Many parts of South America have suffered from over-praise as much as from unmerited blame. None have suffered more than Brazil, shut off from the non-Latin world rather more than is Spanish America because of her Portuguese idiom. There is little enough thorough study of Spanish on the part of Anglo-Saxons, but it is mighty compared to the study of Portuguese, a beautiful language and probably rather more readily acquired than the formal and clear-cut idiom of Castile. Non-comprehension of Portuguese and Spanish has been a bar to understanding of the soul of Latin America; nearly every person who wishes to learn something about any part of the Southern Continent runs to the libraries for a book of travels, generally written by a foreigner, himself sparsely acquainted with the language of the country about which he is writing, and frequently entirely from an outside viewpoint. There is a remarkable absence of study of South America from the South American’s viewpoint, and it is for this reason that I have tried in this book to quote from Brazilian books and newspapers rather than from the ideas of foreigners, however distinguished. It is a loss to the Anglo-Saxon that so much fine and acute comment and description of South America by South Americans falls on deaf ears because of the language difficulty; perhaps the next few years may see the new interest in things South American stimulated by translations from many more of the writings of South American authors.
Only by understanding the South American better can the Anglo-Saxon see the relation that mutually exists, and realize the depth of the gulf between them at the same time. Especially since the outbreak of the European War we have seen an astounding number of agreeable but visionary articles written on the subject of the strong logical tie, geographical, political and mental, between North and South America. The truth is however that the two continents have little geographical connection—Panama was once a strait—and perhaps even less racial, religious, and mental leanings. Both sections of the Americas have drawn their blood, language, religion and political ideals from Europe, but from two strongly marked sections—one, the Protestant Anglo-Saxon, commercial, mechanically inventive: the other, the Roman Catholic Latin section, artistic and mentally brilliant but not usually a born commerciante.
It is just as well to realize this difference clearly, to know that, at least in the past, the Americas have been more closely bound to Europe than to each other; the ties are especially strong in Brazil, more tender than in many parts of the New World, because separation in a political sense was obtained without violence. It is only through understanding of the mental and social attitude and conditions of the Brazilian that the newcomer can avoid pitfalls.
Mistakenly advised, and often lured by too golden promises, the stranger has often rushed to one or another part of South America, has found bitter disappointment, and gone home with denunciation of all things South American upon his tongue; but in many instances the fault lay within himself, in his want of knowledge of circumstances, physical and mental, and of his improper equipment for the task that lay to his hand. There are many such tasks, but they must be approached with equipment and spirit equally prepared; no fortune is to be attained by a mere rub of the magic lamp.
This book is offered chiefly with the hope of helping to stimulate interest in Brazil, to induce a more thorough study than these pages can offer in the only place where Brazil can be studied—in her own fair confines. If it supplements what has already been written, brings up to date for the time being the story of Brazil’s development, if it awakens in more of the energetic and able people of the world a wish to take part in the opening-up of the great Brazilian resources, this book will have served its modest purpose. It is the fruit of seven years’ travel in and study of Latin America, and two years’ special work on and in Brazil, where seventeen out of the twenty States were visited.
A debt is owing to many Brazilian publications, sources of much statistical matter as well as illumination of Brazilian thought, as the Jornal do Commercio of Rio, Brasil Ferro Carril, very many local journals of different States, Wileman’s Brazilian Review, the Diario Official issued by various authorities; the invaluable Mensagens, with their financial and industrial surveys, issued by State Presidents; to many kind and helpful friends in Brazil, England and America; to the South American Journal; and especially to Mr. W. Roberts of the London Times, to whom I am indebted for most of the subject matter in “The World’s Horticultural and Medicinal Debt to Brazil.”
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF BRAZIL
Brazil and the Brazilians cannot be understood without knowledge of their history, for here as in no other part of Latin America the past has led up to the present without any violent upheaval. While the Spanish colonies of Central and South America were plunged first in revolutionary and afterwards in civil war, shedding not only blood but also tradition and brotherhood with their kin, Portuguese America was saved from similar conditions by the odd turn of fortune that made her a monarchy, independent of Europe and yet ruled by a European prince, during the most critical years of the nineteenth century.
Thanks to Napoleon Buonaparte, no furious chasm, difficult for even thoughts to bridge, was opened between Brazil and the Mother Country; it was never necessary for young Brazilians to be taught that Europe was an oppressor who must be bitterly fought. Brazil gained in the arts of peace and in the retention of pleasant relations between herself and the lusitanos, while, in contrast, Spanish American feeling is still so strongly anti-Spanish that in times of unrest it is the immigrant of Iberian blood who is singled out for special ill-will. These republics are without memorials to their Spanish discoverers or rulers; Mexico, for example, has no statue or tablet to the memory of Hernan Cortés, great figure as he was. Admiration for the conquistadores is generally forgotten in bitterness against Spanish rule, all history before revolutionary times is coloured with this deliberately fostered feeling, and only occasionally does there arise a speaker or writer broad-minded enough to take up the cudgels for Spain and the rich inheritance she left to her children.
Brazil was more fortunate. From the time of the first Portuguese settlement down to the present day she has never suffered any great internal conflagration: there were persistent Indian troubles in the first centuries until the survivors of these unlucky natives moved back to the interior forests, but among the population that grew up in Brazil, hardy and prolific, there has been little strife with the insignificant exception of the feuds of the Emboabas, the Mascates and the Balaios.