Great Events in the History of North and South America

by Charles A. Goodrich

Situation, Extent, &c.—Brazil is an extensive country, occupying the eastern and central portion of South America, from four degrees north to thirty-three degrees south, and from thirty-five degrees to seventy-three degrees west longitude. It has an area of three millions square miles.

This region is traversed by several distinct chains of mountains, chiefly in the eastern and northern provinces, but they do not any of them reach to any great elevation. "The mighty Orellana," or the Amazon, gives a character to the country, as it is the largest river in the world, both in regard to the length of its course and its volume of water; draining an area of more than two millions of square miles, and furnishing the country with the amplest means of intercommunication. The greater part of Brazil is constituted of an immense immeasurable plain, through which flow innumerable streams, on which stand boundless and impenetrable forests, and the whole of which swarms "with animal life in all its forms; ferocious beasts of prey, huge serpents, alligators, troops of monkeys, flocks of gaudily-colored and loquacious birds, and clouds of insects, are yet undisturbed by the arts of man."

A great variety exists as to the climate. Intense heat prevails under the equator, but rendered supportable by the excessive humidity of the atmosphere and the copious dews. Mild and temperate, with occasionally cold weather, is experienced in the southern portions.

The soil is very fertile in a large portion of the country, and produces an immense variety of rich and valuable plants and vegetables, many of them being peculiar to this region. The forests are admirable for their beauty and grandeur; the growth of trees being gigantic, and the number of ornamental ones surpassing calculation. An important article of export, are several kinds of what is called Brazil-wood, not to speak of timber for ship-building, mahogany, and an infinity of dyeing woods.

The golds and diamonds of Brazil are far-famed; the quantity of gold annually obtained being estimated at five millions of dollars. Brazil has more foreign commerce than any other country in America, except the United States. Its principal ports are Rio Janeiro, Bahia or St. Salvador, Pernambuco, Para, San Luis de Maranham, and San Pedro.

Discovery and Settlement.—The discovery of Brazil, by the Portuguese, was a matter of accident. It occurred in the year 1500, as Pedro Alvarez Cabral was sailing from Lisbon with a fleet for the East Indies. Standing out a great distance to the west, in order to avoid the calms on the coast of Africa, he saw land, on the 24th of April, in latitude seventeen south, and on the 3d of May landed at a harbor which was named Porto Seguro. The country was named Brazil, eventually, from the circumstance that the forests abounded with trees producing a beautiful dye-wood of a fiery red, to which the Portuguese gave the name of brazil, from braza, a live coal. Cabral having taken possession of the country in the name of his sovereign, the king of Portugal, dispatched a vessel to Lisbon, to announce his important discovery, while he himself proceeded on his voyage to India.

The king, gratified with the foregoing announcement, immediately fitted out an expedition, under Amerigo Vespucci, consisting of three ships, which sailed in 1501. Vespucci explored the country as far south as the fifty-second degree of latitude, but formed no settlement. After a voyage of sixteen months, he returned to Lisbon. Two years after, 1503, he made a second voyage, in which he had the misfortune to lose all his fleet, with the exception of his own ship. During this visit, he established a settlement on the coast, and carried home a cargo of brazil-wood, the value of which was so great, as to induce many adventurers to embark for that country. These volunteer colonists, composed of various grades and conditions in the social scale, but all imbued with the spirit of enterprise, formed a settlement at St. Salvador.

The settlement which had been made on the coast in 1503, under Vespucci, received but little attention, until certain French adventurers, about half a century afterwards, attempted to settle a colony at Rio Janeiro. A Portuguese force finally expelled the French from their position, after a struggle of two years, in 1567—the French having continued in different parts of the country, from 1558 till that time. Owing to various circumstances, the Portuguese court, from making this region a place of exile and confinement for convicts and the unhappy victims of the Inquisition, was led to regard it, at length, as a place of some importance. The sugar-cane began to be cultivated, and the new luxury of sugar was sought with avidity. In connection with this, a governor was sent out to manage the affairs of the settlers, and he built a city at St. Salvador, which became the centre of the colony. The Jesuits, however, were the most efficient class in building up the colony, and conciliating the affections of the natives.

As misfortunes, during the latter part of the sixteenth century, befel the Portuguese in Europe, advantage was taken of their weakness, and their Brazilian possessions were invaded and taken by the Dutch. But they were not suffered to hold their conquest without molestation. In 1626, St. Salvador was rëtaken by the Portuguese; the Dutch, however, retained their power for a number of years in the country, and added to their conquests, till they were expelled, in 1654, by a superior Portuguese force sent against them. In 1661, the sole possession of Brazil was secured to Portugal by treaty, in consideration of the sum of one million seven hundred thousand dollars, which that crown engaged to pay to the United Colonies.

Policy of the Portuguese Government in the latter part of the Eighteenth Century.—The measures adopted by the government in respect to Brazil, were narrow and illiberal. Their effect was to discourage industry, and to fetter commerce. On the latter, restrictions and monopolies were imposed. The search for gold and diamonds engrossed the attention of the government. Foreigners could either gain no admission into the country, or were jealously watched. Trade was carried on only at the fortified posts. This disastrous state of things continued till the beginning of the present century, when an event took place which changed the whole aspect of affairs in this country.