Fruitless Trees: Portuguese Conservation and Brazil’s Colonial Timber 9781503617612

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Fruitless Trees

Fruitless Trees PORTUGUESE CONSERVATION AND BRAZIL'S COLONIAL TIMBER

SHAWN WILLIAM MILLER

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2000 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data appear at the end of the book

To my mother Sheila May Miller, nee Mohr

Acknowledgments

While I alone take responsibility for the content of this study, duty and gratitude require that I thank the following institutions and individuals for making the project financially and intellectually feasible. The Tinker Summer Research Program at Columbia University launched the project by funding a preliminary trip to Brazil's archives to determine the topic's promise. I thank David Eltis of Harvard University's W. E. B. DuBois Institute for African Studies for his generous offer of employment in Brazil doing related work. And I owe the John Carter Brown Library and its excellent residential fellowships for three months of research in its incomparable collection of Americana. I would also like to thank the talented staffs of the various archives and libraries for their irreplaceable assistance, namely, those of the Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Arquivo Nacional, Arquivo Publico do Estado da Bahia, Arquivo Estadual de Pernambuco, Arquivo Hist6rico Ultramarino, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, the library of the New York Botanical Garden, the Instituto Hist6rico e Geognifico Brasileiro, and The John Carter Brown Library. I thank Herbert Klein for his always frank advice and many efforts on my behalf, Deborah Levenson-Estrada for well-timed encouragement, and Warren Dean for exemplary generosity. Roger Knight of the National Maritime Museum in London commented on maritime sections of the manuscript, and John Wirth and William Summerhill provided numerous helpful recommendations. With great affection, I thank the Caiado Bezerra family of Rio de Janeiro, whose hospitality and good humor went beyond even that expected of their compatriots, making the months spent in the "cidade maravilhosa" a most pleasant memory for my family. I am so frequently asked about the reasons for my interest in the forest and related industries that I am encouraged to acknowledge my progenitors, as I have my contemporaries. I am a third-generation native of Vll

viii

Acknowledgments

Washington State. One grandfather, Ivan Miller, worked most of his life as a millwright and electrician at the Everett Weyerhauser lumber mill, and another, Herman Mohr, built commercial fishing boats in both Everett and Cordova, Alaska, when not fishing himself. My father, William Miller, who has built furniture and clocks for the past twenty years, introduced me to woodworking at a young age. And I fought summer forest fires with the U.S. Forest Service to put myself through school. Only after readers queried the source of my research interests did I consider that some of my historical questions were part and parcel of who I am and from whom I come. I thank my wife Kelly for traipsing across half the western world with me, through student poverty and even pregnancy. Her charm opened more doors than did my speaking the language, and her companionship made the rigors of graduate work seem but a small part of my life.

S.W.M.

Contents

List of Illustrations List of Tables Abbreviations Introduction

x XI

xiii 1

1. The Colonial Landscape: Timber, Forests, and Soils

15

2. Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

43

3. Brazil's Timber in the Atlantic Basin

71

4. The Tropical Woodsman

105

5. Ax, Ox, and Sawmill: Techniques and Technology

131

6. Cabotage and Transatlantic Shipping

155

7. Shipbuilding and Tropical Timber

183

Conclusion: Anonyms for Free Enterprise

209

Appendixes A. An Inventory of Timbers Encountered in Colonial Documents for Shipbuilding, Construction, and Cabinetwork, c. I7IO-I8zo B. Colonial Weights, Measures, and Coinage C. Tool List Required to Establish a New Corte in Paraiba, I788 Notes Bibliography Index

235 253 257 259 297 317 lX

Illustrations

1. Active timbering regions of eighteenth-century Brazil.

13

2. A wooden cannon, manufactured by Amazonian revolutionaries.

21

3. Opening a road in the Atlantic Forest along the Mucuri River in Southern Bahia.

29

4. Timber among total commodity exports on the Brazil fleet of 1755 from Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco.

100

5. The Brazilian Feller ("Derrubador Brasileiro").

106

6. Slaves sawing plank in Rio de Janeiro.

121

7. Transporting timber: mule cart, oxcart, and chain gang.

145

8. The canoe raft, a Brazilian innovation, on the Macacu River, Rio de Janeiro.

X

163

Tables

1. Timber exports from Brazil to Portugal by region,

1796-!819

73

2. Timber produced, consumed, and exported by Belem do Para, 1784-9 5

76

3. Shiptimber prices in Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, and Bahia for the construction of seventy-gun naus, 1752-53

88

4. Imports of timber to Portugal from foreign nations and Brazil, 1796-r8r9

90

5. Timber production for the fabrication of sugar chests based on sugar exports, r645-r82o

96

6. Quantity vs. value: royal timber exports to Lisbon from Para, 1784-9 5

99

7. A comparison of Brazil's total timber exports with the internal trade from Ilheus to Salvador in r 8oo

102

8. Labor composition and costs in three Paraiban cortes, October-December, 1789

9. Labor in the royal cortes of Maricoabo, Una, Sao Jose, and Taperagua, Comarca Ilheus, by occupation and ethnicity, r809 10. Expenses for three royal cortes in Parafba, October-December, 1789

113

119

123

xi

xii

Tables

11. Income and expenses for twenty Bahian ships engaged in trade with Europe over seven years and eight voyages, 1776-82

180

12. Volume, quantity, and price of shiptimbers required to build a nau of 7 4 guns at Bahia in the late eighteenth century

188

13. Densities of selected Brazilian, European, and North American timbers commonly employed in ship construction

201

14. Relative strengths of important shipbuilding timbers in Brazil and India as determined by Brazilian experiments in 1780

205

15. Comparative regional timber exports for Portuguese and British America

211

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations refer to the most frequently consulted archives, libraries, and published collections. Anais do Arquivo Publico da Bahia Annaes da Biblioteca e Arquivo Publico do Para Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de janeiro Arquivo Hist6rico Ultramarino, Lisbon Arquivo Nacional do Rio de Janeiro Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon Arquivo Publico do Estado da Bahia, Salvador APB Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro BNRJ Documentos Hist6ricos, Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de DH Janeiro HAHR Hispanic American Historical Review Instituto Geognifico e Hist6rico da Bahia, Salvador IGHBahia Instituto Hist6rico e Geognifico Brasileiro, Archive, Rio IHGB de Janeiro IRC "Inspetoria dos Reais Cortes, r782-r789," Arquivo Publico do Estado da Bahia The John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island JCB The New York Public Library, New York, New York NYPL Publicafoes do Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro PAN Revista do Instituto Archeol6gico e Geografico PernamRIAGP bucano do Instituto Geogrdfico e Hist6rico da Bahia Revista RIGHBahia Revista do Instituto Hist6rico e Geografico Brasileiro RIHGB

AAPB ABAPP ABNR] AHU ANRJ ANTI

xiii

Fruitless Trees

Introduction

See her great woodlands, dense forests that ascend to the clouds and veil the heavens: the monstrous thickness of her ancient trunks, the variety of her precious species, the best of the universe. -SIMAO DE VASCONCELLOS,

