“Brazil’s Century?”, the fourteenth and final chapter of Brazil: The Troubled Rise of a Global Power makes predictions for Brazil’s future in the coming century based on current trends and paths that the country is currently on. A central theme of the chapter is the Brazilian idea of overcoming the complexo de vira-latas (“mongrel complex”) that had plagued the country for so long. Despite the obvious fact, that Brazil still has a lot of progress still to be made, a lot of progress has been made since the fall of the dictatorship in the 1980s.
The fall of the long-standing military rule of the country ushered in a new era of change for Brazil. After some immediate chaos that formed in the vacuum of the martial law, a new democratic government promising liberal reform was envisioned. This change, which created the modern Brazilian republic, was embraced by Brazilians of all walks of life. When Cardoso came to power in 1989, his liberal economic reform came as a result of a consensus reached among politicians, though such agreement would would prove to be rare in the coming decades. The liberal economic policies stalled the inflation that had hurt the country during the military dictatorship. Brazil experienced economic expansion that was driven mainly by the stabilization driven by the commodity boom. Many Brazilians took this for granted, but economists realized that in order for Brazil to reach its desired level of GDP, it would have to significantly reform public spending. Because of this revelation, the country started to invest in elevating their productivity to create faster growth. However this growth came at the expense of the classes C, D, and E. When the call for increased liberal economic policies came, the call was not immediately answered, and was actually ignored for a short while. This is because of Brazil’s innate conservative nature. Brazil’s “allergy to liberalism” (Reid 287) stemmed from the power structure that had long defined the country to the time when it was still an empire; power was concentrated with the top, trickling down to the bottom. The end result was, that, two hundred years later, Brazil would see progression come at the speed of a snail. Cardoso’s liberal reform being adopted with open arms was in many ways, a rare phenomenon in Brazilian politics. It is important to note that the push for progression is largely held back by the politicians, not by the people, who have protested for reform on a large scale at least three times. Political corruption, fiscal deficits, and many other similar previously discussed problems were also at play for the lack of reform. The perfect storm of problems that faced Brazil during the 20th century not only catalyzed the social progression of the country, but also set the stage for it to become an influential global power. In many ways, both the former and the latter are true today, as although the country still has significant challenges ahead, it has made significant progress in a short amount of time. Brazil will quite possibly succeed in facing those challenges as well, since the periodic protests for reform only accelerate the change that comes to the nation. So to answer the question posed at the beginning of the chapter, will the 21st century be Brazil’s century? Given what we have seen happen in the country during the past two decades, and that the political structure is going through changes not seen for a long time, we are potentially looking at a Brazilian transformation that could make it a 21st century global power.
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Chapter 13: “An Unreformed Leviathan”
Chapter thirteen, “An Unreformed Leviathan,” discusses the socio-economic and political changes (and lack thereof) that had shaped Brazil during the 20th and 21st century. The highlight of the chapter is the failure of the Brazilian socio-economic class system. The system, which was divided alphabetically by A, B, C, D, and E in that specific order from highest to lowest. This flawed system suffered a wakeup call when the Free Fare Movement political group started a protest rally in Sao Paulo to fight against recent significant increases to the Sao Paulo bus system. The protests were later broken up by police, which only added to the anger and frustration felt by Brazilians from the lower social classes (mainly D, and E, but also some of C too). In addition, cuts to public spending to make way for the 2013 FIFA Confederation only angered people even more. Dilma’s approval ratings plummeted for a short while, as her policies were the polar opposite of what the lower classes needed. Dilma’s poll rating rose again nonetheless, as she vowed to create pacts for public transportation spending. While on the outside, the class struggle was at a crisis point, on the inside of Congress, problems that had been heating up for a while finally boiled over. The PT had long suffered from an ideological identity crisis. When it was founded in the 1980s, it was an attempt to thwart the rise of a conservative police state from emerging in Brazil. Shortly afterwards, the PSDB, which would be Cardoso’s party, was formed. A rivalry was born between the two parties that would shape the nation for the next few decades. This competition not only led to an atmosphere of gerrymandering, but also created a considerably divided Congress. This rift would exacerbate the already serious problem involving public spending. Because of the ongoing fiscal deficit, Brazil’s level of economic development was curbed significantly, and state government was making it worse by not boosting productivity in key areas such as infrastructure. Inequality still plagued the demographics as well. But the situation was about to get much worse, as the Brazilian pension bubble was about to burst. For a long time in Brazil, pension spending had been quite high, with the richest 20% of the citizens getting 3.6 times more public social spending than the bottom 20%. As a result of this ludicrous spending imbalance, certain programs, particularly education and its quality stayed stagnant instead of rising. This was also hindered by the Congressional corruption, which had long been public knowledge but the effects of which were once again being thrust into the limelight. This corruption included the siphoning off of public money and the money theft. The flashpoint came when PMDB deputy Natan Donadon, representing the northwestern state of Rondônia, was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for stealing R$8 million while he was Rondônia’s finance director. Despite this, he was not expelled from office. This blatant corruption climaxed into a struggle to reform the government to eliminate both the political corruption and the Congressional infighting. After the Donadon scandal, the PSDB and the PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party) were instrumental in transforming the education systems of Minas Gerais and Pernambuco, dropping poverty levels in both places. More importantly though, regional NGOs expanded their operations to monitor corruption, which was very helpful in spreading their uncovered information to the general public. When Congress was debating ideas to reform the representation system, the PT opted for having the campaigns financed exclusively from public donors and party candidates to be determined by the party leadership. When protests erupted because of this, Congress passed legislation barring politicians guilty of a crime from taking public office. The protests surrounding Dilma, and the lack of reforms galvanized the push for accelerated change in Brazil. There are several socio-economic and political actions that shaped the country in the last few years that were in the making for several decades. First, the failed alphabetical social class led to protests for reforms for public spending. Cuts to spending the government conducted because of sports and cultural events also contributed. Next, the competition between the PT and the PSDB evolved into classic infighting that was accompanied by gerrymandering and gridlock that led to increased public frustration and failed attempts at reform for key services such as infrastructure and the horribly skewed pension system. The protests increased, but this time, there was a government response. Several cities saw overhauls in their education systems and NGO anti-corruption monitoring skyrocketed, increasing public awareness of corruption. This change shows the key message of the chapter of how the Congressional congestion produced a perfect storm of maleficence that led to intense public frustration which finally led to some progression in certain areas. Chapter twelve, “Global Ambitions and Frustrations” begins Part III: “Prospects” and plunges into Brazilian international relations. While the chapter does cover the relations during Cardoso’s administration, it largely discusses international relations under Lula and, to a lesser extent, Dilma. The former of the two was legendary for his friendly relations with many politicians who were largely considered to be dictators, such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Muammar Qaddafi.
