Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise

by C. S. Stewart

In the mean time adventurers and traders from France made their way to this part of the New World, and secured the good will and friendship of the natives. Among them was Villegagnon, a knight of Malta, who had seen service in the east, was an officer of distinction in the French navy, and had commanded the vessel which carried Mary Queen of Scots and her retinue from France on her return to her kingdom. His visit to Brazil inspired him with the ambition of establishing a colony at Rio. Desirous of the favor and aid of the crown in this project, and believing the influence of Coligny with the king the surest means of accomplishing this end, to win his confidence and co-operation he professed a deep interest in the condition of the Protestants of France, and avowed the purpose of making the proposed colony a refuge to them, from the persecutions to which they were subject at home. The king was led by his friendship for Coligny, to regard the proposition with such favor as to grant to Villegagnon two vessels for the expedition, while the admiral interested himself in securing a number of respectable Protestants to accompany it as colonists.

On arriving at Rio in 1555, Villegagnon first took possession of the small island Lage near the mouth of the harbor; but soon finding this too much exposed to the sea, removed to one larger near the site of the present city, to which, with the fort erected upon it, he gave the name of Coligny. The vessels were sent back to France for reinforcements. Great interest in the enterprise had in the mean time been excited among the Protestants there. Two clergymen and fourteen students of theology had been selected in Geneva to secure the spiritual good of the colony, and were received, preparatory to their embarkation, at the chateau of Coligny near Chatillon, with great attention. Large numbers of respectable emigrants joined them, and sanguine hopes were entertained that the principles of the reformation would be surely implanted in the New World.

Early after the arrival of this reinforcement, Villegagnon, believing himself sure of the support of the crown in the further prosecution of his object, under the pretence of having returned to his old faith, commenced so bitter a persecution of the Protestants, that, in place of the peaceful enjoyment of freedom of conscience for which they had been led so far from their native land, they found themselves in a worse condition in this respect than they were at home. They were driven, at length, to the determination of returning to France. The only vessel, however, granted to them for the purpose was so old and so ill found for the voyage, that five of the number, after going on board, refused to venture their lives in her. Of these, three were afterwards put to death by Villegagnon, and the others, flying for refuge to the Portuguese settlements, were constrained to apostatize to save their lives. The company who embarked reached France only after having suffered all but death from starvation. At the time of their return, ten thousand of their brethren were in readiness, under the auspices of Coligny, to embark for the new colony. The report brought by them of the treachery of him who was to have been their leader at once changed their purpose; and the project of a Protestant colony in ‘France Antarctique,’ as the region had already been styled, was abandoned. Thus it was that the religious and civil destiny of one of the richest sections of the New World was changed for centuries now past, and, it may be, for centuries yet to come.

With the remembrance of this failure in establishing the Reformed religion here, and of the direct cause which led to it, I often find myself speculating, as to the possible and probable results which would have followed the successful establishment of Protestantism during the three hundred years which have intervened. With the wealth and power and increasing prosperity of the United States before us as the fruits, at the end of two hundred years, of the colonization of a few feeble bands of Protestants on the comparatively bleak and barren shore of the Northern Continent, there is no presumption in the belief that, had a people of similar faith, similar morals, similar habits of industry and enterprise, gained an abiding footing in so genial a climate and on so exuberant a soil, long ago, the still unexplored and impenetrable wildernesses of the interior would have bloomed and blossomed in civilization as the rose, and Brazil from the sea-coast to the Andes become one of the gardens of the world. But the germ which might have led to this was crushed by the bad faith and malice of Villegagnon; and, as I look on the spot which, by bearing his name, in the eyes of a Protestant at least perpetuates his reproach, the two or three solitary palms which lift their tufted heads above the embattled walls, and furnish the only evidence of vegetation on the island, seem, instead of plumed warriors in the midst of their defences, like sentinels of grief mourning the blighted hopes of the long past.