Chr6nica da Companhia de Jesu, I663

Visitors to Brazil who could wield the pen rarely failed to give account of the magnificent forests that confronted them at every turn. From Pero Vaz de Carninha, who in I 500 announced to the Portuguese king an addition to his majesty's realm "very full of great trees from point to point," to Maria Graham, witness to the colony's independence in 1822, who described the labor preferences under which this fabulous resource was exploited, Europeans stood in awe of a universal abundance that had been despoiled, or largely transfigured, in their own lands. Even the Brazilian colonists, many reared and laid to rest in the shadow of the forest canopy, acclaimed the grandeur and beauty of their native trees, towering giants reaching green to every horizon and flowered with colors as variegated as the rainbow. More than for either beauty or grandeur, however, all observers extolled the tropical forest for the potential economic benefits its timber held for the kingdom of Portugal and her subjects. It was this above all else that inspired European esteem and Brazilian pride. Diogo de Campos Moreno described the Brazilian forest, "where ax had never entered since God created it," as having the capacity to supply every possible timber requirement of the colonists. The agony of Portugal's domestic timber famine would forever be foreign to the Brazilian. 1 And the prospect of 1

2

Introduction

Brazil's colonial sugar venture was brighter due to the untold abundance of ligneous fuels. Even after more than a century and a half of extensive cane planting, the Jesuit Andre Joao Antonil could still boast that "only Brazil, with the immensity of her forests, could surfeit-as it has for so many years and will in years to come-as many furnaces as could be counted in the mills of Bahia, Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro." 2 The forest was truly Brazil's most striking and extensive natural resource. Yet even profusion was not the forest's most potentially consequential advantage. Accessible timber still abounded in many parts of early modern Europe. The real value of Brazil's colonial forests consisted in its hundreds of timber species that were entirely new to Europeans, scores of which were stronger, larger, more durable and beautiful than any timbers available in temperate Europe or North America. Fray Jose de Santa Rita Durao, a native of Minas Gerais, favorably compared Brazil's remarkable timbers with the colony's better-known precious metals and stones, if not for their actual commercial value, then for their dazzling beauty. He equated the vinhatico with a massive nugget of gold; the violete tree was a "botanical amethyst." The implication-that Brazil's unique timbers might be a source of great colonial prosperity-was not lost on anyone, including the crown. By virtue of the quantity and quality of Brazil's timbers alone, the Augustinian friar contended, not only could Portugal's maritime needs be met, but "all of Europe can be filled with ships." 3 The aim of the current work is to delineate and weigh the fortunes of Brazil's colonial timber sector, which includes all extractive activity concerned with the provision of lumber, whether for colonial or metropolitan projects. The period of our primary concern begins about 1650, as it was from this approximate date that the crown began to consider seriously the potential contributions of the Brazilian forest to the kingdom's maritime needs. To the end of the colonial period, where our investigation must end, forest law piled upon itself with little innovation but increasing regulation, culminating in the year 1 8oo with the establishment of the so-called plans (pianos), which were in essence attempts to codify all colonial forest law. We will consider the impact of royal forest legislation upon the colonial venture's particular fortunes as well as upon the tropical forest itself. This study is not, however, primarily a chronicle of the destruction of the tropical forest, despite the topic's contemporary popularity. Timbering in and of itself had relatively little bearing on the demise of the Brazilian for-

Introduction

3

est. It did not open the frontier for colonial planters. Nor did it generally go hand-in-hand with land clearing for agriculture. In fact, one can tersely sum up this study's conclusions in pronouncing the logger the loser in a race to stay ahead of tropical agriculture. But the story of the failed logger provides us with a more accurate perspective on the unique nature and causes of Brazil's deforestation than we have previously enjoyed. This study covers the whole colony. Lumbering occurred in almost every captaincy from Para to Santa Catarina by the end of the colonial period, and nearly all forest legislation formulated in Portugal had the entire colony as jurisdiction. Of primary concern here is not whether forest was removed (a matter beyond dispute), but rather what benefits the colonists derived from its demise. In other words, this study asks not what the colonists did to their forests, but what they did with them. What role did forest resources play in the colonist's accumulation of wealth and capital? What place, among sugar, tobacco, gold, hides, cotton, and other better-studied commodities, did timber have in the colony's total exports to Europe and in domestic production? How did it contribute to shipbuilding in the colony and Portugal? In what forms did the forest contribute to the leading sectors of the colonial economy? And, more pointedly, why were so many of Brazil's acclaimed timbers destroyed by ax and fire to no apparent profit or benefit, the same timbers that consistently achieved prices in Europe high enough to offset the exorbitant costs of colonial extraction, milling, and transatlantic shipping? Effective access to timber was crucial to colonial prosperity, as it was to all Atlantic peoples of the period. From today's perspective, the subject of timber may seem a bit obscure, but to generations past it was exceedingly mundane. No contemporary resource can match timber's preeminent ranking in the pre-industrial world. Timber was not only the steel, aluminum, plastic, and fiberglass of past ages, but the oil, coal, and gas as well. Indeed, among the most significant technological successes of the modern age have been those discoveries of new structural materials that are suitable wood substitutes. And where today thermal energy can be obtained from a variety of sources, prior to I 8oo one had almost no place to go but the forest to obtain a practical source of heat. Structurally, timber had no competitor, as it is the only naturally occurring substance that exhibits tensile strength. And even many modern man-

4

Introduction

made materials only do what timber did previously, and sometimes no better. By weight, most woods are stronger than steel. In matters of building construction, timber has always played the major role, for even if one had the skill and resources to build with masonry, the structure lost its reason for existence as shelter without timber to span the walls and support the roof. The wooden ship was the period's highest expression of material culture and the great tool of European expansion, domination, and commerce, without which world history would be another story entirely. From the cradle to the coffin, the largest percentage of all past material culture has been wooden and, to the eternal chagrin of archaeologists, often non-enduring. And in addition to providing heat and structural strength, timber also rendered dozens of other items indispensable to human economies. Trees provided essential sealants and preservatives such as tar, pitch, and resin, as crucial to shipbuilding as timber itself; important chemical ingredients such as potassium carbonate (potash) for soap- and glass-making; tannin for tanning; printer's black for ink pigment; and many other chemical distillates, as it does still today. The statesman and scientist, Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, writing of the acute timber shortage in Portugal in the early nineteenth century, asserted that "without sufficient forests on suitable and adequate lands, in vain would the government seek to promote mining, manufacturing, naval construction, internal navigation, agriculture or any of the pursuits of a social and cultured society. " 4 In other words, without timber, neither Portugal nor any other nation could continue to exhibit the attributes of a prosperous civilization. In this, all were agreed. The question is raised then: in this Age of Wood, what impact did a weak, monopolized timber sector have on Brazil's economic development? The timber sector of Brazil's colo~ial economy, although habitually acknowledged, has been neglected by scholars of the period. 5 The economic centrality of timber to the era requires that the subject receive greater attention. The forest economy touches many colonial activities (boat- and shipbuilding, civil and domestic construction, sugar milling, containerage, and nearly every artisanal industry from cabinetwork to musical instruments). The fuel requirements of the producers of sugar, whale blubber, rum, tanned leathers, lime, and ceramics were sufficient by themselves to drive a busy commerce in firewood up and down the coast. 6