Cardoso’s presidency coincided with the fall of communism. As a result, his international diplomacy package consisted largely of regional unity, international alliances, and global outreach for change and prosperity. In addition, he saw an ally in the United States. This reaching out to the US would come to be an advantage as it would avoid risks of confrontation. When Lula became president in the election of 2002, he reached out even further among the regional and international community. In addition, he continued Cardoso’s system of “soft” economic policies. For example, he was a staunch advocate of Argentinean re-industrialization and was an influential voice in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, simultaneous trade blocs, such as the Pacific Alliance between Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia threatened this. This ironically fostered a “competitive liberalization” (Reid 252) within the region, further increasing growth. In addition, Lula expanded Brazil’s international outreach with many nations. This was most successful in Africa. He established diplomatic ties with twenty-five African nations and created a number of embassies in said countries. He also did support several despotic regimes in not just Africa, but also Asia, becoming thick as thieves with Qaddafi. But the most significant relationship Lula had with any foreign leader was his with George W. Bush. Lula’s relationship with George W. Bush began shortly after he was elected after December 2002. Lula and Bush both thought of each other as leaders to whom they could relate. Lula often gave Bush a helping hand when confronting South American anti-American leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Despite the relationship between Lula and Bush, Lula would not share the same feelings towards Bush’s successor Barack Obama, whom he thought of as having a cold attitude. Because of the cold atmosphere between the two countries’ leaders, the US became more self-reliant on Latin American affairs. This continued under Dilma’s presidency, during which it was revealed that the NSA had been spying on Dilma’s emails. Chapter twelve’s focus is on Brazil’s role in the international community, especially with the United States. There were several defining moments in Brazil’s diplomatic history. First, Cardoso’s decision to reach out to the US started off the Brazilian Republic’s relationship with the then-recently promoted sole superpower. This fostered continued growth under Cardoso’s term and further under Lula’s. Simultaneously, Brazil was taking an active role in trade blocs with other nations. These are the liberal economic policies that would eventually come back to hurt Brazil. It was also during this time when Lula developed his friendship with George W. Bush, and when the United States became involved in South American affairs, with Brazil often siding with the US. However, when Barack Obama came to power, Lula was quite put out and relations stalled. This distance continued with Dilma after she came to office. The unfriendly relations of two Brazilian presidents with one US president caused some political rifts that still exist between the two nations. Chapter Eleven, “Brazil’s Guided Capitalism,” discusses the issues of Brazil’s current issues with capitalism, industry, and international competition. In particular, Brazil’s long-standing rivalry with China over industry and manufacturing. The chapter then continues to discuss the topic at the heart of the issue, cost of Brazilian labor and the struggle that businesses face with it.
The chapter starts off with chronicling the story of Embraer, Brazil’s foremost aircraft manufacturing company, which started off in the 1990s and since then had climbed the ladder to being the number one power in the nation’s aircraft manufacturing. But the tsunami of the 2008 Wall Street crash hit Embraer quite hard. Massive layoffs were made and the company revamped its business model. Rather than go with its originally proposed business strategy and compete with Boeing, Airbus and similar corporations, they went with their plan b of increasing fuel efficiency in their already-existing line of jets. This plan b turned out to benefit the company, as Embraer had already had been hired by government agencies for military aircraft, and were working with companies such as Boeing on those projects. Embraer is an adaptable Brazilian company which is able to change its business strategy for the better. This is not just an isolated incident, as other Brazilian companies, such as what the electrical technologies company Weg has done in recent years. Weg has managed to attract foreign customers and still maintain the bulk of their operation in Brazil during a time in which real was strong and production costs would have been high. Both Embraer and Weg are clear examples of successful Brazilian private enterprises, and how it can work in the country if done right. Unfortunately, however, many businesses are not as adaptable as Weg or Embraer, and they have succumbed to many economic factors. These factors all stem from the issue of production costs when concerning competition in the international marketplace, and to alleviate the problem, the left-leaning administrations of Lula and Dilma sought to increase government intervention in the manufacturing industries. In the past decade and a half, cheap Chinese manufacturing costs have put the Brazilian industry at a crossroads. In response to this, Lula’s government created a system of subsidies and protectionist policies to support the manufacturing industries. Also, the nation saw the expanded involvement of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) in managing industry. For example, the BNDES was attempting to jump start several companies involved in the manufacture of electronics. However, at the same time, the BNDES was creating the false appearance of a healthy credit market, thereby hurting commercial banks. It was after this revelation that many Brazilians began to oppose what they saw as the excess government involvement of the BNDES into the private manufacturing industry. Despite, when Dilma’s term began in 2011, many of her policy plans concerning the BNDES were to further increase government intervention. This big government policy had serious drawbacks for a major industry: automobile manufacturing. There was infighting between the government and private sector about imports and how there were auto parts that were being imported from cheap labor countries. The auto companies struck back by creating an import tariff.This bickering has con for several more years. Apart from Brazilian cars, the shoe industry was undergoing a geographic relocation; one was to the Brazilian northeast, the second was to China. Prior to this move, many shoe factories were located in Rio Grande de Soul in the city of Novo Hamburgo, the “National Capital of Shoes.” Now, however, they were relocating to the northeast and China because of the far cheaper labor there in sweatshops. Despite this exodus, some shoe-manufacturing firms still maintained a foothold in Novo Hamburgo, where they grew to compete fiercely with European companies. The Brazilian shoe industry and the exodus of shoe companies from Novo Hamburgo revealed much about productivity in Brazil, which was a spreading problem among the labor force. For many Brazilians, the rather low productivity came as a result of excessive monetary burdens such as taxes and interest rates. Between the 1980s and 2012, there was a thirteen percent tax hike among Brazilians. This hurt the Brazilian poor unusually hard, and when coupled with the oppressive labor laws, many of them either became unemployed or underemployed. Other issues that were supplemental included the long-standing issues with inflation and debt, but the largest bulwark to productivity was repeated insistence of government interventions in the private sector. However this did change as a result of a need to fix the crumbling Brazilian infrastructure, when in 2013, they auctioned off contracts for federal highway repair. Private investing increased following this, helping industry once more. Manufacturing was then feeling a reprieve thanks in large part to depreciation of the real. This began the modern prosperity felt by the Brazilian private sector. The key points of Chapter Eleven revolve around the interaction of Brazil’s private sector with that of the international community and the interaction of the private sector with the government. First, the emergence of Chinese cheap manufacturing hurt Brazilian businesses causing some to fail, but others to adapt and grow. Second, the excess government involvement initiated during Lula’s administration and the early years of Dilma’s administration caused a ricochet effect on certain Brazilian industries. When the government increased privatization of the infrastructure system, intervention into the manufacturing industry subsided. Both of these factors led to the the current growth of the Brazilian private sector. Chapter 10 covers the Brazilian oil and farming boom of the late 20th century and early 21st century. Specifically, the struggle between private and government-run enterprise is a major discussion topic in terms of oil, and the issue of the destruction of the Amazon as integral to understanding trends in Brazilian farming.
