convinced the business community and conservatives that his views had evolved,
and were close enough to theirs to gain their support. With nearly 55 percent of
the total vote in the 1994 elections, Cardoso scored the most impressive
electoral victory in 40 years.
Inaugurated on January 1, 1995,
President Cardoso forged a majority coalition in Congress that passed
fundamental legislative reforms during his first two years in office. This
legislation on federal expenditures dramatically reduced government involvement
in the economy. The government privatized major state enterprises, broke up the
government-controlled telecommunications monopoly, and eliminated restrictions
limiting the amount of money foreign corporations could invest in Brazil. The
government also reduced expenditures in a number of social security programs and
eliminated job security among civil servants in an attempt to reduce government
expenditures.
Cardoso also worked to reduce tensions
between landowners and the homeless squatters, who occupied large unproductive
estates in the countryside. With 1 percent of the population owning 45 percent
of the land in 1995, Brazil had the most unequal land distribution pattern in
Latin America. Conflicts over land use and ownership led to a number of violent
confrontations in 1995 and 1996 in which more than 40 people were shot and
killed by Brazilian police. In 1995 Cardoso signed a presidential decree that
took possession of just over 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of land from
large, private estates and reallocated it to more than 3,600 poor families.
In 1996 Cardoso signed a decree that
allowed non-Native Americans to appeal land allocation decisions made by
Brazil’s Indian Affairs Bureau. Cardoso’s decree allowed regional governments,
private companies, and individuals to challenge indigenous land claims in
certain areas of the country, primarily in the Amazon region of northern Brazil.
The law was widely condemned by human rights, Native American, and religious
organizations.
O | Economic Crisis and Reelection |
Largely because of Cardoso’s popularity
and his success in revitalizing the economy, Brazil’s legislature passed a
constitutional amendment in 1997 allowing the president to run for a second term
in office. Later in the year, however, Brazil’s economy was shaken following a
collapse in Asian stock markets. The resulting financial crisis affected stock
markets in many developing economies. Reacting to the crisis, Brazil’s
government introduced an austerity program that reduced federal spending and
temporarily restored foreign confidence in the economy. The economy received a
second jolt in 1998 after the government of Russia defaulted on its foreign
debts. Fearing that the economic crisis might spread through Latin America,
investors began withdrawing their money from Brazil. Cardoso began negotiating
an economic bailout with foreign lenders through the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), an international agency designed to stabilize the world economy.
Even though the economy had taken a turn
for the worse, Cardoso won election to a second four-year term in 1998. The
following month, the IMF and Brazil announced a $41.5-billion loan package to
protect Brazil’s economy. In return, Cardoso agreed to introduce legislation
designed to cut back on government spending and to restructure Brazil’s taxation
and social security systems. In 1999 the government devalued the national
currency, the real, by 8 percent against the U.S. dollar. (Devaluation involves
lowering the value of a nation’s currency in relation to foreign currencies.)
Financial experts hoped the devaluation would put the economy on a more secure
footing by lowering the cost of Brazilian products in overseas markets, making
exports more attractive and increasing the flow of cash into Brazil.
P | The Da Silva Presidency |
In the 2002 presidential election,
Cardoso could not run for reelection because of term limits. The Workers’ Party
candidate Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, won the election. He
was the first working-class president to be elected in Brazil; the nation’s
presidents have traditionally come from the military or a small, wealthy elite.
Da Silva was also the first leftist candidate to be elected president in Brazil.
(The last time a leftist leader became president was in 1961 but that leader,
João Goulart, had been elected vice president. He succeeded to the presidency on
the resignation of the president, Jânio Quadros.) During his campaign, da Silva
promised to institute social reforms for the poor and working class, to create
more jobs, and to raise salaries.
In his first term da Silva followed
through on many of his campaign promises. He succeeded in improving the economy,
raising living standards and reducing inflation. His party, however, was plagued
with corruption scandals, including charges of illegal campaign financing. In
the 2006 presidential election da Silva failed to win a majority in the first
round of balloting. In the October runoff, however, he was easily elected to a
second term with more than 60 percent of the vote.
The history section of this article was
contributed by Marshall C. Eakin. The remainder of the article was contributed
by John Philip Dickenson.
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