TODAY
• Portuguese settlement of Brazil
• The sugar plantation economies of Brazil
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& the Caribbean
The Atlantic slave trade
Post-sugar boom colonial Brazilian
economies
© T. M. Whitmore
Last Time-Questions?
• Early Spanish colonial institutions
• Spanish Colonial Settlement patterns
© T. M. Whitmore
Portuguese Brazilian Settlement
• Initial Settlement Patterns
State-sized settlements to private
entrepreneurs
 to extract dye wood “palo brazil”
This initial “capitalistic-like” set up
failed by 1540 and all lands retransferred to the crown
© T. M. Whitmore
Tordesillas
Treaty Line 1494
Initial
Settlement
© T. M. Whitmore
Plantation Sugar in Brazil
• Turkish closure of Middle Eastern sugar
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& decrease in honey production in
Europe => huge profits to be had
Plantation sugar system in Brazil ~ 1540s
– 1700s (dominates world’s sugar for ~
200 yrs)
Advanced agro-technology
Excellent agro-ecology
Good access to European markets
Initially Amerindian labor – later
African slaves
© T. M. Whitmore
Brazilian Fazendas
• 150-200 laborers
• 30 km2 (2-3 miles on a side)
• Cane fields
• pasture for oxen
• plots for slave subsistence
• woodlands for fuel
• mill complex
© T. M. Whitmore
Impacts of Brazilian fazenda
settlement
• Coastal few links inland
• Cities of less import initially
• Collapse of local Indigenous pops
• Huge import of African slaves => helped
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set racial composition of NE Brazil until
today
Ecological impact: deforestation, soil
exhaustion
© T. M. Whitmore
Sugar & Slaves
1500s – 1700s
© T. M. Whitmore
Caribbean adoption of Brazilian
plantation system
• Northern European Colonies recreated
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Brazilian system after 1640
Similar agro-ecological advantages
Better slave security
Easier transport to Europe
Became the most valuable colonies for
each state!
Impacts
Soil depletion
Vast increase in Afro-origin population
© T. M. Whitmore
Characteristics of plantation ag
• Old world plants and techniques
• Requires huge land holdings –
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discourages small holders
Cheap labor needed
Absentee owners or few local owners
Uses best land
Settlement is at plantation not cities
Cultural/spatial/class dualism
Economy is wholly export and dependent
on world market
“mining” of resources (soils and timber)
=> impoverished local areas
© T. M. Whitmore
African slavery in Brazil and Caribbean
• Characteristics
• Chronology
• Geography
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Brazil
Spanish America
Caribbean
Totals
African origins
Decline of slavery after 1800
Consequences of plantation/slave
© T. M. Whitmore
agriculture
Sugar & Slaves
1500s – 1700s
~ 4.3 million Africans
transported as slaves
To Brazil
© T. M. Whitmore
~ 1.8 m slaves to Spanish colonies
~ 1.7 m slaves to French colonies
~ 2.9 m slaves to English colonies
Sugar & Slaves in the Caribbean
© T. M. Whitmore
SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS
BRAZIL
~ 4.3 million
SPANISH AMERICA
50% to Cuba (900 k)
20% to Mexico (360 k)
10% to Venezuela (180 k)
20% Columbia, Panama, Ecuador
~ 1.8 million
FRENCH AMERICA
Mostly to Martinique & Haiti
~ 1.7 million
ENGLISH AMERICA
40% to Jamaica (1.2 m)
22% to North America (640 k)
20% to Barbados (580 k)
13% other Caribbean (377 k)
~ 2.9 million
Totals are approximate and probably are ~ 10.7 million
underestimates. (nearly 5 m to small
© T. M. Whitmore
Caribbean islands)
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SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS
1492- 1880
1492 - 1600
~ 1% of all slaves transported
~ 40% of slaves in this period to
Brazil; 60% to the Spanish colonies
early period slave transport ~ 125k
1600 - 1700
~ 14% of all slaves transported
totals transported about 1.3m
~ 40% to Brazil, 20% to Spanish
colonies, 38% to N European
Caribbean
© T. M. Whitmore
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SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS 14921880 II
1700 – 1810 (peak of slave trade)
~ 64% of all slaves transported
totals ~ 6 million
North America ~ 6%, British Caribbean
~ 23%, Spanish America ~ 9%, French
Caribbean ~ 22%, Brazil ~ 31%, Dutch
and Danish Caribbean the rest
1810 – 1870
~ 20% of all slaves transported
totals ~ 1.9m
Brazil 60%, French Caribbean ~ 5%,
© T. M. Whitmore
Spanish America ~ 32%
Consequences of the sugar/slave system
• Altered racial makeup
• Influenced settlement patterns in Brazil
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and Caribbean
Influenced labor and social relationships
Influenced land tenure systems:
latifundia vs “mini-fundia”
Degraded environment and lost
resources
© T. M. Whitmore
Non-sugar Economy of
Colonial Brazil
• Tobacco & Cattle
• Non-sugar south—Sâo Paulo and slave
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raiding
Gold Rush at Minas Gerais in late
1600s/early 1700s
© T. M. Whitmore
Colonial Brazilian Economies
Sugar & Slaves
1500s – 1700s
Later Settlement
Cattle & Tobacco
Minas Gerais
Sâo Paulo
Paulista or Bandeirante
Indian Slave raids
Rio de Janeiro
© T. M. Whitmore
Overview of Brazil 1500 — 1800
• Little lasting development: 2 boom/bust
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cycles; sugar and gold
Much environmental destruction
Set pattern of social values: beef;
latifundia
Mixed races with large African
component (Black in N; Brown in Center;
White in S)
Pop mostly still coastal – 40% in NE;
30% in Minas
© T. M. Whitmore