Brazilian offshore oil was first discovery in the 1990s. By 2007, Eike Batista, Brazilian’s prominent tycoon and CEO of OGX (Eike’s oil and gas company), was constructing the Açu Superport just north of Rio to serve the growing oil industry. Around the same time, several new deep offshore wells were discovered, further increasing the demand for the port. However, many of Eike’s wells would be plagued by production problems and development costs. By July 2013, OGX had active wells only in the Tubarão Azul field, as the others became so plagued with the aforementioned production and development issues. As production declined, OGX’s share prices dropped and dropped. At long last, OGX filed for bankruptcy in October 2013 after facing US$5 billion in debt and millions more in interest payments. Like a row of dominos, Eike’s other companies folded. In a matter of months, Eike’s domination of the Brazilian oil business was no more. As this was happening, Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, was also facing constraints with their wells and the unproductive Brazilian economy. Petrobras’s offshore drilling operations began in the 1960s. The subsequent decades saw a massive price increase in the extraction of Brazilian crude, as the country increasingly saw a need to curb dependence on foreign oil. Further decades later, in 2007, Petrobras’s discovery of the massive deep-sea fields would be poised to increase production further. After the pre-sal plan was developed to safely ensure production, Dilma (who was then the head of the board of directors for Petrobras), formed the state-owned company Pré-Sal Petroléo (PPSA). Petrobras and the PPSA then doubled their efforts to build new tankers and other transportation equipment to be used in the new oil fields. Unfortunately, the cost of these materials, coupled with development costs of drilling in the geologically hazardous fields, caused significant problems for Petrobras. The high development costs came as a result of drilling precautions that followed the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2013, after Dilma had taken office, she appointed Maria das Graças Foster to serve as the new CEO of the company in an effort to alleviate the dilemma. Maria’s plan was to cut operational costs significantly. This decision was made even as production at most of Petrobras’ oil fields was sharply dropping. The cut to operational costs was made despite this because pre-sal fields, the company’s most profitable, were still increasing in production. To add to the company’s already mounting problems, inflation of the real started to take hold once again, resulting in massive plunges to Petrobras’ market share. Starting in May 2013, Brazil held its auction of offshore drilling licenses with record bidders. With the second auction in October, for the deep pre-sal fields, there was only one bidder, a consortium of companies including Petrobras, Shell and two Chinese firms. While the dangerous pre-sal drilling was abandoned, the record bids indicated a high interest in Brazilian oil. Investments started flooding in, especially to the new oil superpower in the country, General Electric. GE has several large technology institutes in Brazil, and their power only grew afterwards. This set the stage for Brazil to potentially become the world leader in energy production. Apart from oil, an agricultural revolution was taking place in Brazil. By the twenty-first century, Brazil was already the world’s chief agricultural superpower, being a major exporter of coffee, sugar, orange juice, and beef and poultry. This revolution was catalyzed by the establishment of the Embrapa, an agricultural postgraduate degree institute and the exodus of southern Brazilian farmers (gauchos) into the newly opened cerrado savanna of central Brazil. This sustained growth help to prop up many related industries, such as biofuels and biochemicals. Eventually, the agricultural operations began to encroach on Brazilian Amazonia, causing a backlash by environmentalists. The government under Lula, who was a staunch believer in fighting climate change, slowly reversed this deforestation. But preserving the Amazon ecosystem wasn’t the sole thing warranting preservation. There were also many Amerindian tribes that were facing displacement. The most notable instance of this was the proposed construction of the Belo Monte Dam, which would dam up the Xingu River and threaten the continued existence of many native tribes. Eventually the dam was redesigned to work around this and become a run-of-river dam which would create a smaller reservoir. The project, still under construction, is still criticized because of its environmental and social impacts. In this chapter, the main focal points were mainly economic and environmental. The production and developmental costs that were faced by both Eike’s OGX and Petrobras came as a result of new drilling precautions needed to prevent deep sea oil spills. When these costs were too high, both companies had to abandon their projects, leaving the market open for foreign companies. In the Brazilian agricultural world, the exodus of the gauchos to the cerrado coincided with the beginning of expansion into the region because of economic pressures. When the agricultural expansion encroached on the Amazon Basin, environmental groups worked tooth and nail to stop it. They largely succeeded in stalling deforestation, which decreased by over 15,000 square kilometers. The protests did not just stop with the deforestation, but also with large-scale hydroelectric dams such as the Belo Monte. Protests over the Belo Monte eventually led to a redesign of the dam, although the said redesign still have flaws. These protests and the actions that they brought about were a step in the right direction for the nation. In Chapter 9, Reid’s primary talking point concerns the struggle of the Brazilian poor and the attempts by Dilma to alleviate their pain and social stigma to create a Brazil with a stable middle-class, a long sought-after dream. The blight of the Brazilian poverty was a result of various political, economic, and also circumstantial issues. The circumstantial aspects are mainly geographical and meteorological.
