Travels in Brazil

by Henry Koster

CHAPTER XV.

RECRUITING.—IMAGES.—ANIMALS.—MARACAS.—APOLLINARIO, MANDINGA AND POULTRY.—HIEROGLYPHICS.—FESTIVAL OF OUR LADY OF CONCEPTION.—FANDANGOS.—THE FORT.—A CHRISTENING.—THE INTRUDO.—THE AUTHOR LEAVES BRAZIL.

IN the months of August and September, I was fully employed in planting cane. I hired a number of free labourers, and was under the necessity in a great measure of attending to the work myself. Of this I shall take another opportunity of speaking.

About this time were issued orders from the governor for recruiting the regiments of the line. The men who are required are pressed into the service. The orders were forwarded to the Capitaens-mores, who again distributed them to the captains. The directions were on this occasion, and indeed always are, that men of bad character between the ages of sixteen and sixty shall be apprehended, and sent to Recife for enlistment; and that every family containing two or more unmarried sons shall give one for the service of the country. But it is on these occasions that tyranny has its full sway, that caprice and pique have their full vent; that the most shameful partiality prevails, that the most intolerable oppression is experienced; in fact now it is, that the whole country is seen in arms against itself, and that every means of entrapping each other are used by the nearest neighbours. It is one of those impolitic arrangements which are sometimes practised by governments without perceiving their pernicious effects, and by which, as in the present case, the bad qualities of mankind are drawn forth, instead of every thing being done for their correction. Revenge, violence, deceit, and breach of trust are excited, and instead of suppression, they meet with encouragement.

The mildness of the provincial government of Pernambuco, under the present Captain-general, is in none of its proceedings more apparent than in this. Although this nobleman has for so many years held the situation of chief of the province, now for the first time were issued the orders for recruiting; but not until they had become absolutely necessary from the state of the regiments. And even now, the directions of the governor to the officers who were to execute his commands were dictated in the spirit of gentleness;—if this word may be used when despotism sends forth such mandates as these. The official letter recommended impartiality, and threatened punishment, in case wounds were inflicted without the most evident necessity. But many were the instances of injustice which were committed, and could not reach his knowledge. Petitions were sometimes made to the governor, in particular instances of injustice, but these were often of no avail, for the custom is, that the recruits should be returned as being fit for service as soon as possible after their arrival at Recife, and their names placed upon the rolls, from which none can be removed without an order from the sovereign, although the provincial governor should be aware of the true state of the case.

A young man of respectability was carried before a certain capitam-mor, and the alternative was proposed to him either to marry a young woman, whom he had never seen, but who happened to be a burthen to those persons under whose care she was placed, or to become a soldier;—he of course preferred the latter, was sent to Recife and was obliged to enlist. I heard of many instances of young men being pressed into the service, upon whose exertions depended the support of their parents; and of others whose lives were spent in idleness, but to whom the protection of the captain was extended; and some of these were unlawfully employed in apprehending others. I was in the daily habit of seeing a young man who led an idle life and who had no duties to perform, lying in wait for some of his former companions, that he might give notice to the captain of the place of their concealment.

