Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

The Jesuits, who came in great numbers during the first hundred years, tried to protect the Indians from slavery in the captaincies, They gathered them into large societies, called “reductions,” each around a church, converted them, and taught them, — in other words, “civilised” them. Undoubtedly they did save thousands from slavery or slaughter, but the Indians died off, anyway, from small-pox, measles, and inanition, and their culture, primitive but unique, and their skills and arts died with them, or blended gradually into that of Portugese and African newcomers.

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The first event that could be considered “national,” implying a sense of identity and a small amount of cooperation between the northern settlements, at least, was the final driving out of the Dutch. For twenty years they had controlled the northern coast, and at the same time they had conquered the Portugese African colony of Angola, since they, too, needed Negro slaves and in the 17th and 18th centuries eastern Africa and sugar-raising northern Brazil were complementary. The Dutch had taken over the port of Recife as their capital, re-named it Mauritzstad, for the governor, Count Mauritz of Nassau-Siegen, and built it up “in the fashion of Holland,” according to a city-plan, from 150 houses to about 2,000. Dutch forts can still be seen on the lower Amazon, and high, stepped, Dutch roofs in Recife. But they were finally driven out for good in 1654, a triumph for the Catholic Church and for Brazil. (Some of these Mauritzstad-ers eventually settled in New Amsterdam, i.e., New York City.)

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After almost a century of rumors and occasional lucky finds, gold and silver and precious stones were at last discovered in quantity in what is now the State of Minas Gerais (General Mines). It was there that the first real expansion and development of the interior of Brazil took place, and almost entirely owing to the efforts of the famous bandeirantes. They came from around São Paulo, descendants of the Portuguese and the Indian girls, and they were energetic, cruel, and rapacious. They travelled in armed bands, “ bandeiras, ” along with their wives, children, cattle, and Indian slaves. They made long treks and savage raids, for gold and for more slaves, for trading — even attacking and destroying the Jesuit “reductions,” and carrying off their own blood-brothers into slavery. They penetrated far into the present States of Minas Gerais, Goiás, and Mato Grosso (the still almost “far-west” city of Cuiabá was originally one of their trading posts), and the discovery of the more glamorous parts of Brazil’s mineral wealth was almost entirely due to them.

A small but brilliant constellation of mining towns grew up after the bandeirantes. “Mining town” suggests something quite different, however, from these miniature cities, — wealthy, isolated, small out-posts of 18th-century culture, and filled with late, beautiful examples of baroque architecture. Vila Rica (now Ouro Prêto, or “black gold,” named for a dark, reddish gold) was the capital, and there were many more: Mariana, São João del Rey, Morro Velho, Queluz, to name a few. Diamantina, now almost unknown outside Brazil, was famous all over Europe as the diamond center of the world, until the discovery of the Kimberley lodes in Africa in 1870. During the century of the mining boom, a million slaves are supposed to have gone into this region alone, and the wealth rivalled that of the bigger, older, sugar capital of Bahia in the north.

But it was in this group of small, flourishing city-towns that the most important event of the 18th century took place, an event that should be of particular interest to Americans. It was an abortive and tragic attempt at independence from Portugal, called by the odd name of the “Inconfidencia Mineira,” meaning, more or less, the Minas Conspiracy. The standards of culture and education in these towns were probably higher than in any other part of Brazil at the time, and besides miners — rather mine-owners — there were lawyers and army officers and teachers. A group of six of these young men were all poets and thought of themselves as a “school,” not only that, but in those barren highlands, glittering with ores, they thought of themselves as Arcadians, took pastoral pen-names, and actually wrote pastoral poems — and epics and satires as well. It seems as though artificiality could not go much further — however, there were real talents among them, and they also were interested in politics, and particularly the recent successful American War of Independence. They were joined by other intellectuals and army officers, and their leader was a young lieutenant, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier. He occasionally practised dentistry and so was known as “Toothpuller,” Tiradentes. He carried the American Declaration of Independence about with him in his pocket and liked to read it out loud. The group corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and finally one of them was sent to meet him in France, where he was minister plenipotentiary. Jefferson, on a trip for his health, met him cautiously in the Roman ampitheatre at Nîmes. Samuel Putnam, in his book about Brazilian literature, MARVELOUS JOURNEY, says: “this event, although most North Americans have never heard of it, has since become for Brazilians one of the strongest bonds between their democracy and our own.”

Asked his advice about how to foment a revolution and found a republic, Jefferson, apparently, as a diplomat, could promise nothing more than his moral support. The envoy who met him died on the way back to Brazil, but the conspiracy in Minas went ahead and grew over-bold. It was found out, and all the “Inconfidentes” were drastically punished. One committed suicide, most were sent into exile in Angola, and Tiradentes himself was brutally executed, being hung, drawn and quartered. His house was destroyed and the ground where it stood was sprinkled with salt, in the good old medieval way.

The little “School of Minas,” if it can really be called a school, was wiped out, and not only was the first Brazilian movement for independence destroyed but also the first real attempt at a literary movement in the country. The brave but impractical “Arcadian” poets of ’89 could not arouse their country or do battle like our hard-headed small farmers of ’76. But Tiradentes has remained the greatest national hero of Brazil; “Toothpuller Day” is a holiday; almost every town in Brazil has its Tiradentes square or street; and rebellion against Portugal had begun, although independence was not to come for thirty-three more years and then not in the form of a revolution at all.

The history of South America in the 19th century resembles Shakespeare’s battle scenes: shouts and trumpets; small armies on-stage, small armies off-stage; Bolívar here, Bolívar there; bloodshed, death-scenes, and long pauses in the action for fine speeches. But Brazil differed from the rest of the continent in two ways. First, while all the other countries rebelled against Spanish rule and finally broke up, into nine republics, Brazil managed to remain politically united. It had its minor civil wars, and secessions, some lasting several years, but it always pulled itself together again. And second, it had no real revolution or war of independence. It was ruled by the House of Braganza right down until 1889, and it still has a Braganza Pretender to the throne, — rather, with typical tropical proliferation of species, it has two Pretenders, first cousins.

The long period of relative stability enjoyed by Brazil in the 19th century gave it great advantages: a strong feeling of national unity and almost a century of history in which it still takes pride. But the pride is tinged with saudades, nostalgia, sometimes even despair. Brazilians feel that the national honor, international reputation, foreign credit — even the size and prestige of their Navy — have never again stood so high.