Much of Brazilian poverty has been concentrated in the northeast sector of the country. That region consists of a mix of coastal tropical forests and inland sertão. In both areas farming is the significant economic engine, and in both areas, meteorological phenomena often threatened and devastated these areas. In the coastal forests, malnutrition and famine were the worst social issues. This was aggravated by environmental destruction of the forests, which was commonly done via slashing-and-burning, which in the long run causes nutrient depletion in the soil, thus continuing the famine. In the sertão, drought was and is the major issue, and crop shortages are a major issue, which only exacerbate the poverty. Economics and politics also played a substantial part in the poverty surrounding this region. During the dictatorship era, the northeast underwent fast, unregulated growth just like the rest of Brazil, but the new wealth was not redistributed and the eventual massive inflation only made problems worse. Brazilian democracy eventually would help to ameliorate these problems. In 1989, when Cardoso was elected President, many of his policies shrunk the wage inequality from the get-go. In 2002, Lula’s Bolsa Familia helped out the denizens of the northeast even more. Wages increased. This was because of faster growth, and with it faster job creation. In addition, the northeast underwent a major education reform, leading to a more educated, and hence higher paid workforce. Lastly social programs like Bolsa Familia allowed the impoverished to climb the rungs to a higher standard of living. Dilma too planned to continue the shrinkage of the income inequality in the northeast. Specifically, she planned to eliminate “absolute poverty” of making less than R$70 a month per person. Unfortunately, however, her policies would create more controversy and less success than she had hoped for. Dilma’s social programs for the northeast mainly consisted of cash payments to families with an income level below her proposed R$70 a month threshold. In addition, she heavily relied on teams of social workers and health experts to find families in the northeast that had slipped through the cracks of the government safety net. The effects of these approaches were quite promising; some suggested “a new middle class” was being created, not just in the northeast, but throughout the rest of Brazil as well. But this new class was in many ways becoming just a new and improved poor class instead of being absorbed into the true Brazilian middle class. Many of the “new poor” communities were still plagued from drug crime and gang violence. Many sociologists and analysts realized that in order for Brazil to reach an income inequality compatible with a middle-class society, they would have to accelerate the shrinkage of the income gap and hold it steady for several decades; needless to say, many political analysts found this to be an impossibility. Brazil was trying to enable growth via domestic consumption, but since that had run its course, economists needed to find new viable options. The government came to rely more on public services to assist the Brazilian poor. Health care systems were especially important. But these programs were not foolproof, and so private groups, such as Pastoral da Criança, a Catholic organization designed to train women in health care, contributed. The governmental health care system was inefficient in part because of political corruption. Also, there was a shortage of doctors in many of the more impoverished regions of Brazil. To alleviate this issue, Dilma enacted a system to recruit foreign doctors to those regions. While fighting the health care issue, Dilma was simultaneously reforming the education system of Brazil’s northeast. Education reform had previously started during Cardoso’s administration when his education minister, Renato Souza, revamped the education system, supplying many schools with textbooks and money for meal plans directly, avoiding the gridlocked bureaucracy of the region. Fernando Haddad, the education minister from 2005 to 2012, expanded funding even more so, as well as financial incentives for schools at both ends of the performance spectrum. Despite this, the education system still had a high rate of grade repetition and an above average dropout level. Sociologists realized that the problem lay in the focus of the education. Teachers were using academic lecturing to teach their pupils instead of age-appropriate interactive stimulation. As a result, kids weren’t learning as much as they could have, leading to dropouts and grade repetition. Besides Brazil’s lopsided education system, there were also unaddressed racial issues which were tearing the country apart. The Brazilian racial divide had been long-standing in the country. By the time of Dilma, the divide was mainly concentrated along the lines of black/brown and white. Brazilians of Amerindian and African descent were usually at lower rungs of the Brazilian social pyramid. The reforms enacted by the republic had given the lower ethnicities a slight boost, but there was still rampant inequity. By Dilma’s term, the Supreme Court had recently upheld a controversial decision to establish an affirmative action system for universities which would set quotas for the number of students of a particular ethnicity to enroll in that university. Although this was intended to help the disenfranchised, its effect at reversing inequality was little if none at all. The biggest issue for Brazilians regarding changing the racial divide was simply a change of attitude, which many Brazilians were not inclined to embrace. The race conflict was also organized along the lines of housing. In Rio, for instance, the poor lived in the morros (hills) upon which the favelas were concentrated. The upper-class cariocas of Rio lived in the asfalto environment of the cities. These areas were ridden with gangs and corruption, with both middle-class and upper-class cariocas hesitant to address the problem. The response was to drastically increase the police force in the dysfunctional and gang-ridden slums. This crackdown was more than just an increase in the police force, but also of private security firms and neighborhood watch groups. The primary task of these groups was to fight the gang-problems and the cocaine epidemic that was sweeping through the Brazilian poor. This more or less constituted a “Brazilian war on drugs” to combat the drug trafficking and crime, especially those involving crack cocaine.. This crackdown did have an unfortunate consequence. It dramatically increased the prison population in Brazil, to around 515,000 in 2011. In this chapter, the main events revolve around the Brazilian poor and political decision-making around them. First, the rise of Brazilian democracy significantly contributed to a living increase among the extremely poor (especially in the northeast). The republic enacted programs like Bolsa Familia that gave impoverished families a boost. The next series of events concern the policies and events of Dilma’s administration. The first such policy was that of creating government safety nets to find impoverished families in need of government assistance. In addition, there was significant help given to school systems to increase graduation rates and encourage academic excellence. While these programs in and of themselves are not mistakes, Dilma and her administration made the mistake by thinking that these problems could just be snuffed out of existence. The idea was that the government could enact policies like waving a magic wand over the problem. The end result revealed the obvious that even though Brazil had made considerable progress, it still had a lot of work to do. Also, the administering of education in the impoverished areas was quite provincial and unmodernized, leading to continued rates of high school incompletion. The ethnic and social issues also erupted during Dilma’s term and was promptly dealt with by enacting affirmative action programs and by cracking down on drugs which were ravaging slums. The affirmative action program was unpopular among the Brazilian populace because it differed from long-held social norms. The war on drugs program was also criticized not only because it significantly increased the prison population, but also because many impoverished Brazilians were jailed for simply drug offenses. All in all, the policies used by the Brazilian Republic to combat poverty and crime had a mixed outcome. In certain instances, the policies worked well, but not well enough to fully combat the problems. In other scenarios, the policies used were utter failures. Chapter eight, Lulismo and the Brazilian Dream chronicles Lula da Silva’s rise and term as Brazilian president. Importantly, the shift of his political ideologies was very important not only in the story of his political career, but in how it would shape Brazilian history.