Introduction

5

The forest, like the Indian peoples, has had an often untold impact on Brazil's history and culture. The forest's influence on Brazilian toponymy may be unparalleled anywhere, starting with the appellation "Brazil" itself, which derives from brazilwood, a dyewood, and the commodity responsible for the colony's first export boom. The place-name Madeira (wood), which was given to the Amazon's greatest tributary because of the ponderous logs it carried downstream in flood, is so common across the land that it is unquantifiable, as are the designations Mata (forest) and Mato (brushwood or jungle). The state of Mato Grosso, meaning "thick jungle," is just one such case. 7 The terms gameleira, jatobd, and the combinations pau (de) _ _ (e.g., area, santo, brasil, alba) litter Brazilian cartography. 8 And we will not attempt to count the toponyms deriving from indigenous root words related to trees, such as ibira, uba (both wood), cad (forest), and {ba (tree). For one example, Paraiba, the name of two important rivers and one state, means "river of trees. " 9 Sources for the forest economy, particularly in the eighteenth century, are abundant and probably unparalleled. The Portuguese crown not only legislated heavily on behalf of her colonial forests but eventually assumed as well the administrative reins of all colonial timbering related to royal shipbuilding in Brazil and Portugal. Nearly every nation of the period took an interest in its national and colonial forest resources, for they were deemed crucial to maritime security and trade, but few can be compared with Portugal in terms of legislative reach or direct royal activity. Portuguese forest policy placed unrivaled restrictions on the use of colonial timber by persons other than the crown. The majority of Brazil's outstanding species, known as the madeiras de lei, or timbers under the law, were designated entirely off-limits to all colonists, even if found on private land, a stricture than no other colonial power dared attempt. And while nearly every maritime state had learned by dismal experience that the least costly means to acquiring timber for naval purposes was by private contract, the Portuguese crown persisted in exploiting the colonial forest under the direct administration of crown officials. Ultimate responsibility rested with the colonial governors and their subordinate judge-conservators, inspectors, or captains-major, who together created a hoard of administrative correspondence that provides as intimate a look into the day-to-day activities of early logging and milling as can be found anywhere.

6

Introduction

Additionally, as already mentioned, foreigners commented often at length on Brazil's forests and forest activities. Foreign residents, such as Henry Koster and Louis Fran~ois de Tollenare in Pernambuco, provide priceless insights into timber's production and the effects of royal legislation. Foreign naturalists, from La Condamine in the 173o's to the team of Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius in the early nineteenth century, spent more time in Brazil's forests with colonial woodsmen than in the better-known urban ports. And visiting foreign ship captains, including John Byron, whose life in part inspired his grandson's satiric Don Juan, and thenLieutenant James Cook, remarked on both the colony's incomparable timbers for ships and how difficult it was to acquire them. This study is in part comparative; it is essential that Brazil be placed in the greater context of the Atlantic basin, over which timber was traded heavily by a large number of producers. For example, how did Portuguese imports of Brazilian timber compare with imports from the Baltic, England, and particularly North America, Brazil's most comparable timber competitor? To comprehend the extremely restrictive nature of Portuguese colonial forest policy, we must contrast it with English and French practice. And there will be numerous opportunities to compare the timber policies and successes in British America with the policies, technologies, and achievements in Brazil. Warren Dean, who has written a vivid account of five centuries of Brazil's pitiless deforestation, has suggested that "forest history, rightly understood, is everywhere on this planet one of exploitation and destruction." 10 As much as that statement reflects a certain reality, it is uniquely the perspective of twentieth-century humanity and not that of the eighteenth-century Brazilian. For many of us, forest history appears to have been a narrow one-way street to the forest's unavoidable dead end. My approach attempts to travel a twoway street, for from the perspective of my subjects the forest was not so much to be destroyed as it was to be utilized. I will be as empathetic to premodern attitudes toward the forest as possible. While I may utilize the terms of modern environmentalism, I hope to employ them as a framework in which to categorize various colonial forest activities rather than as the immutable laws by which we reach a verdict of guilty against the man with the ax. Despite the colonists' pride in the Brazilian forest and the astonishment and awe they felt before its size and incredible beauty, the forest did not elic-

Introduction

7

it either respect or the attitude that the forest ought to be preserved and protected for its own sake. If the merits of protecting the forest could not be argued in utilitarian terms, there was no argument to be made. The Brazilian attitude was that the forest should be utilized. Forest was cleared because colonists expected that a rational economic benefit was to be gained by that act. No matter how high we estimate the cost to the forest, for the colonists the perceived benefits outweighed the drawbacks. I must here maintain that the history of the forest has everywhere been one of utilization-though sometimes poor utilization, and often overutilization. Despite the terrible consequences the forest's utility has had for its own survival, I will not criminalize the behavior of those who took a hand in its demise. While one cannot fairly judge the actions of those in the period in the terms of environmentalism-that is, the belief that nonhuman life has the same rights to life, liberty, and habitat as humans-we can judge some activities in the terms of conservationism, which is the conviction that natural resources ought to be prudently managed, primarily, if not solely, for the benefit of humans. The principles of forest conservation were frequently expressed by the literate of the period, from the king's ministers to his lowliest officials, and one could easily push back such ideas to the period of medieval forest laws, and possibly to the beginnings of civilization. Only rarely does one encounter, as in St. Francis of Assisi, any expressions of love and equality between humans and animals. But declarations in favor of preserving waters, forests, soils, game, and fish for the benefit of society, or at least for certain privileged constituents, are common well before the period in question. Without a doubt, there was enmity between the forest and the colonist. We live in an age that does not comprehend the very real mortal threat the forest held for colonizing Europeans. And the tropical forest seemed to be the worst case. Martius noted that anyone who had never observed "how much the darkness of the forest weighs upon the spirit of the inhabitants," could not imagine how happy and tranquil they became when it was finally cleared. 11 Besides encumbering land required for agriculture, the primeval forest harbored ravenous beasts, poisonous reptiles, noxious insects, and warring tribes of natives who were also widely reported to hunger for the colonists' very flesh. The forest was greatly dreaded. And for good reason; to be so careless as to become lost in the forest was almost certain death for the neophyte white person.

8

Introduction

We, who brave our tamed forests with nylon tents, freeze-dried food, portable stoves, bug repellant, and global positioning devices, are amused by our ancestors' fears, but in their situation we would have felt similarly oppressed and threatened by the shadow of the tropical forest. Even Louis Franc;ois de Tollenare, who enjoyed exploring Pernambuco's virgin forests immensely, admitted he would never enter them unarmed or unaccompanied by a competent guide. 12 Everyone smiled on the progress of the forest's clearing, as it not only eliminated its inherent dangers, but it was believed to improve the climate and salubrity of the local environment as well. Such assumptions were held by even the enlightened visiting naturalists. Having at last conquered much of the world's forest, we moderns finally feel sufficiently confident to abandon the animosity that has so long existed between ourselves and the woodlands. In fact, while our predecessors believed human survival was dependent upon the removal of the forest, many of us have come to regard the forest's survival as intimately tied to our own--diametric positions with the same end. Dean's work suggests that Brazil's European invaders were uncommonly destructive and careless of their forest environment, that the demolition of Brazil's Atlantic forests is a story of uniquely immense dimensions. In a review, Barbara Weinstein questions that impression and notes that if we compare this destruction narrative with one of, say, New England, Brazil does not appear so exceptional.B However, I will maintain that Dean is in essence correct: the disappearance of Brazil's coastal forests was uniquely violent, rapid, and careless-but for none of the reasons previously proffered. The singular character of Brazil's deforestation had little to do with a particularly rapacious Portuguese attitude toward the forest, nor necessarily with the widespread availability of new farmland free for the felling, as both conditions were true for most colonists of the Americas. Neither did it have a direct relation to the adoption of slash-and-bum agricultural techniques or to the existence of slave hands seasonally available for the work of clearing. These factors were common elsewhere too. The destruction in Brazil was uncommon as a direct consequence of Portuguese forest policy, which provided no incentives for conservation, few opportunities for timbering profits, and every stimulus for landowners to destroy what, by decree, did not belong to them. Nearly all civilizations have destroyed their forests to some extent. What made Brazil peculiar was that she literally

