Travels in Brazil

by Henry Koster

Like most of the aboriginal inhabitants of the western hemisphere, these people are of a copper colour. They are short, and stoutly made; but their limbs, though large, have not the appearance of possessing great strength, they have no shew of muscle. The face is disproportionately broad, the nose flat, the mouth wide, the eyes deep and small, the hair black, coarse, and lank; none of the men have whiskers, and their beards are not thick. The women, when they are young, have by no means an unpleasant appearance; but they soon fall off, and become ugly; their figures are seldom well shaped. Deformity is rare among the Indians; I do not recollect to have seen an individual of this race who had been born defective; and the well-informed persons with whom I conversed were of opinion, that the Indians are more fortunate in this respect than any other race with whom they were acquainted. All the Indians of Pernambuco speak Portugueze, but few of them pronounce it well; there is always a certain twang which discovers the speaker to be an Indian, although the voice was heard without the person being seen; many of them however do not understand any other language. The Indians seldom if ever speak Portugueze so well as the generality of the creole negroes.

It must be perfectly understood, that although there may be some unfair dealings occasionally of the director towards the Indian, still this race cannot be enslaved; the Indian cannot be made to work for any person against his inclination, he cannot be bought and sold. An Indian will sometimes make over his child, when very young, to a rich person to be taught some trade, or to be brought up as a household servant, but as soon as the child is of an age to provide for itself, it cannot be prevented from so doing; it may leave the person under whose care it has been placed if it be so inclined.

Two Indians presented themselves at the gate of the Carmelite convent of Goiana, and requested and were permitted to see the prior. They put into his hands a purse containing several gold coins, saying that they had found it near Dous Rios; they begged that he would order a number of masses to be said in their behalf, which were to be paid for from the contents of the purse. The prior, admiring their honesty, asked one of them to remain with him as his servant, to which the man agreed. The friar was in the habit of going into the country to a friend’s house to shoot. On one occasion, after the Indian had served him for some time, he left the convent and took him on one of these expeditions, but when they were about half way, the friar discovered that he had forgotten his powder-horn; he gave the key of his trunk to the Indian and desired him to fetch the powder whilst he proceeded. In vain he waited at his friend’s house for his servant, and on his return to the convent in the evening he heard that he was not there. He went immediately to his cell, supposing that he had been robbed of all his money, and whatever else the fellow could carry of; but to his joy he discovered on examination, that the man had only taken the powder-horn, two silver coins of about 4s. value each, an old clerical gown, and a pair of worn out nankeen pantaloons. This story I had from an intimate friend of the prior.

One of the days of my stay at Searà we passed upon the borders of a lake, which is between two and three leagues distant from the town, for the purpose of shooting. This lake was nearly dry. The general feature of the country about Searà is arid; the captaincy produces no sugar, but the lands are adapted for cotton, of which however the crop this year was very trifling. So excessive had the drought become, that a famine was feared, and great distress would have been experienced if a vessel had not arrived from the southward laden with the flour of the mandioc. The usual price of it was 640 reis per alqueire, but the cargo of this vessel was sold at 6400 reis per alqueire; a fact which proves the scarcity to have been very great. Formerly considerable quantities of beef were salted and dried here, and were exported to the other captaincies, but from the mortality among the cattle, caused by the frequent dry seasons, this trade has been unavoidably given up entirely, and the whole country is now supplied from the Rio Grande do Sul, the southern boundary of the Portugueze dominions. But the meat which arrives at Pernambuco from the Rio Grande do Sul, still preserves its name of Searà meat, carne do Searà. The country to the northward and eastward I understood to be much superior to that in the neighbourhood of Searà. The captaincy of Piauhi, which lies in that direction, is accounted fertile, and is not subject to droughts.

Many were the praises which I heard of the late governor of Searà, Joam Carlos, who was appointed to this province before he had arrived at the age of twenty years, and who was at the time I visited Searà captain-general of Mato Grosso. His administration of justice was in general summary, but on one occasion he waved his usual severity; he was informed, whilst playing at cards at the house of Senhor Marcos, which is near to the palace, that a soldier was robbing his garden. He answered, “Poor fellow, great must be his hunger when he runs the risk of entering his governor’s garden—don’t molest him.” Some persons were in the practice of taking doors off their hinges, and other tricks of the same sort, during the night; the governor had in vain attempted to discover who they were, and he resolved at last to wrap himself up in his cloak and to apprehend some of them, if possible, with his own hands. A young man, with whom I was acquainted, had met the governor on one of these nights, he demanded his name and, on discovering who it was, admonished him to be at home at an earlier hour on the following evening.