In 1980, a young Lula formed the Partidos dos Trabahodores (Workers’ Party), a political party designed to fight for Brazilian socialism. The Workers’ Party, or PT, as it would come to be known, quickly became extremely popular and Brazil’s largest left-wing party. Very important in the export of the socialist message were intellectuals who became active advocates of the party. Although some Brazilians misconstrued the party’s message as Marxist, the true message of the party was more of the promotion of a stable democracy and of citizenship for all Brazilians. By the late 1980s, Lula’s popularity was still quite high, and it was then when he decided to first run for President in the election of 1989. He lost this election to Henrique Cardoso, as well as the elections of 1994 and 1998. Lula lost these times because his archaic socialist message failed to appeal to Cardoso’s vows of stable economic reform. As a result of this, Lula moved from his far-left position to the center of the political spectrum. After Cardoso failed to prevent the devaluation of the real, Brazilians sought change once again, which they found in the form of Lula. Thus, in 2002, he was elected President; the term of Lula the Centrist had begun. During Cardoso’s term, Lula had been opposed to some of the economic policies of the president. In particular, he was one of the few who did not support the Real Plan. The Real Plan, of course, benefited financial markets for a time. When Lula became elected, the markets took a significant plunge. But to the Brazilian people, Lula represented a beacon of hope who could bridge the gap between left-wing socialists and financial fat-cats. Starting in 2003, he started enacting a series of six reforms which would transform major social systems. In particular, they included reforms to pension, taxation, labor, the political system, land management, and the financial system. While the Brazilian people supported these provisions, the financial institutions were not so keen on the interest rates that were included in the new financial reform package. This standoff between Lula, his Central Bank and the Brazilian financial markets would continue a while longer. Simultaneously, Lula’s centrist shift was coming back to hurt him. As Lula’s policies began to show him to be more of a market capitalist, his own Workers’ Party began to distrust the new president, despite the fact that many people whom he nominated for his cabinet and various other positions were still strongly allied with the PT. They were also originally critical of his policies to combat poverty. When the policy that he implemented (Bolsa Familia) was a cash-transfer program that differed considerably from the plan proposed by the PT, relations were further strained. However, Lula’s row with the PT wasn’t just confined to the party itself; it was in Congress that the feud reached proportions that could have sunk Lula’s presidency. While the Brazilian 2002 Presidential election was going on, so too was the Congressional election. As with any major election, the result would determine which party would take control. For the PT, the stakes were particularly high. Unfortunately, they lost control of Congress by a significant margin. At this time in the Congressional history, there were a lot of carpetbagging and party transfers. In order to settle the recent power shift, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), attempted to exchange its own votes in return for two lucrative ministry positions. Lula, who in this instance was siding with his own party, refused the PMDB’s offer. Because of this decision, Lula’s cabinet became overrun with PT members and the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), creating a system of imbalances between Lula’s administration and Congressional representatives. This corruption continued unimpeded during Lula’s administration, eventually reaching a high point during the Mensalao scandal of 2005. In June, news broke about intense corruption in both the PT and PTB. The highlight of the scandal concerned PT contributions made to their respective candidates of around R30,000 ($12,500) a month per candidate. Ultimately, around November, the scandal ended with all of the people implicated in the scandal being convicted. The incident was revealing on many levels, but particularly it showed the the inner workings of political corruption to the Brazilian people. In this particular episode, it showed how the PT was fueled solely by the pursuit of more power and that the the corruption that they were facing was generated internally from within the government. More politicians fell after Mensalao, and the aftershock of the incident had an effect on Lula too. Because of the scandal, his approval ratings in the developed south and southeast dropped considerably. However, his approval ratings jumped in the poorer northeast, where his Bolsa Familia policies were having significant benefits. This won him the 2006 election. During Lula’s second term, he would undergo a turnaround, in which many of his new policies would create growth. Lula’s second term would see significant economic growth through the implementation of new policies. One such program was the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC), which was the reconciliation of many, formerly separate government programs. It expanded utilities to many inner city favelas. Though PAC did help to energize growth, the major spark came in 2007 when Petrobras struck a significant oil deposit in the South Atlantic. Dilma Rousseff, the head of Petrobras Board of Directors, concocted the pré-sal, which declared that the new oil property of the state. The discovery catalyzed a new sense of euphoria across Brazil. But just as this euphoria was accelerating higher, growth would be hampered by the crash of 2008, which Lula pretentiously shrugged off. In one instance, he described the effects of the crash as a tsunami, which was ravaging the Americas and Europe but would hit Brazil in the form of a ripple. But Lula couldn’t have been more wrong, and instead the financial tsunami hit the Brazilian economy quite hard, though it was comparatively a lot better than other Latin American countries. Still, many large financial institutions and businesses folded and even more lost considerable revenue. Despite the impact, the Brazilian economy had more or less recovered by 2009. In the aftermath, Lula explained how the crash showed how liberal capitalism had failed and how state capitalism was the future for Brazil. Lula transformed the Brazil economy over the remainder of his term, created massive economic growth. As a result, many of the issues that the country faced after the crash quickly dissipated. Unfortunately, this prosperity would not last, as Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, would stumble during her presidency, with significant outlash from the people. Dilma Rousseff was first appointed as Lula’s PT successor in 2009. The 2011 election saw Rousseff (or Dilma, as the Brazilian people would refer to her as) win comfortably. Dilma, a self-described Brazilian democratic socialist who proclaimed her Brazilian goal as to establish it as “a country with solid and entrepreneurial middle class.” In addition, she vowed to abolish dire, favela-style poverty and finally establish economic stability. But one of the most important assurances was that of cracking down on political corruption with a zero-tolerance attitude. Regrettably, most of the promises made by Dilma would be broken. Within only a few years into her term, her financial analysts realized the the real was continuing to depreciate in value. The credit boom that had fueled the years of the Real Plan and of Lula’s term had all but evaporated. Shortly thereafter, economic growth ground to a halt. With this, a domino effect began. Almost all of the guarantees Dilma had made had been broken. But the promise of vanquishing corruption would not only be broken, but obliterated. Chapter eight had many focal points around which Brazilian history was crafted. In this particular time period, a Newtonian-type chain reaction of events took place which would change the country’s direction. The first event was the formation of the socialist Workers’ Party in the 1980s and Lula becoming a spearheader for the party shortly after. Second, Cardoso’s election and economic stabilization with the Real Plan. Eventually, when Lula was elected in 2002, Cardoso’s economic success shifted Lula from left to center on the political spectrum, causing him to continue many of Cardoso’s economic policies. This further increased the liberal fiscal policies which would eventually contribute to the stalled economic growth seen under Dilma’s presidency. Another significant point focal point was the toleration of the systemic corruption that had been playing out for decades. This increased resentment of the government by the Brazilian people, which they would eventually unleash on Dilma. Chapter seven, “From Disorder to Progress Under Cardoso,” begins part two, The Making of Democratic Brazil. In the chapter, Reid covers the transitions that took place in the 1990s during and after the fall of the military dictatorship but before Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s presidency and the country’s adjustments to becoming a republic. The main political issues of the time were to dissolve the old dictatorship and erect a stable democratic government. Also on the agenda were quelling inflation, creating stable economic growth, and addressing social problems. The New Republic had a bumpy ride for the first few years of it’s development. Political chaos ensued after the first president died unexpectedly and the second impeached. These events left inexperienced vice-presidents, who instead of bringing order to chaos, only intensified the chaos. Cardoso rose to prominence as the finance minister of then-incumbent president and former vice-president Itamar Franco, would bungled into the presidency. Cardoso, however, would revolutionize the Brazilian economy and eventually create a system of government that would stabilize Brazil
