“O Brazil nunca foi ao Brasil…
O Brazil não conhece o Brasil…” (Maurício
Tapajós e Aldir Blanc)
“Brazil never went to Brasil…
Brazil don’t know Brasil…”
“O Brazil não conhece o
Brasil O Brasil nunca foi ao
Brazil Tapir, jabuti, liana,
alamandra, alialaúde Piau,
ururau, aqui, ataúde Piá,
carioca,
porecramecrã Jobim
akarore Jobim-açu Oh, oh,
oh”
Divisão Geopolítica
Treaty of Tordesillas - 1494
TRATADO DE
TORDESILHAS(1494)
Tratado de Tordesilhas
 The treaty was historically important in dividing
Latin America, as well as establishing Spain in the
western Pacific until 1898. However, it quickly
became obsolete in North America, and later in
Asia and Africa, where it affected colonization. It
was ignored by other European nations, and with
the decline of Spanish and Portuguese power, the
home countries were unable to hold many of their
claims, much less expand them into poorly
explored areas.
 *There has been modern claims for the treaty in the
20th Century…
Pedro Álvares Cabral
Letter to King D. Manuel
 “tough, healthy
and innocent”
De Caminha description
of the natives.
“They are brown skinned, of a quite reddish complexion,
with handsome faces and noses, in such "scarved"
features. They go about naked, without clothing. They do
not bother about to cover or to uncover their bodies, and
show their private parts as readily as they show their
faces. In this matter they are of great innocence.”
“... they take a good care of themselves and they are
really hygienic. In that I am convinced they are like birds,
or mountain animals, with whom the "air" (referring to
refreshing hygiene habits) does better to feathers and hair
than the comfort [of the lack of regular washing and
grooming], because their bodies are so clean and so
plump and in such nice shape that could not be better!”
 “They only eat this yam, which is very plentiful here,
and those seeds and fruits that the earth and the trees
give of themselves. Nevertheless, they are of a finer,
sturdier, and sleeker condition than we are for all the
wheat and vegetables we eat.”
 “Walking among them there were three or four women,
young and gentle, with their hair very black and very
long, loose to their backs; their private parts, so
prominent and so neat, and so clean of their hairs that
we, by very much looking at them, did not get
ashamed.”
 One of those young women had the whole body
painted, from bottom to top with that tincture, and sure
she was so good shaped and so rounded, and her
private part so graceful that most women in our land, if
had seen those features would feel abashed for not
 “My opinion and everyone’s opinion is that these
people lack nothing to become completely Christian,
except understanding us (…). I believe that if your
Majesty could send someone that could stay a while
here with them, they would all be persuaded and
converted…”
 Tone/style of the letter  -> Later learn the language, later become slaves to the
Portuguese.
“The true history and description of a Land of Savage, Naked, Fierce,
Man Eating People found in the New World” (Hans Standen – 1557)
 Throughout 16th and 17th centuries, European
illustrations of Brazil fixed on cannibalism.
 This gave the Portuguese legitimacy that they were
bringing civilization to the “savages”.
 Exploitation of labor and forced acculturation
 According to one chronicler in 1570, the native’s
language “lacked the three letters F, L and R – Fé
(faith), Lei (law) and Rei (king), and live, thus, without
justice and order.”
Pre-Colonial Brazil
Before the Portuguese…
- Hundreds of natives inhabited Brazil 10.000 years
before the Portuguese arrived.
- 4 main groups with about 2.000 peoples/tribes
A) TUPI-GUARANI – Atlantic Coast
B) GÊ – Open Central Plateau
C) *Carib/Arawak – Amazon Basin
*Advanced in technology and warfare
TODAY  200 tribes / 300.000 native Brazilians
General Characteristics
 Most Brazilian natives dwelled in temporary villages
 Lowland South America had no animals that could be
easily domesticated like the llamas and guinea pigs of
the Andes.
 Brazilian tribes kept on moving in order to find survival.
 Constant floods (Amazon basin) discouraged planting.
 No written language (stories were recorded after the
Portuguese).
Mounds of Marajó
Ilha de Marajó
Ilha de Marajó e Pará
 Pre-Columbian era society that flourished on Marajó
island at the mouth of the Amazon River around 800
AD-1400 AD.
 Sophisticated pottery—large and elaborately painted
and incised with representations of plants and
animals—is the most impressive finding in the area and
provided the first evidence of complex society on
Marajó.
Funeral Urn
Tupinambás
e
Tupiniquins
CAPITANIAS HEREDITÁRIAS
1530s
General Nature of Portuguese
Colonization
 Ambiguous
 Missed opportunities to import cattle and send settlers
 Leased territories to Lisbon merchants
 trade with the natives
*Changed after fear of invasion from other nations.