Introduction

9

destroyed her trees. Deforestation is a tragedy; deforestation is an unmitigated disaster if little or no benefit is taken in the process. The Brazilian, for the most part, neither harvested nor exploited Brazil's high-quality timber trees, but annihilated them. And royal monopolization explains the colonists' motives for doing so. On the two-way street of humanity's relationship with the environment we have given close attention to human impact, but too little to the environment's rebounding influence. Painting broadly, the impact of westerners on the forests in North America and in Brazil exhibits little difference. But it is in the impact of the environment on the economy, the return relationship, that a real difference is noted. One economy took considerable benefit from the destruction. The other took very little. I propose, then, to examine how this nonreciprocal relationship may have affected development in colonial Brazil, as well as to identify the factors that determined the relationship. As will be seen, colonial forest policy declared that Brazil's best trees, whether rooted on public or private land, held neither present nor future value for the colonists, for they were the exclusive property of the king. Hence, the opportunity cost of slashing and burning the forest was almost nonexistent: one could expect no immediate returns while waiting for exhausted soils to recover, and there was no legal opportunity to turn the forest's trees to personal profit. Hence there are no examples of private conservation. One lost nothing and gained much by the destruction of the forest. The abundance of forested soils and timber's declared value of zero to the populace were the real incentives to cut it down and set it afire-of not just deforesting it, but destroying it. Due to the crown's unparalleled monopolization of timber resources, which it justified as conservation policy, timber trees remained obstacles to the pursuit of prosperity in Brazil, rather than serving as vehicles to that end, as they had in North America and elsewhere. There has, however, been a tendency to construe royal forest legislation in the colonial period as conservationist in intent. The king has been portrayed as a benevolent intercessor who, better than his subjects, could see the intrinsic value of protecting the Brazilian forests. 14 However, other than a couple of examples of forest preservation for water and fish conservation, which were sparked by local rather than royal interests, the attitude of the

10

Introduction

king was in essence no different from that of his subjects. The forest was a resource to be mined just as were the gold deposits of Minas Gerais, and nearly all colonial forest legislation, despite the occasional progressive proposals of a few farsighted persons, had as its immediate end the assurance that the king got his share. The king, by law, took as much as onefifth of all the gold produced in the colony, but in Brazil's timber mines he claimed nothing less than outright possession of all the best trees; the crown even announced at one point the eviction of all inhabitants from Brazil's remaining forested littoral to guarantee the king's timber needs and profits, although this came to naught. Hence, the king's interest was not so much to conserve the forest as it was to reserve it against the use of all others. Timber legislation, while it did justifiably attempt to reserve timbers for the maritime state's crucial requirements, was in reality no more conservationist in result than the royal monopolies on salt, whaling, fishing, or diamonds. 15 Forest laws, despite lofty intentions, did almost nothing to protect Brazil's colonial forests and actually intensified the rate at which trees were felled. More important, it impaired timber's effective use. Portugal's colonial forest laws had two important stipulations. First, the crown prohibited the sale of royal trees by private landowners to anyone but crown contractors. Second, the crown required the landholders to conserve in perpetuity the same royal trees, neither felling them nor setting them afire, even for agriculture. But colonial officials could only enforce the first provision effectively. Planters who held royal resources found it hazardous to take profits from the king's trees. The nature of the extraction was so extensive and the product so bulky that few found the risks of the crime manageable in the face of stiff penalties. The second provision, however, could not be enforced. The small farmer, squatter, even the planter, who could not safely market royal timbers, could with impunity slash and burn them. So the clearing of land was not only the method colonists employed to substantiate their claims to land and to advance their agriculture, but an act of defiance that thwarted any attempt by the king to remove timber from private land and that simultaneously obliterated the evidence of any wrongdoing. By declaring the colony's best timber to be his exclusive domain, the king limited the accumulation of capital that might have come to the average colonist by extracting timber. Timbering, despite its onerous tasks, was in its

Introduction

11

various branches among the least capital-intensive activities in the colony and one that was complementary to many existing economic activities. The king's so-called conservation laws concentrated the great forest wealth in the hands of his few licensed contractors, which left much of the rural subsistence population no option other than to survive-and destroy. The tangible economic revolution that arrived in the New World with the Europeans was the commodification of nature. Nature, what to Indians had been a resource for personal use, became to the Europeans a commodity to be bought, or wrested, and sold. In this region, the thought of felling trees for profit never arose until Europeans came ashore and offered axes and baubles in exchange for brazilwood. But with the monopolization of brazilwood, and later of construction timber, the forest remained a noncommodity for the colonists, just as it had been for the Indians. And what we observe is colonists treating the forest's trees just like the Indians did before the Europeans arrived, felling them for personal use, which remained legal, but destroying what they did not need as an encumbrance to agriculture. Generally, logging and agriculture are not mutually exclusive activities, but go hand-in-hand. In North America, the rather high cost of clearing land was at least offset by the sale of the timber removed. Such was not the case in Brazil. Landowners, as was widely observed, generally slashed and burned everything but the few nonmonopolized timbers that were reserved for sugar crate construction. Of course not every high-quality timber was marketable. Distance from markets, transportation costs, as well as a number of unique environmental obstacles to logging that will be discussed below, all worked to make many of Brazil's valuable hardwoods uncommodifiable. But the reality was that the majority of the timber cut and wasted in the colony came from lands near the coast and situated along bays, estuaries, and rivers, sources of inexpensive transport. The fact they were cleared at all suggests that the timber could have been marketed, for the intent was to plant tropical commodities like sugar and tobacco, or foodstuffs. If one could transport sugar chests, which weighed more than a half-ton, or foodstuffs, which were not very valuable, one certainly could have harvested the timber beforehand. In Cairn and Cachoeira, Bahia's great centers for royal timber exports, it was the lavradores, small farmers of manioc, corn, and vegetables, who were constantly blamed for destroying the fantastic forests that fringed the region's navigable rivers. 16

