CHAPTER VI
FRENCH OCCUPATION OF RIO
During Duarte's administration troubles with the Indians broke out along the whole coast. In Bahia itself the new governor had disobeyed the orders of the home government to protect the Indians. He joined with the colonists in exploiting them. A formidable Indian conspiracy was formed and the settlements on both sides of the city were simultaneously attacked. Many farms and villages were sacked, but soon the Indians were finally and crushingly defeated. The coast towns of São Paulo were menaced by a great confederation of tribes who used war canoes and had learned to overcome their terror of firearms. At Espirito Santo the Indian slaves rose en masse, killed most of the Portuguese, and destroyed the sugar plantations.
A more serious danger was the settlement of the French at Rio de Janeiro. They had formed friendly relations with the Indians, and the name of Frenchman was sufficient to insure good treatment from most of the tribes, while that of Portuguese was a signal for its bearer to be killed and devoured. This was the epoch of the religious wars in France, and the traders to Brazil came mostly from Huguenot ports. Admiral Coligny conceived the idea of establishing a Huguenot settlement in South America, and Rio was chosen as the most available site. In 1555 a considerable expedition was sent under the command of Nicolas Villegagnon, a celebrated adventurer, who had distinguished himself in escorting Mary Queen of Scots from France to Scotland. He fortified the island in Rio harbour that still bears his name—a barren rock which commanded the entrance and was safe from attacks by land. The French kept on good terms with the neighbouring Indians, and remained unmolested by the Portuguese for four years. But Villegagnon was not faithful to his employers, though most of his party were Protestants, and Huguenot leaders had furnished the money for the expedition. He quarrelled with the Huguenots and finally gave up the command and returned to France in the Guise interest. Coligny's project of establishing a new and Protestant France in South America lost its very good chance of success. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been the history of Brazil if Villegagnon had stuck to the Huguenot side. In all probability re-enforcements would have been sent, and St. Bartholomew's Day—fourteen years later—might have been followed by a great emigration like that which went to New England during the Laud persecution. Rio and perhaps the whole of South Brazil would have become a French possession or a French-speaking state.
Not until 1558 was a strong and able Portuguese governor selected, and vigorous measures taken to expel the French. The new governor was Mem da Sa, a nobleman of the highest birth, a soldier, a scholar, and an experienced administrator. His name will always be associated with the establishment of the Portuguese power in Brazil on a footing firm and broad enough to enable it to withstand the Dutch attacks and the lean years of Spanish domination.
Upon his arrival he took measures to quiet the Indian slavery question by reducing the import duties on black slaves and by aiding each planter to acquire as many negroes as he needed to work his plantation. When his ships and armament arrived he proceeded to the south. He found that the French, though weak in numbers, could count on Indian allies. As he himself writes to the Court: "The French do not treat the natives as we do. They are very liberal to them, observing strict justice, so that the commander is feared by his countrymen and beloved by the Indians. Measures have been taken to instruct the latter in the use of arms, and as the aborigines are very numerous the French may soon make themselves very strong." He harassed the French and destroyed their fortifications but could not completely dislodge them, and returned to Bahia with his work only half accomplished. Porto Seguro and Ilheos were attacked by the ferocious Aymorés and with difficulty saved from total destruction. In the South another great Tamoyo confederation had been formed with the deliberate purpose of rooting the Paulistas out of the country and putting a stop once for all to their slave-hunting. When all seemed lost, Anchieta intervened, and succeeded in fixing up a peace. The Tamoyos were cajoled into becoming allies of the Portuguese in a final attempt to expel the French from Rio. Mem da Sa's nephew appeared with a considerable fleet, and after a desultory campaign of a year the French were obliged to retire. France did nothing to prevent or recover this inestimable loss, and Mem da Sa immediately laid out and fortified a city on a site which to-day is the business centre of the capital of Brazil. From the time of its founding Rio was the most important place in southern Brazil and the key to the whole region, but its great prosperity dates from a hundred and fifty years later, when gold was discovered in Minas Geraes.
Mem da Sa continued to rule Brazil until his death in 1572. The work of centralisation went on apace, fiscal and administrative officers were multiplied, and taxes and restrictions imposed at will. The Lisbon government laid the foundations of that restrictive system which finally confined Brazil to communication with the mother country. Nevertheless most of the settlements grew rapidly. Sugar-planting, cattle-raising, and general agriculture flourished. The Indians were expelled or reduced to impotence within striking distance of the centres of population.
PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH.
[From an old print.]
At Mem da Sa's death the civilised population numbered about sixty thousand, of whom twenty thousand were white. The provinces of Pernambuco and Bahia had each twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Rio had some two thousand and São Paulo perhaps five, the remainder being divided between the smaller settlements—Parahyba, Rio Real, Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo. Except in São Paulo most of the inhabitants were engaged in sugar-raising. The hundred and twenty plantations produced annually forty-five thousand tons of sugar, while Portuguese goods to the value of a million dollars a year were imported.
A sugar fazenda, or plantation, constituted a little independent village, where the owner lived surrounded by his slaves in their cabins, his shops and stables, mills and mandioc fields. The grantees had paid no purchase price for the land, and held it on condition of paying a tenth of the product and a tenth of that tenth, a tax which survives to the present time, only it is now called an export duty of eleven per cent. Land was not otherwise taxed, and to this day direct taxes on farm property are almost unknown, though imposts of every other conceivable kind have been multiplied. The tracts granted were large; the owner could hold them unused without expense; the most powerful incentive to sale and division of land did not, therefore, exist. Brazil became and remains a country of large rural proprietorship. Landowners are reluctant to sell or divide their estates, taxes on transfers are excessive, and land is not freely bought and sold. Consequently the rural population is widely scattered, grants extend far beyond the limits of actual settlement, there are few small farmers and very little careful culture. Brazil is a country of staple crops and non-diversified agriculture. A fall in sugar or coffee produces a disproportionate disturbance in financial conditions, and land not suitable to the staple crop of a region is left to lie idle. Immigration has been retarded because land has been hard to obtain except by special government concession, and because private owners do not care to sell their land to settlers. Except in restricted cases, the rural immigration—negro and South European—has been for the purpose of furnishing labour for the large proprietors, and not to form a landowning and permanently established population.
The Jesuit travellers describe the Brazilian people in 1584 as pleasure-loving and extravagant. In the sugar provinces fortunes were very unequal. In Pernambuco alone more than a hundred planters had incomes of ten thousand dollars a year. Their capital, Olinda—now the northern suburb of the city of Pernambuco—was the largest town in Brazil and the one where there was most luxurious living and the most polite society. In general the people were spendthrifts, and notwithstanding large incomes were heavily in debt. Great sums were spent on fêtes, religious processions, fairs, and dinners. The simple Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such velvets and silks, such luxurious beds of crimson damask, such extravagance in the trappings of the saddle-horses. Carriages were unknown, and instead litters and sedan chairs were used, and these remained in common use in Bahia until very recent times.
A CADEIRA.
From Pernambuco and Bahia communication with the mother country was constant and easy. São Paulo, however, differed radically from the sugar districts. Wheat, barley, and European fruits grew on the São Paulo plateau, but there was little export to Portugal, and imported clothes were scarce and dear. The Paulistas were constantly on horseback and wore the old Portuguese costume of cloak and close-fitting doublet long after it had been disused at home.
Bahia and Pernambuco were fairly well built towns, though unfortunately in the Portuguese style of architecture, whose solid walls, few windows, and contiguous houses make it ill adapted to a tropical climate. In spite of its unsuitability it was universally adopted, and even yet largely prevails in Brazil.