Cardoso became the finance minister in May of 1993, and in 1994, he and his team of economists devised a multi-step plan to allow Brazil to stabilize and modernize their economy. In the plan, Brazil was give a new currency, the real, and consequently, the plan became known as the Real Plan (Plano Real). Within a short time, the Real Plan, which also included an 8 percent fiscal deficit cut, and the creation of the Unidade Real de Valor (URV), a new virtual currency, had stemmed Brazilian inflation significantly. Then, in 1994, came the race for the presidency. Cardoso chose to run because Lula da Silva, who was running for president, did not support the Real Plan. Lula, a then-socialist, wanted limited growth. To counter Lula, Cardoso pressed hard for the continuation of the Real Plan, which the overwhelming majority of Brazilians loved. This strategy worked; Cardoso won with a decent majority. In his post 1994 presidency, Lula would continue the Real Plan, but in addition, he would continue to press for social change in Brazil. Apart from his political expertise, Cardoso also was trained as a sociologist, and was one of Brazil’s leading intellectuals at the time of his presidency. This gave him credence when addressing Brazilian social issues. He found that the main problem drew back to Congressional corruption. Although Cardoso would have significant difficulty fully eradicating the corruption, he was successful in limiting it to an extent. Particularly, he dissolved many of the state-owned monopolies of certain industries, such as the oil and telecoms industries. This turned out to be a very influential decision. Within the next four years, Brazil would see a massive increase in the implementation and use of telecommunication devices, particularly landline and cellular phones. But the numbers weren’t telling the whole story. Within the next decade, a portrait of poor service would be painted by many disadvantaged Brazilian customers. This privatization ultimately became quite unpopular in Brazil. Also, Cardoso’s government was having issues getting the public finance under control. Cardoso’s actions would have done even more in controlling the inflation rate, but instead the administration continued along the simple path of controlling the exchange rate to limit inflation. Simultaneously, 1990s Brazil was experiencing financial turbulence, so much so that it was dubbed an inflation roller coaster. Despite this turbulence, Brazil’s financial integrity remained largely secure. However, Cardoso’s administration was also grappling the problems of devaluation of the real. The fluctuations of the marketplace hindered this, and so Cardoso and his administration was caught in a struggle with maintaining this balance. Cardoso’s relationship with the Brazilian Congress became increasingly strained in the later years of his term as President, as he tenaciously worked to guarantee financial stabilization amid chaos in the Asian financial marketplace. When two of Cardoso’s foremost political allies died unexpectedly, Cardoso, who had enjoyed a quite meteoric rise, started a planetary plummet. Eventually, in 1999, Cardoso’s plummet ended in a crash when the real devalued and the government went into panic mode. Cardoso made several last-ditch attempts to prevent the devaluation to spiral worse out of control, but these measures all failed. The devaluation hit Cardoso uncomfortably hard. His approval ratings tanked and never recovered. Because of this, Congress took matters into its own hands, passing the Fiscal Responsibility Law to amend government spending. At the crux of the new system included currency flotation, inflation targeting, and acceptance of a main fiscal surplus. Social safety nets were also established, even though the policy was pockmarked with holes. The last years of Cardoso’s term would see squabble and failure over the implementation of particular policies. Cardoso’s term saw the implementation of failed liberal economic practices done in order to combat the danger of devaluation caused by instability in international markets. Although markets did not crash, deflation did eventually occur and then the effects were felt all around the country. Most of Cardoso’s economic policies supported growth and, if implemented correctly, had the potential to create an economic stable Brazil. However, Brazil, as a player in the international economy, was vulnerable of deflation against the dollar (the primary reserve currency). Unfortunately, this did occur and was quite unfortunate on the part of Brazil, and embarrassing on the part of Cardoso’s administration for not having the ability to foresee this problem ahead of time. In chapter four, “From Monarchy to Coffee Republic,” Michael Reid elaborates on the governmental and economic progressions in Brazil occurring from the early 19th century to 1930. In 1801, João VI, a Portuguese prince-regent, enacted numerous changes to the structure of Brazilian politics. He had been given more responsibilities, as his mother and ruling monarch, Maria I, was in ill health. João immediately faced an intimidating threat in the form of Napoleon Bonaparte and his expanding French empire. Napoleon, who was in a brutal standoff with the British, offered João an ultimatum: sever all trading ties with Britain or risk invasion. In a surprising chain of events, however, in 1805 João left his Portuguese crown and reestablished the monarchy in Brazil. This was a significant change in the power structure of Europe and the Americas and would lead to an even more peculiar chain reaction of events.
Almost immediately after João and his subordinates reestablished the Portuguese empire in Rio, much local hostility erupted. João did some culturally progressive implementations in Rio, such as the establishment of a national library in the city. In addition, following Napoleon’s defeat, he set up a school for the study of French art, which become Rio’s official school of fine art. In 1815, a decade after Napoleon forced João into his Brazil exile, conflict in Europe finally cooled. A year later, Maria I died, leaving João in charge. But João, rather than return to the continent, chose to continue maintaining his empire from Brazil; this turned out to be a mistake. On the other side of the Atlantic, in the Portuguese port city of Oporto, a Liberal revolt took place, and introduced an assembly system, of which they proclaimed authority over all Portuguese territories, including João’s Brazil. After some initial reluctance, João agreed to return to Portugal to settle the conflict, leaving his son Pedro in charge of Brazil in his absence. When João arrived in Portugal, the assembly ordered him to dismantle his Rio-based empire and for Pedro to return to Portugal. When Rio caught wind of this, one of Pedro’s closest advisors, José Bonifácio Andrada e Silva, who was, in addition, an Enlightenment scientist, quickly championed the idea of independence. After a short while, Pedro concurred and the pair became the two biggest advocates for Brazilian independence. On the other side of the ocean, Pedro’s father was still having difficulties with the Portuguese assembly and was unable to satiate their demands. Eventually, Pedro and José’s spearheading of Brazilian independence hit the radars of the Portuguese assembly. To counter it, they sent a fleet of Portuguese warships to stem the resistance. Fortunately for the Brazilian independence movement, Pedro and José recruited Thomas Cochrane, a former British admiral, to lead an armed naval defense against the coming fleet. Cochrane’s defences proved effective, and the Portuguese offered little resistance in Rio. Cochrane followed up this victory with several assaults on Portuguese garrisons in northeast Brazil. In 1824, “Dom” Pedro became Emperor; the Brazilian Empire was born. Brazil’s independence was more or less assured after that point, but the newly found state wasn’t quite out of the woods yet. Pedro and