12

Introduction

The crown was acutely aware of the destruction. But while it was noted that contemporary statutes consistently failed to prevent the waste, the law was never abolished or changed. Only the threats and penalties increased. It was not just crude construction timber that went up in flames, but also the fabulous jacarandas, or rosewoods, and even brazilwood itself. Whether or not the king actually meant well by the legislation, the resultant waste was worse than if there had been no attempt at conservation at all. The crown's greatest concern, of course, was the role the colonial forest should play in the building and maintenance of Portugal's naval fleet, an armada that at the commencement of Europe's reconnaissance of the world was probably unequaled. Hence, ships, shipping, and shipbuilding with Brazilian timber, whether in Brazil or Portugal, will be topics of major importance here. While all European nations relied upon the forest for fuel and lumber, national and economic security were critically dependent upon access to high-quality timber. "He who rules the sea, rules the land," was a frequently repeated maxim of the era. But if one's land, or that of one's trading allies, produced few mature trees, one could not rule the sea for long, as ships had useful lives of generally less than a single human generation (often, tragically, much shorter). As Portugal had exhausted many of her accessible pockets of suitable shiptimbers by the mid-seventeenth century, Brazil and its timber became the guarantee of Portuguese maritime security as well as crown profit, for other denuded European states would surely have an interest in Brazil's excellent woods. 17 Despite the poor performance of the timber economy and various calls for reform, the crown clung tenaciously to its damaging policies, justifying them by the need to reserve colonial timber for the royal navy. For the crown, protecting timber was a matter of national and colonial security. But as one observer commented, timber reserves and a strong navy were of little value if the empire had little in the way of national wealth and trade to protect. The private shipbuilding sector, although more vibrant than historians have allowed, suffered a great deal at the hands of the monopoly, and the crown's own record in producing naval warships in Brazil, despite consistent promotion, fell far short of both need and expectations.

ATLANTIC OCEA

Figure 1. Active timbering regions of eighteenth-century Brazil.

1

The Colonial Landscape: Timber, Forests, and Soils

Alviano: Well, let us get on to a discussion of the timber, which must be a thing of greater importance. Brandonio: I certainly would have been glad not to have become involved in such a task, for there is so much to say on that subject. - AMBR6SIO FERNANDES BRANDAO,

Dia/ogos das grandezas do Brasil, r6r8

Robert G. Albion opened his classic volume of English maritime history, Forests and Sea Power, with an ample chapter on oak, and thereby encompassed nearly all the primary building material, outside of masting, in which Britain's navy had an interest. English warships were built almost entirely of English oak, from frame to planking, and any substitutions with foreign timbers, oak or otherwise, were considered unfortunate compromises at best. And before the Napoleonic Wars, despite talk of national deforestation, the navy almost never compromised. 1 Oak was the material of choice for the building of ships north of the Atlantic's equator, for it combined the qualities of workability, durability, and battle strength better than any other available timber. Oak also contained large quantities of tannic acid, which provided limited resistance to the shipworm, or teredo, that wrought much havoc on the hulls of ships. However, despite oak's exceptional attributes, there were superior trees in the world's forests. I will also introduce my subject with a treatise--on Brazil's timber. This task is not as straightforward as that tackled by Albion. In matters of shipbuilding alone, the variety of reputable timbers available to Brazil's

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shipwrights, and by export to those in Portugal, were legion. The task is also more complex because timber preferences changed over time and were, of course, influenced by geography. Many of the timbers available at the mouth of the Amazon were entirely unknown to the woodsmen about Rio de Janeiro, and vice versa. In all Europe, for Swedes and Italians alike, oak was the only choice. Further complicating this undertaking is the relative dearth of information concerning Brazil's tropical timbers. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that we presently know more about any one of dozens of species of white oak than about any handful of Brazil's tropical hardwoods; and what is true of the present is doubly so for the past. The incomparable quality of Brazil's timbers is uncontested. Their strength, durability, resistance to rot and shipworm, and colorful beauty justified confidence in expanding markets for their sale. The quantity of timber available, however, is in dispute. Even in the early colonial period there were reports of widespread destruction and depletion in Brazil's coastal forests. I will attempt to explain the economic and political motives behind such false claims and will provide evidence for the exceptional abundance of Brazil's forest reserves even in the early nineteenth century. BOTANICAL VARIETY: THE ESSENCE OF THE TROPICS

The prolific variety of the tropical forest's composition bewildered Brazil's early colonial settlers. On a single hectare of forest one might encounter over one hundred species of trees, all of them new and exceedingly strange to Europeans. Only under the tutelage of the native forest peoples could they begin to make sense of this alien diversity. In contrast, Europeans who settled temperate North America found forests and trees that were similar to those they had left behind. True, there were some relatively exotic species, and America's pines, oaks, and elms differed to some degree from those with which the colonists had been familiar, but they were on the whole still pines, oaks, and elms, and had similar uses. Due to the relatively familiar nature of North America's temperate trees, it is not surprising that only in rare cases did the North American settler adopt indigenous timber names, persimmon and catalpa being two of few examples. In Brazil the adoption of indigenous names was almost universal-at least initially. The appearance of the trees, their fruits, seeds, leaves, bark, and even wood, were so unfamiliar that there was little to which the new

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arrivals could relate them. Any attempt to provide new names for even the timbers of known value would have been tantamount to Adam's feat with the animals. Over time, as the Portuguese learned to employ native timbers for their own needs, they began to give them new names, but in many cases this was simply a reflection of their having learned the meaning of the Tupi designation and employing the translation in its place. Gabriel Soares de Sousa often supplied both indigenous and Portuguese names for timbers in his treatise on Brazil, demonstrating the amount of knowledge the Portuguese had accumulated on the tropic's trees by the late sixteenth century. 2 Yet, regardless of the extent to which the Europeans made timber knowledge their own, trees, in the large majority, retained the original names the Tupi had given them. The indigenous role in teaching colonists the uses to which native woods could be applied is indisputable, especially as so many of the early settlers adopted indigenous lifestyles entirely. Whether or not a Portuguese man lived with an Indian woman, he probably sheltered himself in a thatched palha~a, transported himself locally in a dugout canoa, and sustained himself with manioca flour. The materials and tools (which were almost invariably taken from the biomass of the forest) and to some extent the techniques for day-to-day survival, were indigenous. The Europeans were probably quickest to learn from the experience of the natives in the identification and use of the forest's natural fibers. The Indians employed them in cordage, hammocks, and fishing nets, and the Europeans needed them to maintain rigging and caulk their ships. The native role can be overstated, however. Portuguese culture was materially much richer than those it displaced, and the colonist had to rely on good fortune in order to discover in the tropical forest feasible substitutes for woods previously used in Europe. Occasionally they employed what they had learned from the natives in this process of experimentation. Pau de arco (urupariba to the Tupi), a heavy, highly elastic wood the natives had fashioned into bows, was used to make shafts for horse-drawn chaises (varaes de sege), as it provided good suspension and shock absorption without springs. 3 But in most applications the colonists were left to trial and error. The selection of timber for any application, but particularly for shipbuilding, required the consideration of dozens of factors relative to a wood's specific characteristics: strength, both tensile and compressive;

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grain direction and compactness; weight; hardness; resistance to rot and insects; workability with cutting tools; bendability through the application of steam; elasticity; reaction to various metals; and so on. Indigenous cultures simply did not have all the information that Portuguese craftsmen required, and it would only be after decades of selfinstruction that the right tree for the desired task could be satisfactorily decided upon. As these trees were discovered, those most valuable in the applications of European material culture, they would be added to a prestigious group of timbers. These select trees later became known as the madeiras de lei, or timbers under the law, as the crown, after I 6 52, attempted to reserve them for its private use and profit. BRAZILIAN TIMBER AND NAVAL CONSTRUCTION

