Brazilian people

“ The upper classes of the Brazilians are a well educated and cultivated people. Most of them have been schooled in France, and speak the French language almost as fluently as their own. In Paris there is always a goodly sized Brazilian colony, and the boats passing between Rio and Europe always carry a number of Brazilians to and from that European capital. They find the atmosphere of the French capital more congenial, and full of the simpatica which means so much to the Latin people. ”

“ There is little ease in Brazilian society, even in the larger cities; still less in the smaller ones, where, to guard against mistakes, the conventionalities of town life are exaggerated. The Brazilians, indeed, though so kind and hospitable, are a formal people, fond of etiquette and social solemnities. ”

“ It is needless to say that the restoration of a monarchy in Brazil is quite unthinkable, and that the society’s existence is more interesting than important, but I mention it to show the amused tolerance of the Brazilian towards other people’s opinions. He has a detached, sometimes cynical attitude, believes in frank discussion and the airing of ideas, and together with a markedly democratic habit of life retains a European 81respect for tradition and authority. ”

“ Each year sees an increasing emigration to it, and the nationalities of the new-comers are over thirty in number. Some become naturalised, many refrain from bothering about a formality which bestows few advantages and many obligations. The Brazilian people is made up of three distinct races, Europeans mostly of Latin origin, indigenous Indians and negroes imported from Africa. These different races have mixed and bred, and to some extent have intermarried, and the numerous half-breeds which now inhabit the country are the result. ”

“ The European has asked for Brazilian raw products, brought ships to carry them, built ports for the ships to lie in and railroads to freight the products to the ports; has sold manufactured goods and lent Brazil the money with which to pay for them, and established banks for financial operations connected with the business created. Millions of hardy and industrious people have gone to live in Brazil and to bring the land into cultivation, to educate their children as Brazilians and help in the mental progress of the country. ”

“ Neither do they feel towards it that repulsion which480 marks the attitude of the whites to the negroes in North America and South Africa. The Brazilian lower class intermarries freely with the black people; the Brazilian middle class intermarries with mulattoes and quadroons. Brazil is the one country in the world, besides the Portuguese colonies on the east and west coasts of Africa, in which a fusion of the European and African races is proceeding unchecked by law or custom. The doctrines of human equality and human solidarity have here their perfect work. ”

“ The Brazilians had been given so much that they wanted more. The opening of their country to commerce and travel had let in new ideas, and the people began to discover that they were the slaves of an absolute government. ”

“ It is just as well to realize this difference clearly, to know that, at least in the past, the Americas have been more closely bound to Europe than to each other; the ties are especially strong in Brazil, more tender than in many parts of the New World, because separation in a political sense was obtained without violence. It is only through understanding of the mental and social attitude and conditions of the Brazilian that the newcomer can avoid pitfalls. ”

“ It was realized that a change would come about with the passage of years, when the second or third generations grew and mingled in a common society, Brazilians born and bred, and that meanwhile Brazil was too big to fear the effect of these nucleos with their strong retention of foreign loves and habits. Broadminded enough to sympathize with such feelings, the Brazilian knows that no man worth his salt forgets his native land ”

“ Everybody knows the wealth of the Argentine, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia; but the interior of Brazil, the largest and richest country of all, not unlike forbidden Tibet, was perhaps better known a century or two ago than now. Few people realize that Brazil is larger than the United States of North America, Germany, Portugal, and a few other countries taken together. The interior is practically a terra incognita—although the ancient Jesuits and, at a later date, escaped slaves and native rubber collectors have perhaps found their way inland to a considerable distance. ”

“ Life in Brazil, if in Rio, was very gay; life at São Paulo was very like a farmhouse life, with cordiality and sociability with the other farmhouses, and some of the good Brazilian society was very charming. The Brazilians are to the Portuguese what the Americans are to us. The Portuguese is heavy; the Brazilian is light, active, nervous, spirituel. Their parties are much enlivened by music and dance. ”

“ The Italians, employed on great fazendas, were more in contact with Brazilian life than any other race, and even they keep their own speech together with newly-learned Portuguese, eat Italian 79food and read Italian-language newspapers printed in Brazil. Not until the development of industry brings the colonies into closer contact with each other and with Brazilian centres of old standing will the Galician and Arab affect any society but of his own race. ”

“ To a less noticeable extent almost every nationality is found in Brazilian society, for this is a country which has always welcomed the stranger of distinction, but no race has impressed itself so firmly upon national characteristics as the Franco-Latin. Immigration, properly speaking, the systematic colonization with which São Paulo supplied her coffee lands with labour and Rio Grande and Paraná settled their open spaces, and Minas tried to supplant negro workers, has affected Brazilian social conditions scarcely at all. ”

“ Whilst the Alabama is heaving up her anchor, I deem it [Pg 620] proper to say a word or two, about emigration to Brazil; a subject which has been a good deal canvassed by our people. Brazil is an immense Empire, and has almost all the known climates and soils of the world. Nature has bestowed upon her her choicest gifts, and there is perhaps no more delightful country to reside in than Brazil. But men live for society, as well as for climate and soil. ”

“ Turning from these anticipations, and glancing beyond the Brazilian life which is already familiar to us, we catch glimpses of another population connected with the Eastern Brazilians only by the necessities of commerce and production. In this inland society are mingled—under some strange and many picturesque aspects—several distinct varieties, of which the early creole, the aboriginal, and the negro races are the original types. Any rapid material progress will bring changes into this strange society, and already is it entering on a transition stage. ”