José had to tackle many sectarian issues that remained unresolved. Even before independence became apparent, there were various regional groups in Brazil who differed politically on the issue of secession. When the conflict ended and Pedro was crowned Emperor, many of these loyalists, who were concentrated in the northeast of the country, evolved into opponents of the new empire. Consequently, Pedro and José campaigned heavily to win the denizens of those areas over, mostly to no avail. When efforts to create a parliamentary system were struck down, different more centralized governments were embraced. Attempts to implement these were also thwarted. Five years later, after rejecting many different methods of governance, Pedro’s rule continued, but it too was showing signs of schism. Pedro faced increasing unpopularity because of a recent war, in which he attempted to grab several regions in present-day Uruguay. The fracture only deepened when old grievances were revived. Although the political sectarian divides had been extinguished, embers of that fire were still smoldering, and the pressures that Pedro was facing did some to re-spark that fire. Five years later, Pedro’s reign crumbled like a house of cards. In April 1831, Pedro abdicated the throne under the pretenses that he was going to Portugal to assist his daughter. As his successor, he appointed Pedro II, his then five-year-old Brazilian-born son. His decision initially proved disastrous for Brazil; until Pedro II came to age, the country was in virtual anarchy. Because he was a five-year-old boy, Pedro II was unfit for office, thus he officially did not become crowned until he was 15, in 1840. The nine years between his appointment by his father and his installment were some of Brazil’s most chaotic. Without a formal monarch to lead the empire, a massive power vacuum was birthed. Regional infighting and sectarian divides continued. Ironically, though, when Pedro did come to age, his reign would have one of the most significant impacts on Brazilian history. Himself an intellectual, Pedro fancied technology and the Enlightenment, and implemented many technological innovations in Brazil, such as the locomotive. Governmentally, Pedro supported the provincial autonomy and many public programs. Pedro’s positions on technology and governance made him very popular among his subjects. He did, nonetheless, struggle from infighting among conservatives and liberals about how the power of the monarch ought to be exercised. Although he himself was the leader of the conservative government, Pedro served as the great moderator between conservatives and liberals, and balanced their interests. The preservation of the dichotomy in this fashion helped to maintain stability for many decades. Ironically, Pedro II’s Brazil in many ways, lacked a central government, which made it difficult for economic intervention when it was necessary. For example, before and during the first half of Pedro II’s reign, the Brazilian economy was relatively weak, and the limiting government under Pedro II and the regional infighting before his reign saw little to ameliorate this issue. Brazilian locomotive infrastructure saw little development because of the country’s vast size and dynamic terrain. However, a significant new policy change would flood the country with change: the end of Brazil’s oceanic slave trade. In 1855, Pedro II unveiled a monumental law that tried slave traders as criminals. Unlike previous attempts at implementing an effective end to the slave trade, this policy did take measures to do just that. Despite this measure, internal slave trade continued in Brazil, especially in the northeast. The economic growth did later pick up pace, though limited government policies did have an impact on economic growth during that period. Ultimately, it was Pedro’s techie ingenuity that would boost the economy. During the 1870s, for instance, the empire’s first railroad (the Dom Pedro II) was finished, reaching from Rio to the coffee-growing grounds of the Paraíba valley, between Rio and Sao Paulo. Railroad construction went hand-in-hand with the growth of the coffee industry, which was a vital Brazilian industry. During the same time, substantial immigration into Brazil by Europeans began. Many Italians, Germans entered the empire. This immigration led to an increase of Europeans in Brazil, which was pushed intentionally by some members of the Brazilian elite who subscribed to the ideas of social Darwinism. The elites, who were white, thought that by flooding Brazil with European immigrants, the country’s multiethnic background would become more white (a.k.a. more “pure”). This wave of immigration served as an economic boost for Brazil and was the final move that abolished slavery, as the immigration was a source of cheap labor, and many slave owners saw slavery as a liability. During that same time, Pedro got Brazil involved in numerous wars, especially a particularly large one in Uruguay. These conflict simultaneously created an economy boost and resentment among particular individuals in the government for the monarch. This eventually ended with the sudden military coup of 1891, which removed Pedro II from the throne. The coup was supported by certain members of nobility who felt that the empire was threatening their interests. The military would set up an oligarchical republic, which would last the next four decades. Following the military coup,Deodoro da Fonseca, would lead as President. The following decades would launch the struggle for true democratic reform for Brazil. Effective democratic policies were unable to last because of increased powers to local politicians and many of Brazil’s “liberals” shifted to the right of the political spectrum when the empire experienced long-term economic growth. But this boom, driven almost entirely by coffee production, busted, as was typical of uncontrolled economic growth and failed economic practices. Apart from the economy, modernist art and philosophy had a significant influence on Brazilian politics, although the nation still developed at a far slower rate than its neighbors of Chile and Argentina. Eventually, the republic’s second (and last) president, Washington Luiz, was deposed in an unforeseen military coup in April 1930. Getulio Vargas, replaced him, giving birth to the Brazilian military dictatorship and effectively killing the First Brazilian Republic. During the chapter, many political changes impacted Brazil. First, João VI’s standoff with Napoleon, which forced him into exile and relocate the throne to Brazil. Second, the liberal uprising in Portugal, which served as a catalyst for the fight for Brazilian independence. Pedro I and Jose Bonifacio spearheaded the independence movement, and, with military assistance from Thomas Cochrane, drew a line in the sand against the Portuguese and created the Empire of Brazil. Third, the ironic decision of Pedro I appointing his five-year old son Pedro II as his successor had a significant impact on the young nation, as it first revealed Brazil’s deeply rooted political issues, something which Pedro II balanced during his reign. The military coup of 1889 created the oligarchical First Brazilian Republic, which was not effective enough to maintain stability. This proved fatal to the republic, as the military staged another coup in 1930, deposing then-leader Washington Luiz. Brazilian politics of Pedro II onward illustrate the ongoing issues that Brazil has been having with maintaining stable, effective, democratic governments. Chapter three, “The Forging of a People,” begins part one, History from Geography, which explores the social and economic events that have influenced Brazil’s history from Portuguese colonization until the mid-twentieth century. Chapter three specifically focuses on Brazil’s history from the discovery of the future Latin American power by Portuguese mariner Pedro Álvares Cabral in April 1500 to the events of the late 18th century. In the late 15th century, Portuguese naval capabilities were quickly growing to surpass many European powers. This newfound strength came from the network of trading posts established from the Atlantic African coast in the west to India in the east. Many mariners, including Pedro Álvares Cabral, took up the task of ferrying spices and jewels across the Portuguese sea empire. Cabral, who set sail for India, unintentionally ended up at the mouth of a Brazilian river on April 23 1500. The area became known as Porto Seguro and the Portuguese quickly associated themselves with the native Brazilian tribe of the Porto Seguro area, the Tupi, exchanging items and communing with them. In the next few years many other Portuguese ships came and went, soon establishing the colony of Santa Cruz. Many alliances continued to be established with the “Indians,” all the while royals and nobles continued to pour into the newly founded colony. These nobles included a particular group that was a minority in Brazil, but would have a profound impact on the history of the country: the Jesuits.
