Southern Brazil

“ Sometimes the whole front or side of a house is covered with blue or yellowish brown tiles, a characteristic of Portuguese cities—it is frequent in Oporto and Braga—which has come down from401 Moorish times. But a still greater contrast between this and southern Brazil is found in the population. In São Paulo there are few negroes, in Rio not very many, but here in Bahia all the town seems black. One might be in Africa or the West Indies. It is the same in Pernambuco and indeed all the way to the mouth of the Amazon. ”

“ This will revolutionize this port and make Rio Grande do Sul a port of call for European and American steamers. It will not only give an easy outlet to Southern Brazil, but a much shorter [155] one for Northern Uruguay and a part of Argentina.
Rio Grande do Sul of to-day is a thrifty little city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, with pretty parks and narrow streets, but nothing outside of its shipping to attract much attention to itself. There are schools, colleges and churches, charitable institutions and a library, all of which are excellent in themselves. ”

“ For such persons Brazil appears just now one of the most favourable fields for commencing life anew; as the government is there offering, at a merely nominal price, in the hills in the neighbourhood of the capital, land well suited for coffee plantations, and where the climate is such as to admit of European labour. This has been done with the especial view of attracting some part of the emigration from the Southern States. No friend, however, of the unhappy people of the South would advise them to accept any offers of the kind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To such men there are few parts of the world which offer as much as does Brazil, with her sincere invitation to foreigners, square dealing, stability, and rewards for enterprise. The lack of development along certain definite lines is Brazil’s best recommendation to the enterprising and persistent.
No seeker after dolce far niente should come here. No thought of tropic paradises should obscure the vision of the newcomer. Brazil is a good country for the worker, with wide southern lands where careful cultivation will bring excellent results ”

“ The Tres Barras yards operate with the Paraná pine for which the southern States of Brazil are famous, ship it to many other parts of the Brazilian Union, and in 1915 arranged to supply Argentina alone with forty million feet a year.
S. Francisco port has entered upon a new life since the lumber business has been flourishing; a double row of settlements has sprung up beside the track of the railroad and agriculture is showing development in a region that has been steadily if slowly settled by the descendants of the early colony of Joinville. ”

“ Having adopted Brazil as our future home, and believing as we do that it is better adapted to the wants of our people than any other country upon earth, we should rejoice to see the good and true people of the South emigrate in masses to this wonderful country. Hence our anxiety that this Government should fully understand the character, the capacities, and the habits of the Southern people. ”

“ Few matters are initiated here by a public assemblage of the people, such as that now witnessed in regard to emigration, and it indicates a widespread and abiding conviction of the importance that is attached to the settlement of the Southern planters in the territory of Brazil.
The official authorities have manifested great readiness to receive favorably all of our people who have sought any position in connection with the government ”

“ The manufacturing resources afforded by the water-power which is in almost every section of the country, afford the opportunity for working up much of the material grown upon the soil, and enterprise may speedily put to work spindles and looms even at points remote from the great lines of transportation. To our Southern people the empire of Brazil embodies the character and sentiment among the better class of citizens, very much in keeping with our standard of taste and politeness. ”

“ The headwaters of the northern affluents of the Paraguay and the southern affluents of the Amazon are sundered by a stretch of high land, which toward the east broadens out into the central plateau of Brazil. ”

“ Tobacco and cocoa are grown largely, especially in Bahia. The exports consist solely of the raw produce of the soil.
People.—The inhabitants of Brazil, as of other parts of South America, present three great elements—that of the aboriginal Indians, that of the European conquerors and colonists and their descendants, and that of the Africans [675] introduced as slaves. The most important section of the Brazilians are the descendants of the Portuguese settlers. There are, however, several flourishing German and Italian colonies in the southern states. ”

“ Brazil is an immense country. From the northern states with their vast forests—which most of us make the mistake of thinking cover the larger part of the country-—to the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catharina, it includes climates of many kinds. The visitor to this exposition will see rubber and wheat; sugarcane and corn; cotton, rice, manioc, coffee, mate, grapes, tobacco, alfalfa, sorghum. ”

“ The scenery of their richly wooded eastern side, where they break down steeply towards the Atlantic, is as beautiful as can be found anywhere in the tropics. They are continued northward and southward in lower hills, and on the west subside gently, sometimes in long slopes, sometimes in a succession of broad terraces, into a vast plain, only slightly raised above sea-level, from which streams flow southward into the Paraná, northward into the Amazon. In this plain, still imperfectly explored, Brazil touches Paraguay and Bolivia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many bureaus in the public offices are held by colored men, observably in the custom house, and the race generally is regarded with far more respect than with us in the United States.
Providence has liberally endowed the larger portion of Brazil with a fertile soil, an unrivaled flora, and a delightful climate. For a tropical country, it is remarkably temperate and salubrious. It has mountain scenery excelling that of Switzerland, with fertile valleys surpassing those of Italy, and myriads of rivers affording ample means of transportation with natural and abundant irrigation. ”

