Brazil: culture, history, and contemporary development

Brazil

Early History and Discover

Current artifacts, including cave paintings, suggest that human beings inhabited Brazil more than 300,000 years ago. European explorers found only a small indigenous population when they arrived in the land, but archaeological records indicate that there were large settlements in other areas, which could have been substantially reduced by smallpox and other diseases brought in by the European explorers.

These early indigenous inhabitants were classified into a sedentary population, who spoke the Tupian language and similar cultural patterns, and a nomadic population. Historians assume that there were approximately a million of these early peoples scattered throughout the territory. Some historians believe that these aborigines were native American tribes, composed of the Arawaks and Caribs in the north, the sedentary Tupi-Guarani of the east coast and the Amazon Valley, the Ges of the eastern and southern sides, and the Pano in the west. These tribes were likely to have been semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers who practiced simple agriculture.

The first foreigner who set foot on the region was a Spanish navigator, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, in the present-day's Recife on January 26, 1500 up to the mouth of the Orinico River. But he could not claim the territory for Spain, because it fell within Portuguese jurisdiction, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas signed with Portugal in 1494. Portuguese sailor Pedro Alvares Cabral said that he landed in the coast of Brazil in April 1500, claimed it for Portugal and first named it Terra da Vera Cruz or the "Land of the True Cross. A follow-up expedition was later sent under the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci the following year. In this expedition, Vespucci named several bays and capes, including the now-famous Rio de Janeiro and returned with loads of Brazil wood. Hence, Terra de Vera Cruz assumed the name of that valuable wood.

King John undertook a systematic program of colonization in that land in 1530.

He first divided it into 15 districts or captaincies, and awarded each perpetually to a prominent person in the Portuguese court. These recipients were called donatarios, who wielded extraordinary powers over these districts. When he later realized the implicit perils of his act, King John revoked these powers and put Brazil under a governor-general. The first was Thome de Souza, who arrived there in 1549 and set his government up in the capital, the newly founded city of Salvador or Bahia. He undertook comprehensive administrative and judicial reformed and built a coastal defense system.

Large groups of slaves were taken into the region from Africa in response to the shortage of plantation workers. Sao Paulo in the south was founded in 1554.

The first settlement was at San Vicente in San Paulo in 1532 under Martam Afonso de Sousa as the first royal governor. San Salvador and 12 other settlements were established inwardly from the Brazilian coast in 1539.

But it was not all peace for the Portuguese. In 1555, French Huguenots attacked an island in Rio de Janeiro but were warded off by forces under Mem de Sa, later credited as the founded of the City of Rio de Janeiro. In 1624, the Dutch attacked and captured Salvador and Recife, as well as the entire Northeast, then under John Maurice of Nassau. Portugal could not come to the rescue, having been under Spain in 1580 and regaining independence only in 1640. Marine forces from Rio managed to wrestle the territories from the Dutch in 1654, a victory that reinstalled their self-confidence, and Brazil became a viceroyalty for Portugal. Conditions were generally peaceful between Spain and Portugal in South America, including Brazil, till 1680. The Portuguese founded a settlement in Colonia, lying east of the estuary of Rio de la Plata, and had a long conflict over its ownership. This region became the Republic of Uruguay in 1828 when it gained independence in that year.

The bandeirantes from San Paulo set their eyes towards other settlements to the west since the 17th century in extending the Brazilian territory until the negotiations of Brazilian diplomat Rio Branco limited their explorations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Jesuit missionaries had already started operating in the Amazon Valley when expansion went towards the South early in the 17th century.

In the middle of the century, Sao Paulo residents, called Paulistas, reached the Parana River in the pursuit of native Americans as slaves. But the Jesuits protected the natives and opposed the Paulistas with help from the Crown. Many of these Paulistas were thereon confined to being prospectors and hunters of mineral wealth.

Sugar soon flourished in the Northeast and sugar plantations were providing Europe's requirements for the commodity. When European colonists could not coerce the natives to work in the cane field and refineries, the colonists acquired Africans to do so as slaves.

Gold was discovered in late 17th century and diamond in 1721. As a consequence, mining towns came up, prominently in Minas Gerais, and mining became a complementary industry to sugar. The center of development moved to the south, where Rio de Janeiro turned into an export hub and replaced Salvador as the Brazilian capital in 1763.

