Slavery, Sugar, and Brazil's Colonial Economy, 1580–1680

Introduction

Like the United States, the economy of Brazil was initially based on plantations and slave labor. Portuguese colonizers established these plantations in Brazil, and they were primarily sugarcane plantations. The first commercial plantations began in the early 1500s and were operated by African slaves shipped to South America by Portuguese colonizers. The slaves worked on sugarcane plantations and in sugarcane mills under extremely harsh conditions. The sugarcane plantations led to the emergence of an aristocratic class in Brazil and the subsequent stratification of the population into various economic classes.¹ This paper assesses the role played by African slaves and sugar plantations in the early stages of the Brazilian economy, and considers whether the economy would have been weaker today without them.

The Economic Value Derived Through Sugarcane and Slavery

The first sugar plantations in what is now known as Brazil were established in the early 1500s in the regions around Pernambuco and Bahia. Although sugarcane was planted very early in Brazil, it was initially not the main commodity exported by the Portuguese colonial authority during the first half of the sixteenth century.² The main export commodity was dyewood. This was partly because the price of sugar had significantly decreased in Europe during that period due to low demand. However, from around 1550, demand and prices for sugar rose sharply as sugar became widely popular in jellies, jams, and other food products, and began replacing natural honey in recipes. This surge in demand made sugar the principal export commodity from Brazil.

Sugar was first commercially produced on a large scale in Brazil in 1550, when Portuguese colonial authorities established sugar mills near São Vicente and Pernambuco along Brazil's Atlantic coast.³ The commercial sugar production system was modeled on that already in use at Madeira, in which a landowner leased portions of land to planters who shared a portion of their output.⁴

During the three centuries of colonization, the revenue generated from the sugar business was enormous. Brazil earned far more wealth from the export of sugar between 1526 and 1822 than from the export of diamonds and gold — even though Brazil was the world's largest exporter of those commodities in the eighteenth century. In terms of 1936 British pounds, total earnings from sugar exports during the colonial period were estimated at £300,000,000, while earnings from diamonds and gold were estimated at £170,000,000.⁵

The sugar mills first established in Brazil extracted sugarcane juice through manual labor, performed mostly by African slaves. Over time, this system was replaced by larger mills that used animals or waterways to press out the juice. During the colonial period, each large sugar mill produced approximately 150 metric tons of sugar per year — considerably more than mills in Madeira.⁶ With time, sugar plantations in Brazil also became more self-sufficient, growing their own cane, producing finished sugar products, and providing food and shelter for the hundreds or thousands of enslaved workers who kept them running.

The Role of Sugarcane Profits in Building the Brazilian Economy

Sugar and sugarcane plantations in colonial Brazil generated wealth primarily for Portuguese colonial landowners, colonial authorities, Dutch traders of Brazilian sugar, and other foreign merchants. However, because colonial authorities and foreign merchants spent their earnings elsewhere, only a small fraction of the sugar trade's wealth was reinvested in Brazil.⁷ This was particularly true during the country's formative stages in the second half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth century.

Over time, however, this dynamic began to change. Despite rapid fluctuations in sugar demand and prices, Brazil's sugar mills modernized by adopting new centrifuges and vacuum pans, which substantially increased their efficiency and output.⁸ As production grew, the mills generated large quantities of molasses as a by-product. Some sugar factories began converting molasses into ethanol, a development that drew many sugar-producing countries into the molasses market and significantly increased its global demand. This demand proved enormously lucrative for Brazil, whose mills produced molasses on a massive scale.

The large-scale production of molasses by Brazilian sugar mills gave rise to nearby ethanol-producing factories. Brazil subsequently became a major ethanol producer, and ethanol became a significant source of national income. Ethanol was initially adopted as an automobile fuel and proved widely popular. It also quickly emerged as an essential input for the developing chemical industry, increasing demand and gradually making it too costly for widespread use as a transportation fuel alone.

Conclusion

Credible and reliable sources support this paper and the arguments made in it. However, some of the sources are limited in scope and may vary in authenticity. Nevertheless, these limitations do not undermine the well-documented fact that the establishment of sugar plantations in Brazil generated enormous wealth and laid the foundation for the Brazilian economy as it exists today. Nor do they diminish the central role that African slaves played in creating that wealth and in driving the country's subsequent economic development. It can therefore be concluded that Brazil's economy was built from the ground up through sugar plantations and enslaved labor, and that it might not be as strong as it is today without the plantation system and the African slaves whose forced labor sustained it.

References

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Simonsen, Roberto Cochrane. História econômica do Brasil: 1500–1820. Brasiliana, 1937.

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