A description of some of the timbers employed in shipbuilding in the colony will provide an example of the complexities involved in timber selection as well as of the varieties and virtues of Brazil's tropical timbers. While the native canoe builder was interested in a single timber that was light, durable in fresh or salt water, and workable with stone tools and fire, the colonial shipwright's selective criteria sought timbers whose special characteristics were determined by the particular application. For the skeletal frame of the ship, consisting primarily of a keel, ribs, sternpost, deckbeams, and knees, the primary concern was strength and the second durability. Collectively termed liame by Portuguese shipbuilders, skeletal timbers were among the most difficult to secure in all latitudes due to their massive dimensions and required curvature. In the provision of large timbers, Brazil's forests excelled. Here were virgin tracts that had never been assailed by the peculiar requirements of the shipbuilder. And all visitors to the forest were unanimous in their emphatic appraisal of Brazil's giants. By the mid-eighteenth century, when Europe's shipwrights were using elaborate techniques to scarf and join smaller timbers to form a ship's largest members, Brazil provided timbers so large that keels and sternposts were still fashioned of single massive members. The crew of the English frigate Dolphin, making the port of Rio de Janeiro in 1764, witnessed the construction of the sixty-four-gun Sao Sebastiao, then on the stocks, and were astounded by the ship's sternpost, which had been formed from a single Brazilian cedar.4 Not even the colony's seasoned lum-

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bermen were beyond awe as each new forest seemed to hold trees that were grander than any they had previously felled. Antonio Manuel da Prata, inspector of the royal forests of Paraiba in the I790s, led a contingent of highly skilled fellers (batedores peritos) to set aside timber for the king, and reported on trees of such proportions to cause him and his men to repeatedly fall silent in reverence to the "Author of Nature." 5 Compass timbers, the curved members of a ship's frame such as knees, futtocks, breasthooks and top-timbers, had to be fashioned from trees contorted by heavy branching, as it was essential for the strength of each timber that it follow the tree's naturally curving grain. Shipbuilding demanded compass timbers of considerable dimensions and in significant numbers. A seventy-four-gun nau required 420 knees, 6oo futtocks, and 126 deckbeams. 6 Such timbers were plentiful in Brazil's forests, particularly those of Alagoas, southern Pernambuco, and Paraiba. Here the timber grew in more open stands, which encouraged branching, whereas in southern Bahia, also a major source of shiptimber, the forests were much thicker and the trees tended to grow straight and tall with little branching, which, in contrast, were excellent characteristics for planking. The formation of buttressed roots at the base of some of Brazil's giants was a tropical forest anomaly of significant utility. With buttressed roots, even trees that grew relatively straight and tall could be employed as compass timbers, so often the bottleneck in the supply of shipbuilding material. The pequid was commonly employed as a compass timber due to its extensive buttressing. When shipped to the naval arsenal, the bill of lading, in addition to the timber's usual dimensions, also provided figures marking how much of the curve consisted of the root, and how much the bole, as each exhibited different properties that determined its orientation in the ship. 7 Buttresses, as will be seen, made the already laborious task of felling even more intensive, because the roots had to be dug to their sources. The extra effort was justified by the higher prices compass timbers demanded. Also, due to the buttress's uniformity in thickness along the grain, it could be quickly and cheaply turned into plank should the need arise. American foresters later called the buttresses "board-root" due to this practice. 8 In the temperate north, the only real choices for skeletal framing timbers, straight or compass, were a select few of the white oaks, for these exceeded all local competitors in their performance at sea. Brazil's colonial shipbuilder, however, could choose from a dozen trees of completely dif-

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ferent genera, including the sucupira, pequia, sapucaia, angelim, pau de arco, pau roxo, jatai-peba, massaranduba, peroba, ipe, and oiticica, among many others less commonly used. The preference in Bahia was for the sucupira-mirim which was stronger, harder, and more durable than the white oaks, and heavier than hickory. Sucupira-mirim was also the timber of choice for the frames of sugar mills, cane rollers and gear teeth, axles, small boats, and any application in which strength and durability were priorities. Yet the choice of something other than sucupira was considered no great compromise. 9 All the above timbers employed in the framing of ships, in addition to being strong, were renowned for their durability and resistance to rot, the bane of all shipping in the age of sail. The ipe had become famous among visitors to Venice, who were astonished by the longevity of the city's Brazilian piles. 10 Shipwrights whose material came from temperate forests found that the same white oaks that served best to frame a ship also proved the most serviceable for planking the hull. Strength was still an important property, as a ship's planking might have to withstand the buffetings of cannon fire. So was bendability by steam: each heavy plank, more than four inches thick, had to be forced to match the hull's contours. But longevity was the principal concern. Brazil's shipwrights only rarely used the same timbers for planking as they did for frames, despite their well-known durability. For one, Brazil's framing timbers were extremely heavy; for another, some were exceedingly hard. Gabriel Soares de Sousa described pequia as being so hard that it took some four hours to begin to combust in an open fire and then never would come to form red-hot embers. 11 Planks of such timber could be conveniently carried aboard small boats and canoes as safe platforms for cooking fires. 12 The relative incombustibility of Brazil's dense timbers was advantageous to urban dwellers. Thomas Ewbank noted that one might suspect that house fires would be common in tropical cities built largely of wood, but "the reverse is the fact. They seldom occur, and rarely is a house destroyed." A fire he saw in Rio de Janeiro that did little damage would have destroyed an entire block in New York, he claimed. 13 Names and nicknames, such as pau ferro (iron wood), quebra-machado (ax breaker), cega-machado (ax duller), attest to the hardness of many timbers that were described as making an ax ring like a bell with every stroke. Some of Brazil's timbers were so hard that when struck by naval ordnance they shattered into fragments, spreading wooden shrapnel and carnage

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Figure 2. A wooden cannon, manufactured by Amazonian revolutionaries. The piece, four and one-half feet long with a three-inch bore, was made of two slabs of wood held together with iron hoops. Ewbank noted that it had been used. Primitive barrels were made in a similar fashion. SouRCE: Ewbank, Thomas. Life in Brazil. New York: Harper and Brothers, r 8 56. Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

between the decks. In 1797 the king required by alvard that the building of ships in Brazil commence with the heaviest timbers, but be finished in their upper works with lighter woods, as these would allow artillery to pass through without dangerous splintering. 14 On the other hand, partisans of the 183o's Cabanagem Rebellion in Para actually built a cannon of three-inch bore, entirely functional, out of two slabs of the Amazon's hard, heavy wood, bound by wrought iron hoops.U The timbers that the tropical forest provided for planking were what really set apart Brazilian-built ships, as well as those built in Lisbon with colonial timber. The maintenance of the integrity of a hull's planking, a ship's first and only line of defense against foundering, was the shipwright's greatest ongoing challenge. The two major antagonists in this battle were the shipworm and dry rot, which together made a ship's good health over a long life unlikely. Few of the world's timbers could withstand the