The prosperity and the intelligentsia in Europe and North America affected Brazil long distance. A small group of intellectuals in Minas under Tiradentes sought for independence, but was quashed and their leader executed.

In 1808, the King of Portugal, John VI fled to Brazil when Napoleon's forces invaded Portugal. He lifted trading restrictions from the colony, made Rio de Janeiro the center of the Portuguese Empire and Brazil a kingdom. King John made his son regent of Brazil and then returned to Portugal but his son as regent instituted new policies that restored and even tightened colonial restrictions. These changed conditions bred massive unrest. On the advice of Jose Bonifacio, the regent-prince yielded to the people's yearning through a fateful cry for independence at the Ipiranga River banks on September 7, 1822. He became Pedro I, emperor of Brazil, who enjoyed popular support in his first year of rule. Differences and disagreements with the Constituent Assembly led him to dissolve it in 1823 and set a constitution in March 1824. The following year, Argentina supported a rebellion in Cisplatine Province where the Brazilians lost. The British Crown mediated and that province obtained independence as Uruguay.

With popular opposition on him, Pedro I in April 1831 abdicated in favor of his son nd heir-apparent, Pedro II, then only 5 years old. Regencies ruled in the boy's stead for a decade. During the substitute reign, Brazil was in political turmoil with frequent provincial rebellions. At the end of the decade, a popular sentiment rose to place the young emperor to head the government. In July 1840, the Brazilian Parliament decided that Pedro II was old enough to take on the responsibility.

It seemed worth the wait, because Pedro II became one of the ablest monarchs of his time.

During his almost 50 years reign, the country grew in population and economically without precedence. National production rose to more than 900% and many railroads were constructed. It adopted an anti-dictatorial stance, so that it supported the successful revolutionary war against Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1851-52 and cooperated with Argentina and Uruguay against Paraguay in 1865-70. The broad spectrum of Brazil's internal problems was centered on a broad movement for the abolition of slavery. The importation of African slaves already outlawed and a massive campaign for the emancipation of 2.5 million slaves launched, the movers' first victory in 1871 was expected when the Parliament freed children born of slave mothers. Alongside the liberalism took roots and spread in the next 15 years, urging for the establishment of a republic. Slaves 60 years old and older were released in 1885. By May 1888, all remaining slaves were set free.

It was under Pedro II's reign that modern Brazil was founded. Its involvement in the Argentine War and the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay gained little benefit. More attention was warranted by the rising disgruntlement over the military and the start of wide-scale European immigration that would further bolster Southeast Brazil's economic status. The construction of railroads and roads was instrumental to this enormous development.

In the meantime, slaves' voices from the plantations became audible. Those voices were loudest in leaders Antonio Calves de Castro and Joaquin Nabuco

who knew that the slave trade had been abolished in 1850 and a law was passed in 1871 for gradual emancipation. Pedro II's daughter Isabela was governing Brazil while he was in Europe in 1888 and the law was passed. This enabled the planters to withdraw support for the empire, forge cooperative efforts with the military that then had a drift with the empire and achieve a victory. It was a bloodless revolution, which installed a republic in 1889 with Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca as first president. Political conditions, however, deteriorated under the unpopular and Jacobist rule of Marshal Floriando Peixoto, Fonseca's successor.

Despite unsettling political conditions, Brazil's economy continued to expand. Coffee and rubber reached peaking heights towards the end of the 19th century. The bustling rubber in the Amazon region somehow suffered some wound and a halt with the establishment of rubber plantations in Southeast Asia after 1912.

Brazil joined the Allies in World War I and in the peace settlement but withdrew from the League of Nations in 1926. A coup in 1930 put Getalio Vargas into power who took the country's disadvantageous economic dependence on the coffee industry seriously. He changed the constitution into a corporative type of government, which forced the development of other basic industries towards a diversified kind of agriculture. Although this centralized government was viewed as somewhat dictatorial and invited opposition, it also hinted at a new nationalistic consciousness. Despite World War II, Brazil's economic growth continued to rise, especially in the rubber and mineral industrial sector.

With well-developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors, Brazil had and still has one of the world's largest economies, although wealth was poorly distributed.