“ I shall go from you with the hope that in my weak way I may do what it is possible for one man to do in return for all the friendship that you have shown me throughout Brazil—may give my evidence to aid in turning towards your vast and undeveloped resources that immigration and that capital which have been the means of building up and developing the vast riches of my own country. I hope that the same brilliant and prosperous success that has blessed my own land may for many generations visit the people of Brazil. ”

“ Though slavery may be destined to cease in Brazil at some future day, by gradual emancipation, yet the elements of society which have resulted from the mastery of the white man will never be erased entirely from the people. There is a dignity and a hospitality among these people that correspond in many respects to the lofty and generous bearing which characterized the Southern gentleman in former times. We find people in Brazil capable of appreciating the Southern character, and ready to extend a cordial greeting to all who come. ”

“ The white part of the Brazilian nation—and it is only that part that need be considered—seems altogether too small for the tasks which the possession of this country imposes. "How men from the Mississippi would make things hum along the Amazon and the Paraná!" says the traveller from the United States. In thirty years, Brazil would have fifty millions of inhabitants. Steamers would ply upon the rivers, railways would thread the recesses of the forests, and this already vast dominion would almost inevitably be enlarged at the expense of weaker neighbours till it reached the foot of the Andes. ”

“ Brazil is not scantily developed because little has been done; on the contrary, a wonderful amount of development has been accomplished, but the period of expansion has been short and the country so great and varied that whole regions remain out of the track of progress. Until a century ago, when Dom João opened Brazilian ports to international commerce, Brazil lay in a trance, bound hand and foot to Portugal, isolated from the world. ”

“ I am under the impression that, were Brazil to throw off a causeless jealousy, and a puerile fear of our people, and invite settlers to the Valley of the Amazon, there might be found, among our Southern planters, men, who, looking with apprehension (if not for themselves, at least for their children) to the state of affairs as regards slavery at home, would, tinder sufficient guarantees, remove their slaves to that country, cultivate its lands, draw out its resources, and prodigiously augment the power and wealth of Brazil. ”

“ Brazil is destined to assume in the future a far greater importance in the comity of nations than it can boast at present. Its people have no mean record behind them; they have shown{262} a passion for independence and an increasing capacity for government, which argues well for the building up of that great edifice which is certain sooner or later to arise in South America. ”

“ One may in Brazil depend upon a street cleaner as much as upon a senator for chivalrous politeness. A stranger may address any passer-by in a Brazilian street in the most execrable Portuguese and will almost invariably receive serious and kindly attention: it is said that the Brazilian with his agreeably poised attitude to life “laughs at everything except a stranger who is speaking bad Portuguese.” ”

“ The Brazilians are an interesting people. I like them. They are always courteous and polite. Men often tip their hats to each other and kiss each other's hands. In Rio de Janeiro nearly everyone is well dressed. ”

“ The Brazilian is in his mental attitude an inheritor not only of Latin tradition in general but of French ideas in particular: Paris is his Mecca, French literature and French science and French art the inspirers of his youth; more cosmopolitan than the Portuguese born, because he is in close touch with all Europe as well as with the Americas, quite minus the feeling that makes the Spaniard love bull-fights, the Brazilian has grounds for his claim as the brightest spiritual heir of Latinity. ”

“ This country is a continuation of that in which Cape St. Augustine is situated, in eight degrees thirty minutes south latitude.”
The squadron entered the port now known as that of Rio Janeiro on St. Lucy’s day, the thirteenth of December.
“The land of Brazil, which produces every thing in abundance, is as large as Spain, France, and Italy united. It is one of the countries acquired by the king of Portugal. The people of Brazil are not Christians, nor are they idolaters, for they worship nothing.... They go entirely naked, the women as well as the men. ”

“ On a far larger scale this frontier is to be found in Brazil—a country as big as Europe or the United States—and decades will pass before it vanishes. The first settlers came to Brazil a century before the first settlers came to the United States and Canada. For three hundred years progress was very slow—Portuguese colonial government at that time was almost as bad as Spanish. For the last half-century and over there has been a steady increase in the rapidity of the rate of development; and this increase bids fair to be constantly more rapid in the future. ”

“ The whole of Brazil, notwithstanding its immense apparent advantages, has always remained entirely uncivilized; its inhabitants wandering savages, incompetent to resist those obstacles which the very bounty of Nature had put in their way. For the natives, like every people in the infancy of society, are averse to enterprise; and being unacquainted with the arts by which physical impediments are removed, they have never attempted to grapple with the difficulties that stopped their social progress. ”

“ What all observers are agreed upon is that there are very few families of pure Portuguese blood, and the climate of Brazil, except in the Highlands, is opposed, as has been noticed, to the perpetuation of any European people in its full vigour. It seems difficult to doubt that Brazil will pass more and more into the hands of the negroes; the Indians, perhaps, maintaining themselves, and spreading in the northern and more inaccessible central parts; while the white may continue for a long time to be numerous in the cities, and in parts of exceptional healthiness. ”

“ Perhaps it is owing to their enervating climate, but the Brazilians do not seem to work or play with a will. They have not the activity which, while it makes life a restless fever with our people, gives it interest also ”

“ The greatest number of the colored inhabitants of Brazil are of the negro and European races, called mulattoes. It may be asserted that the inferior classes of the free population are composed of such. If ever there should be a republic, such as exists in the United States of America, as it is the aim of a numerous party in Brazil to establish, the whole class of artisans would doubtless consist of a colored population. ”