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onslaught of either menace for more than a few years. Brazil's forests, on the other hand, contained at least three timber species suitable for planking that successfully resisted the ravages of both these adversaries. The work of a handful of related fungi (e.g., Poria incrassata), dry rot consumes wood's cellulose fibers, leaving only a weak structure of honeycombed cells that disintegrate with the slightest stress. The major factor in dry rot's success was the use of unseasoned wood, that which had insufficient time to dry in the open air before being incorporated into ships. An argument the British used against American timber's durability was related to the conditions under which it was harvested for export. Soon after felling, timber was floated downstream, where it became waterlogged, and was then loaded into the dank holds of slow-sailing ships. By the time the timber arrived in England, dry rot's cottony fibers had taken a firm hold, although they might remain undetectable. 16 Preventing the infestation of the fungus was beyond the reach of technology during the age of wooden ships, and would not be successful until much later, with the development of pressure treatment with tar and creosote. Dry rot, though uninhibited by darkness, can flourish neither in an anaerobic environment nor in one that lacks moisture. Hence, planking used beneath the waterline was immune, at least on the water's side. In fact, lumber can be preserved indefinitely under water if the shipworm is not a threat. Timbers employed in areas of a ship that remained dry, due to shelter or ventilation, also escaped its ravages. The ship's members of greatest risk were the planks just above the waterline, which received constant wetting, and those timbers in the lower compartments of the hold, intimate with the bilge and strangers to fresh air. If conditions were right, dry rot could cause a ship's bottom to fall out in as little as two years. 17 The battle against dry rot was at least one in which some form of defense could be mounted. If timber were carefully seasoned before building, if ship captains insisted on keeping a clean hold and pumps in good working order, and if cargo areas were allowed to ventilate occasionally, the rate and effects of the rot could be held in check for a good run of years. The struggle against the shipworm, however, was as baffling as it was costly. For three centuries shipbuilders attempted dozens of ingenious techniques to foil the worm's invasions (coats of tar; layers of felt between two layers of plank; and galagala, a mixture of lime, oil, and horsehair), but rarely were such preparations any more successful than doing nothing at all. Only with the

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application of copper sheathing in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was the problem satisfactorily solved, though at significant cost. The shipworm (Teredo navalis being the most common) is a wormlike bivalve that employs its small, hard shells to burrow perpendicularly into a ship's hull and then turn with the grain to chew long wandering tunnels, always conscientious to avoid the work of his neighboring burrowers and the surface of the plank. In short time a host of the vermin might reduce a hull to Swiss cheese on the inside while leaving little external evidence. The shipworm's effective habitat, which extends from three meters below the lowest tides to the height of the average highs, ensured that the ship and the shipworm shared an ecological niche that encompassed the surface of much of the globe. The prey could only escape the reach of the predator when placed in dry dock or when finally dispatched to rest on the ocean's bottom. The shipworm's origin is unknown, but it appears to have arrived in Europe only after the period of frequent voyages to the Far East, each maritime power blaming the ships of another for being the original carrier of the plague. If Brazil's forests produced no other timbers than tapinhoii, vinhdtico, and putumoju, they would have still ranked among the world's most valuable resources for the building of shipping. These three specimens may be the only maritime timbers to be compared with Burmese teak (Tectona grandis). After generations of experimentation, these timbers, and oiticica to a lesser extent, were found to be the most suitable for planking due to their unsurpassable longevity and resistance. Investment in a ship planked with Brazilian timber was as sure a bet as could be found in the perilous shipping trade. Tapinhoii ranged from the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro to that of Pernambuco, but the former was always the predominant supplier. Like teak, tapinhoii resisted rot and foiled the shipworm, which made it the most sought-after timber for shipbuilding by the colonists and the Portuguese navy alike. Through both contraband and legal reexport from Lisbon it was also purchased by the English and the Dutch in such quantities that some blamed this trade for its decline in Pernambuco and Bahia. 18 Between I734 and I737, Lisbon imported 8,723 planks of tapinhoii, the largest share of all Brazil's timber exports to Portugal in those years. 19 In the early eighteenth century, timber suppliers sold tapinhoa plank at Rio de Janeiro's docks for almost any price they asked, which brought action by the king. In the first step of many, it was ordered that in addi-

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tion to increasing prosecution of contrabandists, tapinhoa could not be employed for any use other than the planking of ships' hulls; penalties for violation included confiscation and fines. 20 Its popularity as a staving timber was also legislated against. In 1738, restrictions on its use were elaborated further by prohibiting its export from Rio de Janeiro to any destination other than the royal dockyards in Lisbon. Colonists might employ it in local shipbuilding, but attempts to export it would result in an 8oo milreis fine, half to the treasury, half to the informer. 21 In 1773 the Marquis de Pombal attempted to restrict the use of tapinhoa and similar timbers exclusively to the naval yards in Lisbon, but the Marquis of Lavradio, then viceroy in Rio, warned that to enforce such a law would cripple all shipping coming into port. Previously, private merchants had been able to purchase timbers of inferior quality (refugo) for their own needs, as these could not be used in royal ships, but a general ban, he warned, would lock up the port in short order. Rather than risk a catastrophe, the viceroy gave notice that unless given specific orders to the contrary he would continue to sell refugo timber through the royal arsenal to buyers who, by inspection, could demonstrate a genuine need. 22 Lavradio's compromise was officially adopted by the crown in 1777, but those caught stealing it now paid fines raised to nine times the timber's value. 23 Apparently, for those dealing in local contraband, 8oo milreis had been a fine worth risking. In the eighteenth century it appears that tapinhoa was so difficult to come by in Lisbon that it often could not be purchased at any price. Those who had it on hand refused to sell on any terms other than a secure promise to replace it with a similar quantity within a predetermined period, the kind of transaction that could only be made between trusted friends. The merchant Francisco Pinheiro had prepared a nau to sail to Brazil with the 1724 fleet, only to have its hull fail and take on water just as the fleet weighed anchor. He acquired the tapinhoa necessary for repairs from a close friend who, despite the particular lot's poor condition, insisted that on the return voyage from Rio the buyer return 540 quality planks as payment. Pinheiro ordered his agents in Brazil to purchase the required planking, no matter the price, in order to meet this obligation.24 In a similar case in 1774, Joao Nicolao Schermerkill borrowed tapinhoa from the king's royal yards in Lisbon on the same terms, but was frustrated in his attempt to purchase timber in the colony due to Pombal's recent ban. Only through the viceroy's

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intervention did he secure the planks from the royal warehouse on the Isla das Cobras and fulfill his contract.25 Unlike oak, tapinhoa and putumoju shared with teak the fortuitous characteristic of having little· to no tannic acid in their heartwoods. Tannin quickly corrodes any iron with which it comes in contact. This precluded attempts to fasten oak planks to a ship's hull cheaply with iron spikes or bolts. As a result, all ships built in northern latitudes had their planking secured with treenails (pronounced "trunnels"), oak dowels that consumed a great deal of lumber and labor. Brazilian planking, which not only accepted but preserved iron spikes, proved a great economy to colonial shipbuilders. The disadvantage was the need to import the iron nails from Europe. Unfortunately, the most commonly used planking timber of the last half of the eighteenth century, the vinhatico, did contain tannic acid and could not accept iron spikes. Rather than use treenails, however, the Brazilians opted for copper. Vinhatico's success against the shipworm, relative abundance, and massive proportions promoted its widespread use by shipbuilders. The largest specimens, 34 meters tall and nearly 7 meters in diameter, provided planks of immense size, a width of 8o centimeters being common. Trees this advanced in age, however, were often hollow at the center due to heart rot, which made them popular with canoe builders. Shipbuilders had to take great care to remove the infected wood or the timber would deteriorate quickly once at sea. Occasional failure to do so marred the timber's excellent reputation. 26 The variety and abundance of so many excellent shiptimbers made Brazilian ships among the most long-lived of all shipping in the age of sail. An English naval vessel, built almost entirely of oak, barring loss in battle, could remain in service as little as two years or as long as a century if frequently repaired. The average term of service, however, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was about fifteen years, falling to twelve at the end of the latter. 27 Ships constructed in the royal dockyards of Bahia, in the period 1655-1822, had an average life of just over twenty years. 28 This is slightly more impressive as the Brazilian-built ships took sometimes more than four years to construct and were, as a result, launched at twice the age of English ships. 29 Also, Brazil's ships spent a larger portion of their service in warm tropical seas, which were more deleterious than the cold northern seas on which England's vessels passed much of their lives.