“ Finding this to be a region filled with coloured people as São Paulo was with white people, and knowing that a thousand miles further west one would come into a region entirely Indian, one began to realize what a vast country Brazil is, big enough to be carved up into sixteen countries each as large as France. ”

“ One is impressed by the extent of mountainous territory which is encountered by the traveller all over the republic, with the exception of the country traversed by the mighty Amazon and its tributaries. It is a constant surprise to see the vast amount of soil in Brazil that is actually without development. Mile after mile of this land, which is within a comparatively short distance of the capital, had the appearance of never having been occupied by settlers, or ever having been disturbed by agriculturists. ”

“ Before the coming of the Germans, South Brazil was almost totally neglected; demand for tropical produce such as sugar and tobacco had kept the attention of Portuguese and their mixed-blood descendants for over three centuries to North Brazil, where negro slaves multiplied on the warm coast; the grassy uplands of the south attracted few Brazilians, and these chiefly bandeirantes whose main business was to keep out Spaniards from the Plate, and whose wild cattle strayed and bred on the natural pastures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Indian admixture has left little traceable influence but that of physical hardihood. The extreme south of Brazil, as we have already seen, has had during the 107last century an enormous influx of European white blood other than Portuguese, chiefly Italian and Germanic, while all the large coast cities are noticeably impregnated with more or less foreign elements. In the interior of the northern promontory a noticeable feature is the blonde average of the population, partly an inheritance from the days of Dutch control and partly from that of French settlement. ”

“ Brazil, because it is the largest country, occupying three-sevenths of South America, and the only considerable state that was not settled by the Spaniards; the Argentine Republic, because it is the largest and most populous of the Spanish states and, with Peru, illustrates the political and financial phases through which the Spanish republics have passed.
The valley of the Amazon makes Brazil the most fertile region of the world. The tropical woods are so thick and the creepers and undergrowth so luxuriant that animal life is almost entirely confined to the trees above and the waters below. ”

“ How can a town be governed properly when its capital is three thousand miles distant, and the only open route thither is, by river and sea, a month's journey? Perhaps the day is not far distant when Cuyabá, the most central city of South America, and larger than Corumbá, lying hundreds of miles further up the river, will set up a head of its own to rule, or misrule, the province. Brazil is too big, much too big, or the Government is too little, much too little. ”

“ Large parts of them are believed to be fit only for ranching, but settlement has in the western districts not gone far enough to determine their capacity for agriculture, though it is known that some are unprofitable because marshy and others because sandy. On the other hand the country south of latitude 20° is for the most part fertile and well watered, and more developed than any other part of Brazil except the coast strip.
There remains another and still larger region which lies in the northwest part of the republic; I mean the vast plain of the Amazon and its tributaries. ”

“ Few countries on the active list have seen such revolutions in industry; they have been largely due to the variety of Brazilian regions, and they will in all probability be repeated while Brazil opens her great expanses of virgin prairies, forests, and mineral-saturated hills. ”

“ While this State has no seaboard, no rubber, and no city of 50,000 inhabitants, it has a larger population than any other State of Brazil and than most of the countries of South America. This is due to its good climate and excellent waters, as well as to its rich resources. The author Diaz says: “In this State what doesn’t hide gold contains iron; what does not contain coal spreads diamonds.” ”

“ The coast of Brazil straggles along for over 5000 miles and is provided with numerous natural harbors, where the earlier settlers established cities which have grown and prospered, 18the principal ones from the north to the south being Belem, or Para, San Luiz, Parnahyba, Fortaleza or Ceara, Natal, Parahyba, Recife or Pernambuco, Maceio, Aracaju, São Salvador or Bahia, Victoria, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Paranagua, São Francisco, Rio Grande do Sul and Porto Allegre. ”

“ In Brazil much progress, much creation, has come from within, and will come to an even larger degree in the future with improvement in technical education; but the country is enormous, the centres of population have always lain on or near the sea-border, and interior Brazil, the virgin heart of South America, remains practically untouched. ”

“ Central Brazil was certainly a country of flat sky-lines—so flat that often when the distance became of a pure cobalt blue one had the impression of overlooking an immense ocean, to which the green undulations in sweeping lines in the nearer foreground added the impression of great waves. ”

“ 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. ”