The family of the Feitozas still exists in the interior of this captaincy and that of Piauhi, in possession of extensive estates, which are covered with immense droves of cattle. In the time of Joam Carlos, the chiefs had risen to such power, and were supposed to be so completely out of the reach of punishment, that they entirely refused obedience to the laws, both civil and criminal, such as they are. They revenged their own wrongs; persons obnoxious to them were publicly murdered in the villages of the interior; the poor man who refused obedience to their commands was devoted to destruction, and the rich man, who was not of their clan, was obliged silently to acquiesce in deeds of which he did not approve. The Feitozas are descendants of Europeans, but many of the branches are of mixed blood, and perhaps few are free from some tinge of the original inhabitants of Brazil. The chief of the family was a colonel of militia, and could at a short notice call together about one hundred men, which is equal to ten or twenty times the number in a well-peopled country. Deserters were well received by him, and murderers who had committed this crime in the revenge of injuries; the thief was not accepted, and much less the man who for the sake of pillage had taken the life of another.

Joam Carlos had received from Lisbon secret instructions to secure the person of this chief of the Feitozas. His first step was to inform the colonel, that he intended on a certain day to visit him at his village, for the purpose of reviewing his regiment. The village is not many leagues from the coast, but is distant considerably from Searà. Feitoza answered, that he should be ready to receive His Excellency on the appointed day. The time came and Joam Carlos set out, accompanied by ten or twelve persons; the colonel greeted him most courteously, and had assembled all his men to make the greatest possible shew. After the review, the colonel dismissed them, fatigued with the day’s exercise, for many of them had travelled several leagues. He retired with the governor to his house, accompanied by a few of his near relations. At the time all the party was preparing to settle for the night, Joam Carlos, having arranged every thing with his own people, rose and presented a pistol to the breast of the chief, his followers doing the same to the colonel’s relations and servants, who were unable to make any resistance, as they were unprepared, and not so numerous as the governor’s men. Joam Carlos told Feitoza, that if he spoke or made the least noise he should immediately fire, though he well knew that his own destruction would be certain. He conducted him to the back door, and ordered him and all the persons present to mount the horses which had been prepared for them. They made for the sea-shore, and arrived there very early in the morning; jangadas were in waiting to take them on board a smack, which was lying off and on near to the coast. The alarm was given soon after their departure from Feitoza’s village, and as the governor reached the smack, he saw the colonel’s adherents upon the beach, embarking in jangadas to try to overtake them, but it was too late; the smack left the land, and the next day made for the shore, landed the governor, and then proceeded on her voyage. Feitoza was supposed to be in the prison of the Limoeiro at Lisbon when the French entered Portugal, and either died about that time or was released by them[45]. His followers still look forwards to his return. The loss of their chiefs broke the power and union of the clan, and they have had disputes among themselves. Brazil is likewise undergoing a change of manners, and emerging rapidly from semi-barbarism.

A young man of Searà had been, a short time before my arrival, to the distance of thirty leagues into the interior, accompanied by two constables, to serve a writ upon a man of some property for a debt; they rode good horses, that they might perform their errand before he could have any knowledge that they were going, and might attempt, in consequence, any thing against their lives. It is a dangerous service to go into the interior to recover debts. The Portugueze law does not allow of arrest for debt, but by serving a writ any property which was sent down to the town to be shipped might be seized.

I was received at Searà most hospitably; the name of Englishman was a recommendation. In the morning I generally remained at home, and in the afternoon rode out with three or four of the young men of the place, who were much superior to any I had expected to find here, and in the evening a large party usually assembled at the house of Senhor Marcos; his company and that of his wife and daughter would have been very pleasant anywhere, but was particularly so in these uncivilized regions. Parties were likewise occasionally given at the palace, and at both these places, after tea and coffee, cards and conversation made the evenings pass very quickly. The palace was the only dwelling in the town which had boarded floors; it appeared at first rather strange to be received by one of the principal officers of the province, in a room with a brick floor and plain white washed walls, as occurred at the house of Senhor Marcos.

This gentleman had delivered to me a crimson coloured satin bag, containing government papers, and directed to the Prince Regent of Portugal and Brazil, and he gave me directions to put it into the hands of the post-master at Pernambuco. I obtained, from being the bearer, the power of requiring horses from the several commandants upon the road. To him it was convenient, as with me its chance of safety was greater than if it had been forwarded by a single man on foot, which is the usual mode of conveyance. The men employed for this purpose are trust-worthy, but must of course sometimes meet with accidents.