There were wide gaps between. About a third of the workforce was in agriculture, predominantly coffee. Brazil is the world's producer and exporter of this product, oranges -- of which it is a major exporter -, soybeans, sugarcane, rice, corn, cocoa, cotton, tobacco and bananas. The country is also blessed with much cattle, pigs and sheep among the livestock and timber, although much of it was illegally felled. Its mineral wealth included ore -- of which Brazil is the largest producer -, quartz, chrome, ore, manganese, industrial diamonds, gem stones, gold, nickel, tin, bauxite, uranium and platinum. Its major manufacturing enterprises produce textiles, chemicals, shoes, food products, steel, motor vehicles, ships, and machinery. Most of the country's electricity is derived from water power with further potentials, particularly from the Amazon basin.

The rest of Brazil's exports included iron and steel, orange juice concentrates, soybeans, beef, tropical hardwood, and footwear.

On the other hand Brazil imports crude oil, manufactured goods and chemical products, mostly with the European Union member countries, the U.S., Argentina, and Japan. It is a member of the Southern Cone Common Market.

In 1945, the army forced Vargas to resign and General Eurico Gaspar Dutra was elected president. Under his presidency, Brazil's economy sagged because of inflation and Vargas was restored to the presidency in 1950 by the Brazilians in the hope of his reversing economic conditions. But economic instability and political dissension persisted in his incumbency and led him to commit suicide.

As the elected president in 1955, Juscelino Kubitschek rebuilt Brazil and constructed highways and dams, yet inflation persisted. Brasilia became the official capital on April 21, 1960, the year when Junio da Silva Quadros was elected president with the greatest popularity in Brazil's history. But his autocratic and unpredictable governing style met with huge opposition and dented his reform objectives, which compelled him to resign within seven months. His successor was Vice President Jolio Goular, whose leftist administration produced political divisions and immense chaos until he was deposed by a military insurrection in 1964. Congress seated Gen. Castelo Branco to finish Goular's term, removed Goular's leftist comrades and extended the new President's power to dissolve all political powers.

Under these conditions, a new Constitution was adopted with Marshall Costa e Silva as the new president to succeed Castelo Branco. Costa e Silva put Congress to a recess in 1968 and assumed a one-man rule. The following year, General Emilio Garrastaza Madici replaced him and there was terrorism became a common feature of Brazilian life.

Guerrilla attacks were countered with massive torture and death squads, the onslaught of violence characterizing the mid-70s. When General Ernesto Geisel took over the presidency from Madici, Brazil plunged into debts and became the world's largest debtor. He dissolved Congress in 1977 and established constitutional and electoral reforms and repealed all emergency laws in 1978. The monumental change came under the rule of his successor, General Joalo Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo from 1979-1985. The wheels of industries and industrial development began turning again and the overall political direction was towards democracy. However, economic and social tensions persisted and the military government remained until replaced by a civilian form under Jose Sarney in 1985. Under Sarney's government, illiterates were allowed to vote. His reforms gained a measure of success but uncontrolled inflation produced expected anti-government actions.

A new Constitution in 1988 reduced working schedule per week, provided for freedom of assembly, and the right to strike. Two years later, Brazilians elected a popular candidate as president, Fernando Collor de Mello.

During his incumbency, Collor was subjected to increasing international pressure to contain and decrease deforestation in the Amazon's rain forests and to recognize the autonomy of the indigenous Yanomami. In 1992, Collor was impeached by the Congress of Brazil on account of staggering corruption in his government, the first elected president to be subjected to removal from office. Collor, however, resigned before his trial could begin and his vice president Itamar Augusto Franco functioned as temporary president. Two years later, the Supreme Court cleared Collor of corruption charges but was barred from public office until 2001.

In the mid-80s, more than 1000 were killed on account of land conflicts.

Critics say that Brazil had one of the worst land distribution schemes in the world, where 1% of rural properties representing 47% of agricultural land and 62% of thee large ranches were unproductive, while 4.8 million farmers had no access to those lands. In reaction to the situation, these workers banded themselves together into the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra or MST, otherwise known as the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement. It evolved into the largest social movement in all of Latin America since its formation in the early 80s. The MST provided the much-needed pressure on the government to distribute land titles to around 150,000 landless families. At present, MST lends support to the efforts of more than 57,000 families occupying uncultivated land in 23 states in Brazil. These families lived in 30 or so camps, hoping for their land titles from the government. They based their position on the pertinent provision of the Constitution, which states that unproductive land can be expropriated for agrarian reform.