The conduct of Villegagnon soon met its just recompense. The course he pursued towards the Huguenots led to the early and utter failure of his enterprise. Had he been true to his followers of the Reformed faith, the colony, in place of being weakened by the return of any to France, would have been so strengthened and established by the ten thousand prepared to join them, that the Portuguese would never have been able to dislodge and supplant them. Needing reinforcements, Villegagnon proceeded himself to France to secure more settlers and the further aid of the government. Every thing there was adverse to his object. He had forfeited the favor of Coligny, and put an effectual end to the emigration of Protestants to Brazil. The king was too much occupied with the civil war existing to give heed to him. While thus delayed the Portuguese fitted out a strong expedition under Mem de Sa from Bahia. This was successful. The French were driven to their ships, and the Portuguese, possessing themselves of the island on which they had been established, gained such foothold as never afterwards to be displaced. This occurred on the 20th of Jan. 1560, St. Sebastian’s day, under the patronage of which saint the expedition had been placed: and in whose honor the city afterwards built on the mainland, received the name of St. Sebastian. This is now, however, entirely supplanted by that of Rio de Janeiro.

In 1676 the city had become so populous as to be made the see of a Bishop, and the palace now crowning the brow of the Bishop’s Hill was built. At that time, and for more than a hundred years afterwards, Bahia was the seat of chief authority in the captaincies of Brazil; but in 1763, so greatly had the wealth and influence of Rio increased, from the discovery of the gold and diamond mines, whose products were poured into her bosom as a market, that the residence of the Viceroy was transferred from Bahia and became permanently fixed here.

It was not, however, till the arrival of the royal family of Portugal, in their flight from Lisbon before the French army in 1808, that the prosperity and true progress of Rio, and Brazil in general, may be said to have commenced. Till then, the whole country had been subject to the restrictive and depressing influences of the policy adopted by the mother country, in the government of her colonies: all foreign trade interdicted, heavy import and export duties imposed on the commerce with Portugal herself, grasping monopolies claimed by the crown at home, and extortionate perquisites exacted by its representatives on the ground. There were no press, no newspapers, no books, no schools. The whole country was in a state of darkness and ignorance beyond that of the Middle Ages; and Rio an unenlightened, unrefined, and demoralized provincial town. But with the Prince Regent of Portugal, the Queen mother, the court, and more than twenty thousand followers, European manners and customs, and the habits and usages of modern civilized life were introduced. Commerce was opened to all nations; and the press, literature and the arts established. The changes effected in Rio were almost miraculous; and so constant and so rapid have been the improvements to the present time, that she now presents to the visitor, in many of her leading features, an aspect becoming the metropolis of a great Empire.

The progress of enlightened government, enlarged liberty and extended commerce, has been commensurate with the advances in civilization, intellectual culture and the refinements of life. The measure of throwing the ports open to all nations, so wise and so essential, at once adopted and proclaimed by the Prince Regent—afterwards John VI.—in 1808, was followed by him in 1815 by the no less important step of elevating the colony in its united provinces to a distinct kingdom, on an equality in its rights and privileges with those of Portugal and Algarves, under the one crown.

In 1822, Brazil became an independent empire under Don Pedro I. with a constitution which guaranteed to her a representative legislature, and the largest liberty compatible with the immunities of the limited monarchy by which she is still governed.

This political progress was not made without obstacles and threatened anarchy and disaster. The return to Portugal of John VI. in 1821, was followed in 1831, by the abdication of Don Pedro I. in favor of his son, a child four years of age; and partisan conflicts, during the regency which followed, made necessary the sudden termination, in 1840, of the minority of Don Pedro II., at the age of 14, in violation of an article of the constitution fixing the majority of an heir to the throne at eighteen. Since then, however, general tranquillity and progressive prosperity have prevailed. After years of deficiency in the revenue there is now a surplus; the receipts of the imperial treasury for the last year being seventeen millions and a half of dollars, and the expenditures little more than fifteen millions. The national debt is sixty millions, but with increasing exports and an enlarging commerce this may soon be liquidated; and the finances of the country be placed in unfettered condition. The revenue is derived from duties on exports as well as imports; those on exports being applicable alike to the internal commerce of the empire between province and province, and to that with foreign countries. The export duty on coffee, transferred from one province to another, is ten per cent. On shipments of the same article for foreign ports, there is an additional duty of two per cent. Every product—rice, sugar, cotton, farina—is thus taxed. The export duty on mandioca, the staff of life of the country, is regulated by the market value of the article, and not by fixed per centage.