When Cabral and his men first made landfall in Brazil, he was accompanied by many degredados, ex-convicts turned seamen. When Cabral left Brazil to go to his originally chartered destination of Calicut, India, he left several of the degredados behind to continue to establish alliances with the Tupi and other native tribes. Many chiefs of tribes married off their female children to the degredados. Meanwhile, Portuguese Jesuits settled in the same area. Eventually, some of the degredados developed an embrace of many native customs, to the disgust of the Jesuits, particularly Manoel da Nóbrega. Clashes between the nobility and their missionaries and the Brazilians soon followed. King João III eventually took more interest in Brazil and its soon-to-be permanent colonies. Needless to say, Native-Portuguese relations spiraled downward henceforth. During the 16th century, the Jesuits launched “missionary wars” against the natives to convert them to Christianity. As contact between the two groups increased, so too did the spread of diseases (mainly from Europeans and Africans to the Amerindians), particularly smallpox and measles. The devastation inflicted by these diseases paved the path for increased Jesuit expansion in Brazil. Though in violation of many royal ordinances, many colonists in Brazil imposed slavery on the native Brazilians. The bandeirantes were pioneers (both colonists and native) who used Amerindian techniques to travel into Brazil’s interior and find natives of isolated tribes to bring back as slaves. Fierce competition between the bandeira and Jesuit trailblazers significantly expanded the development of Brazil. This development continued into the 17th century. While the bandeirantes continued to carve huge tracts through the Brazilian jungle and cerrado, the Jesuits expanded their proselyte operations into Brazil’s north, right in the heart of the Amazon basin. Jesuit slavery and abuse of the natives were abhorred by many bandeirantes, which continued to fuel tensions between the two groups. These tensions occasionally erupted into violence, but as the middle of the 17th century approached, bandeirante-Jesuit relations became increasing volcanic. The tension continued until 1750, when Marquis of Pombal, the new Chief Minister of King José I, expelled the Jesuits, whom, having control over much of Brazil’s sugar mills, represented an impediment to Marquis’ plans of modernization for Brazil. One of Marquis’ decrees called for the end of Amerindian slavery, which he enforced. José I and his right-hand man Marquis also were involved in many other actions concerning royal authority, but this will be discussed in a future paragraph. Although slavery for the native Brazilians ended, slavery for another group, Africans, continued. This slavery fostered the growth of an already booming Brazilian enterprise: sugar. Brazilian slavery and sugar plantations have an intertwined and long history, stretching back to shortly after the founding of the colony by the Portuguese. Because of Brazil’s geography and strategic significance for the triangular trade, sugar plantations were soon established. The Portuguese had used African slave labor for sugar production in their trading outposts in Africa; implementation of slavery in Brazil was therefore quite easily and quickly followed the development of the sugar industry. Enslavement of Africans in Brazil was so successful for two reasons; cheap imports and the low attraction of free labor. From the 14th century to the 17th century, the price of importing African slaves into Brazil was quite low in comparison to the costs of importing slaves into the Caribbean or North America. A low level of of free labor, the second reason why African slavery was so successful in Brazil, occurred because of the slow settlement of Brazil by the Portuguese. The chaotic issues with the enslavement of native Brazilians most likely contributed as well. Both of these issues resulted in the lack of a stable free source of labor. When combined with the low import costs, Brazilian conditions were ripe for the growth of a massive slave industry, which quickly became intertwined with the sugar industry. By the time of Marquis and his expulsion of the Jesuits, slave-operated sugar plantations comprised a significant industry in Brazil. With the Jesuits out of the picture, control of the precious cane crop fell to the Portuguese crown. This allowed the further development of the of sugar cane industry in Brazil, and with it, increased involvement of the Portuguese regality into the business ends of Brazil. Despite this supposedly positive change, economic stagnation eventually occurred in 1670s onward. However, simultaneously, a massive boom that was occurring in another area of the Brazilian economy was set to change the country yet again: precious metals and stones, which would yet again face seizure by the Portuguese Crown. The “Brazilian Gold Rush” began in the late 17th century as a result of the trailblazing done by the bandeirantes and paulistas. Both groups followed up on native rumors of gold and diamonds. Their treks eventually led to the discovery, and later development of, massive mines in the mountain ranges that comprise the region that would eventually be known as Minas Gerais. The news spread like wildfire and as many as 600,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil to reap the rewards. More treasures were discovered, such as emeralds and other crystals, sparking even more people to flock to Brazil in an attempt to strike it rich. But just as soon as the craze had started, gold production by the 1750s had declined significantly. José I was the monarch during this time, and he continued to rake in more money, which was desperately needed, for the rebuilding of Lisbon, which was damaged in the 1755 earthquake and tsunami. This action robbed many of the miners of the chance to make a fortune. Although much of the gold rush profits did go to King Jose, there were unintended benefits of the rush. The population boom in the area of Minas Gerais led to the creation of many mining towns and settlements, leading to the expansion of the cattle-farming industry needed to feed the growing frontier. In these areas, blacks mingled quite freely with Amerindians and whites. Eventually, the population of blacks, many of whom had been freed, would outnumber whites in the Minas Gerais area by the start of 19th century, which would foster the development of cultural growth in the Minas Gerais area. Meanwhile, politically, Brazil experienced even more transitions during the 1770s and 1780s. Inspired by the American Revolution against the British, a group of Brazilians set themselves against the Portuguese crown. The results of this event would significantly determine the trajectory of Brazilian history. In 1788-89, King José I sought to increase the poll tax on Minas Gerais. This generated a reaction among a group of conspirators in the region, who desired to break with the Crown and form their own independent state of Minas Gerais. Before long, this feeling of resentment had reverberated across the region and had blown up into a rebellion serious enough for King José I to step in. José quickly quelled the rebellion, but its occurrence would have an impact on the quest for Brazilian independence. Several decades later came, starting in 1816, came the reign of João VI, under which Brazilian control by the Portuguese came to an end. However, Brazilian independence would come rather peculiarly. This chapter covered the time period from 1500 to 1788, in which the main political issues included the divide over control of Brazilian economic activities, revolt of the Brazilian people at the Portuguese Crown, African slavery in the Portuguese colony, and Brazil’s ethnic and cultural similarities and differences. While there were ethnic and cultural similarities in many areas of the colony, the differences had a significant impact on the country and were tied into the Brazilian economy, particularly the sugar and prospecting tiers. Specifically, African slavery was still prevalent in the aforementioned areas of the economy. Politically, the Portuguese crown maintained a tight grip on the financial happenings of Brazil, leading to resentment by the King’s subjects, which would eventually boil over in the botched skirmish of 1788. This disentitlement would continue, however, beyond then. The events that would follow were set in motion by the aforementioned factors. |
Andy Jay CrossI am a sophomore Sustainability major at Stockton University.
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