When the government was unwilling to bend, these workers encamped themselves on those properties as their way of negotiating for their expropriation rights. Reports said that, in many cases, large ranchers or latifudiarios and the police came into the scene and dispersed these encamped workers and their families. One extreme case was the alleged massacre of El Dorado dos Carajas. During this incident on April 17, 1996, Brazilian military police killed 18 rural workers as the latter peacefully marched in the state of Para.

There was reportedly a precedence a year earlier when the police entered the Corumbiara area at 4 in the morning and killed 11 of the 2,300 peasant sleeping, one of whom was a seven-year-old girl who was shot in the back.

In January 1996, Cardoso signed a presidential decree, which allowed non-Native Americans to appeal decisions made by the Indian Affairs Bureau on land allocations. It allowed or favored regional governments, private enterprises and persons to challenge these workers or indigenous people's claims to certain lands, particularly those in the Amazon region of northern Brazil. This government decree received stiff condemnations from human rights advocates and Native American, civic and religious organizations around the world.

The MST would later report that human rights violations were confined to select people in the movement.

Large land owners formed militia groups, called "security companies," to perform the task of exterminating these activist leaders. The Latin American Alliance of Peasant Organization, as a consequence, chose April 17 as its International Day during its second congress held in November 1997. An MST representative, Daniel Correa, organized demonstrations a speaking tour in the main centers of the U.S. To raise American awareness of the distresses of his countrymen. This was triggered by the murder of two important MST leaders in the state of Para who were then negotiating for the return of 550 displaced families from the ranch Goias II.

It was Fernando Henrique Cardoso's turn to be president and assumed the position officially in January 1995. His government decreased economic controls and privatized government-owned telecommunications, oil, mining, and electricity enterprises.

With a new and stable currency, he was able to put inflation under control and signed decrees that new lands from private estates to the landless poor. He got re-elected in 1998 but soon confronted budget deficits and a decline foreign exchange reserve that devalued the new currency and increased interest rates. He sought the help of the International Monetary Fund or IMF, which granted Brazil a $42-billion aid. Through this aid, the Brazilian government imposed strict economic policies, which won back investor confidence in mid-1999 and restored the country's previous economic growth rate and status. In May 2000, he signed a law that would limit spending by the states.

Corruption scandals rocked the governing coalition in early 2001. As these happened, a drought reduced the amount of water needed for hydropower and a surge in the demand for electricity, creating an energy crisis, which, in turn led the government to cut electrical consumption from May 2001 to March 2003.

Discontent and dissatisfaction with government constraints pushed for the election of Lula da Siva of the opposition Workers Party in 2002 as president. To most Brazilians, this was the sign of increasing stability of democracy in their land. Da Silva's election was the first transfer of power between presidents since 1961. Da Silva's economic program did not depart too far from his predecessor's, something which turned many of his supporters off. Since early this year, his government has been blighted by a campaign finance scandal, rising unemployment and diminishing popular and congressional support.

One figure that stands out of the dire human rights conditions in Brazil is Benedita da Silva, the firt Afro-Brazilian woman to be elected to the Brazilian senate. In her book, Benedita relates that she lived with 30 million poor people who could neither read nor write and lived in cardboard shacks in shanties, under the bridges or on the streets. She says she knows their stories because she lived with these people.

Her book relates her and her people's struggles in those shanties, the women's movement and the black movement. Her rare courage won her much popularity as an organizer, a politician and an international figure and role model.

Benedita brings to live 500 years of discrimination to the minds and understanding of those in the U.S. And the world interested and willing to support racism and racial inequities in Brazil.

She was only one of 14 children in her family, born and reared in the shanty communities in Rio de Janeiro. She and her family wallowed in poverty and had the excruciating experience of watching two of her four children die of incurable diseases. She witnessed to back-alley abortions and exploitations, going to sleep hungry as a child and watched her own children go to bed hungry themselves. Her own poor parents were plantation workers in Mina Gerais for the miserable wages given black Brazilians like them. She was just among the millions who settled in Rio de Janeiro in the pursuit of a better life, but ending up in a crowded and horrid favela. She thrived on hustling for money in the street as a child, and sold fruits, nuts, cleaned shoes and helped her mother wash other people's clothes. She was only 16 when she got married and had four children by the age of 21. But she was of another mold. While functioning as a mother and working, Benedita continued studying and soon finished a degree in social work. Then she joined the Workers Party and rose from its ranks. In 1982, she was elected as City Councilor of Rio and then into Brazil's Congress in 1986. In 1994, she became a senator, remaking history for herself and her fellow black Brazilians.