For some weeks the whole country appeared to be afflicted with a civil war; parties of armed men were to be seen in all directions, in search of those who had concealed themselves. An individual who was not well known could not stir from his home without a pass from the captain of the district in which he resided, stating him to be a married man, or naming some other cause of exemption. Nor is a man who is liable to be pressed, safe in his own house, for the tropa or troop would surround the cottage in which any of these persons were suspected to have taken refuge, and they would demand admittance; and if this was denied, no scruple would be entertained of breaking down the door, and entering by force; this occurred to my knowledge in many cases, in several parts of the country. Married men ought to be exclusively employed in the apprehension of those who are liable to be pressed. Militia-men are free from acting as oppressors and from being hunted down; unless the governor applies to the colonels of the regiment to which they belong. It is among the Ordenanças that the recruiting of which I am treating is carried on. Negroes and Indians are excluded from the regiments of the line; the former on the score of colour, and the latter from their cast; white men and mulattos of all shades being alone admitted. The great repugnance which is generally felt towards the service is occasioned by the smallness of the pay, and by the want of proper cloathing, whilst the almost incessant duty precludes any hope of working at a trade, or of pursuing any employment that is not connected with the life of a soldier. Several elderly persons told me, that in former times the service was arranged in a manner totally different; that then no difficulty was found in obtaining the number of men required, but rather, that interest was made for the situation of a soldier of the line. Each of the forts upon the coast was garrisoned from the inhabitants of the neighbourhood to a certain number; these enlisted as soldiers of the line, were embodied, and performed the duty of the forts, receiving the usual pay; but they were not liable to removal to any other post; and from their numbers the duty was easy, by which means they were enabled to have around them their wives and families, and to follow any trade to which they might have been brought up. Thus these men had something for which to fight, if the service required that they should act against any enemy of the State; they had homes to defend, they had comforts of which they might be deprived, they had ties which produced local attachments; but the regiments of the present day are filled up with vagabonds and unmarried men, who could not be expected to fight with the same ardour as those who had to provide for the safety of their families; and these unsettled men might perhaps follow him who gave the highest wages.

The soldier of South America ought to be a being of far different stamp from the professed soldier of Europe. Any war which it might be necessary for Brazil to wage against a foreign invader should (indeed must) be carried on with a direct view to the peculiar advantages of the country; it would be a guerilla war, a war under the cover of woods and hills. Therefore, although it may be as well to have a few disciplined soldiers who may be preserved, for the purpose of forming the basis of a large force, if circumstances should require it, still it is not by discipline that success will be ensured; it is through the affection which the soldiers feel for their government and for their country, that the result will be propitious or the contrary. But the limited population will not allow of considerable numbers of men (comparatively speaking) being cooped up uselessly in forts, without being of any service to the State, whilst the lands are covered with woods, and indeed whilst every branch of industry is requiring additional hands. Besides if you train a large force to military service, who by being so taught become superior to their countrymen, and yet form it of the worst of men; if you bring them up without any affection to the government, and without any hold upon the rest of the inhabitants, excepting that of being able to injure them; the likelihood is, that when you require their aid, they will be found wanting, and perhaps for higher pay may act against those whom they were expected to defend. If the soldier and the peasant can be combined usefully in the same person, it is in Brazil that such a system should be followed.

The foundation of a church which was commenced at the expence of the pês de castello, as the fixed soldiers were called, are to be seen near to the town of Conception. The building was given up when the order arrived from the supreme government then at Lisbon, directing this change of system.

During the recruiting I went to Recife, and in going along by the sea shore, saw at several cottages parties of armed men, who were waiting to see if they could entrap any one who might be liable to be pressed. At the ferry of Maria Farinha there was a large company, which was stationed there. I happened to be obliged to wait during a shower of rain at a cottage in which some of these fellows were watching for their prey. They were talking in high glee of the stratagems which they had made use of to entrap several recruits, and of the blows which they had been obliged to give to make some of them surrender. The men who were stationed here received no pay, and yet they were poor. They would probably have been quietly at their work at home, without the thoughts of violence or barbarity which they now entertained, if the perverse institutions of their country did not bring them forward and teach them to be ruffians, at first lawfully; but bad habits are not easily conquered, and the chance is, or rather there is a certainty, that most of those who had been so employed were rendered worse subjects than they had been before. The track of coast between the main land opposite to Conception and the Rio Doce is within one district, and it was upon this part of the road that the chief disturbance seemed to be going on. The capitam-mor had taken it for granted that no one would give his children for the service, and therefore had, without asking, immediately commenced operations of violence, taking the people unawares, that as many recruits as possible might be obtained, and his zeal in the service made manifest. From the Doce to Olinda, the coast is in the district of Olinda, and here all was quiet; the capitam-mor had followed the orders of the governor strictly, and things were as regularly conducted as the system would allow. These facts are mentioned to shew, that the performance even of the orders of the provincial governor who resides within a few leagues, depends upon the individual character of the person to whom they are forwarded. God grant that I may soon see such a system altered,—that the eyes of those who have the power of effecting this alteration may be opened, for their own good as well as for that of the people over whom they rule.