France Antarctic – 1555-1567
Colonial Brazil (1500-1882)
 1500 (Pre-Colonial)
 1500-1530s
The Portuguese arrives in
Brazil
Brazilwood trade
 1534
Beginning of colonial period
and sugar cane plantation cycle
 1550
Beginning of African slave trade
 1580-1640
Iberian Union
 1630
Dutch invade Brazil
 1654
Portuguese expelled the
Dutch and Jewish
 1693
Portuguese found gold in
Southeast Brazil
 1763
capital
Rio de Janeiro becomes
 1789
Inconfidencia Mineira, an unsuccessful
Brazilian separatist movement.
 1808
D. João and the royal family
arrive in Brazil
 1822
D.Pedro (the king’s son) proclaims
Brazil’s independence
 1820s-1930
Coffee is the major product
 1840-1889 D. Pedro II is the second
emperor of Brazil
 1879-1912 Rubber plantations in the
Amazon
 1888
 1889
Slavery is ablolished
Monarchy was overthrown and the
country proclaimed itself a Republic
Spend, Spend, Spend
 “ the Portuguese became drunk on wealth and
success. (…) the Portuguese were ostentatious,
immoral, and corrupt and lorded it over locals in distant
lands.”
 “in Portugal we are all nobels, and having any kind of
job is frowned upon.”
 P. 45
Brazilian Colonial Society
- Aristocratic
- Patriarchal
-No social
mobility
-Pro-slavery
Colonial Pact
Proibido ou Não estimulados
Comunicação ou comércio com países
estrangeiros
- Atividades Industrial (só tecidos para
roupas dos escravos
- Proibida circulação de moedas (utilizavase o escambo)
- Cultivo de vinha (vinho), oliveira (azeite)
e trigo (pão) - evitar concorrência com
Portugal)
- Entrada e residência de estrangeiros
- Universidades (ensino básico era
oferecido nos seminários religiosos)
- Imprensa e fabricação de livros (espalhar
idéias revolucionárias)
- Desenvolvimento de estradas (para evitar
o contrabando de metais etc)
- Comunicação entre as províncias (para
evitar a troca de idéias
Revolucionárias e evitar rebeliões)
Colonial Economy
 Series of “feitorias” – factories scatered along the
coast from Pernambuco to São Vicente
 Capitanias – Captaincies (in the 1530s) – Sugar
Cane plantations
 1600-1650 – sugar accounted 90-95% of Brazilian
export and world’s leading exporter
 1670s-1680s – prices fall and competition with the
Antilles (*Dutch)
 1690s – gold is found
 1720s – 25 tons sent to Portugal
Sugar Cane Plantation –
Engenho
Slave Trade
 Brazil received more
African slaves in total than
any other nation.
- About 3,65 million.
- The main source was
Angola and the Congo.
“Casa Grande e Senzala” –
Urban Life
First Look at the Question of
Race in Brazil
 Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), Brazilian anthropologist
known for his discussion about race in Brazil affirmed
that the Portuguese were less prejudiced that other
Europeans against Africans, partly because of
Portugal’s long exposure to the dark skinned Moors…
This idea is confronted when analyzing Portuguese
writings of those times which express a distaste of the
physical characteristics of Africans; “dog faced, dog
toothed people, satyrs, wildmen abd cannibals.”
Adapted from Thomas Skidmore, “Brazil: Five centuries
of Change”
 The New Republican Regime –
 An Ambiguous Project of Progress,
Civilization and Modernization
 - Positivism saw the history of mankind as a
continuous march towards progress,
impelled by science.
 "O Amor por princípio e a Ordem por base; o
Progresso por fim”
 - Civilizatory Missions at the interior of the
country.
 - Reformation and Sanitation of Rio de
Janeiro
 Primeira Bandeira da República – 11/15/1889
 Bandeira Atual – 11/19/1889
 Modernization to Whom?
 “It cannot be denied that there were
changes especially in the mentality of the
elite which came to power after the
proclamation of the republic. (…) Beyond
that it is also necessary to enquire into
the meaning of the modernity that was
being preached.” (Carvalho, 149)
 MODERNITY = CIVILIZATION
 “When it was said that Rio was
civilizing itself, the expression
indicated an aristocratization of
urban life, rather than its
democratization. It indicated the
creation of an urban space for the
elites debarring the inelegant
presence of poverty.” (Carvalho,
157)
 - The mechanisms of control and maintenance of ‘order and
progress’ developed by the republican project of modernization
and designed to discipline individuals targeted not only the
physical space of the city but also people’s bodies, kinship
relations, morals as well as popular expressions.
THE CARNAVAL –
 In the later, individuals who did not follow the rules and
regulations established by the new Brazilian elite were seen as
‘the other’ and excluded from the newly constructed
boulevards where they used to live. For example, there were
laws concerning the use of shirts, shoes and the repression of
popular festivities such as ‘Festa da Penha’ and ‘Festa da
Gloria’ in the remodeled Rio de Janeiro. The popular
expressions of carnival were also banned from that space,
while the elite started to attended private balls. In this sense,
the public space of the streets of Rio becomes private by the
hands of the dominant Brazilian elite who placed “the others” in
a state of marginality.