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Many were of the opinion that ships built of Brazil's timber were the world's most durable, not excluding those built in the Far East. A viceroy in India gave his opinion on the matter in I7I3: The ships which last longest in India are those built in Brazil, because the worm cannot penetrate them, as can be seen by the frigate Nossa Senhora da Estrella . .. which is now sailing for the kingdom; for although they have been in India for fifteen years, they are capable of service for as long again. 30 More than a century later, the German botanist Carl von Martius expressed the same opinion, that warships built in Brazil were superior to those constructed of East Indies timber, and credited it to the incomparable heartwood of Alagoan timbers which were harder than even those of the same species growing in Ilheus and Porto Seguro.31 Not only did Brazil's timbers give colonial-built ships long lives, but they also rendered important advantages in naval battle. George Semple Lisle wrote that "the opinion of the best informed Portuguese is that, without arrogating any superiority of valour or seamanship to their sailors, no British ship could cope with one of theirs of equal force, owing to the superior strength of the timber." 32 Two characteristics that Brazil's best timbers did not exhibit were lightness and elasticity. Nearly all the timbers mentioned to this point were heavier than oak, some of them much heavier. White oak has a specific gravity of about o. 70 and is considered one of the temperate forest's heavy timbers. 33 According to figures provided by colonial sources, sucupira-mirim had a specific gravity of 0.95; pau de arco, I.07; pau roxo, I.02; pequia, I.o3; sapucaia, I.I8; and jatai-amarelo, I.o6. Many of these quickly sank when placed in water, especially when freshly felled. Only the planking timbers vinhatico and putumoju, o. 74 and o. 77 respectively, were comparable to oak in density. 34 Clearly, Brazil's rich forests provided a large selection of lighter woods, many of them useful, particularly the louros and canelas, but none of these exhibited the combined qualities of rot and shipworm resistance that made the colony's heavier timbers so desirable for ship construction. A great difficulty facing many of Europe's maritime powers during the age of sail was the acquisition of timbers suitable for roasting, particularly for large vessels of war and commerce. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Baltic's firs and New England's white pines were

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the only practical sources, and the former's line of supply was intermittently threatened by the period's frequent wars. Unfortunately, in this case, Brazil's forests held nothing that improved on Baltic masts, and no species were of such a quality as to be exported with regularity. 35 The Baltic firs and pines, often referred to as Flanders pines by the Portuguese due to the Dutch role in this trade, were considered superior and were imported to Brazil for some of the king's warships. 36 As the colonists began to build ships for the king and on their own accounts the forests were scoured for timbers suitable for masts and yards. Dozens were experimented with, yet despite occasional glowing reports, only two seem to have had any utility, the 6/eo-vermelho (certainly a species of the genus Copaifera) of the Atlantic Forest and the castanha (Betholletia excelsa) in the Amazon. What would have seemed to be the most likely candidate, the Parana pine (Araucaria angustifolia), was not tested until the late eighteenth century, as the Portuguese did not settle in the pine's natural range until then. But it proved to be of no value whatsoever as a mast tree despite its renowned relatives. Though tall, straight, and light, it lacked the resins common to most pines that were believed to give the pine its strength, elasticity, and durability. Two reports out of Rio Grande do Sul in 1799 stated that while it served well as wall paneling and took a nice polish, as a mast it required replacement after a single ocean voyage. 37 Both the 6leo and castanha were tall and straight, but they were not so tall as the temperate forest's pines and firs and hence could not be used as mainmasts in first- and second-rate ships of the line. The largest 6/eo masts recorded reached about 23 meters (75 feet) in length. 38 Weight, however, was the major complication that Brazil's mast trees presented, which was officially noted with the building of the first galleons in Brazil in the middle of the seventeenth century. While many were satisfied with the strength and performance of the masts, they were so weighty they required significantly more shrouding than European masts. In one case, the stripping of two older ships of their hemp shrouds was insufficient to secure the mainmast of a colonial-built galleon. 39 The 6/eo, with a specific gravity of about 0.90, was almost three times as heavy as the white pine, and it did not taper from base to masthead, as did the conifers, but grew almost the entire length of its trunk with the same diameter. This accentuated the already top-heavy character of Brazilian-built ships, and, as will be seen, provided Brazilian shipbuilders with some tragic embarrassments. Another difficulty

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in employing the oleo and castanha trees as masts was the fact that both had significant value when used for other ends: the former produced the valuable oleoresin, oil of copaiba, which was frequently tapped by settlers, and the latter was the source of the brazilnut as well as an excellent fiber, used for caulking ships, that was found under the bark. Some of the louros seemed to have proved satisfactory as yards, although they had a reputation for faring poorly when exposed to heavy weather. 40 THE FOREST AND ITS COVETED SOILS

General observations on the character of Brazil's coastal forests are typically of little value due to their variety over more than 3 5 degrees of latitude. Brazil's colonial forests can be grouped into four general types. The tropical rain forest (selva), which typifies the Amazon basin and extends south into Maranhao, is the largest and most diverse terrestrial ecosystem, and the one that has received most contemporary attention. But it was not until the late colonial period that the rain forest's towering, multistoried trees began to be exploited to any great extent for export and shipbuilding, and even this was largely limited to the environs of Belem at the mouth of the Tocantins. The temperate forests (araucaria) of Brazil's southern captaincies are of even less colonial interest because of their late and sparse settlement. Not only were its pines considered of little value for masts, but the use of all pines in Brazil was prohibited for general construction because it was believed that their lightness made them inferior. There was a general conviction among the colonists that the heavier the timber the higher its quality, which ignored that fact that conifers are almost universally the strongest timbers available in proportion to their weight. Jean Baptiste Debret remarked that pine was not even considered suitable for theater sets until artisans of the French mission to Rio showed its merit after I8I6.41 Moving south and east from the equatorial rain forest and passing the only significant pause in Brazil's coastal blanket of trees in the current states of Piauf and Ceara, one encounters the northern extremity of the formation known as thorn forest, or caatinga. Running in a broad belt due south into the drought-plagued interiors of the northeastern states, this scrubby forest consists of spiny xerophytic trees, cacti, and seasonal grasses. Excessive grazing has degraded the caatinga of colonial times,

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Figure 3. Opening a road in the Atlantic Forest along the Mucuri River in southern Bahia. SouRCE: Wied-Neuwied, Prince Maximilian of. Travels in Brazil in the years r8r5, r8r6, r8r7. London: r82o. Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. which contained valuable cabinet timbers like sebastiao de arruda, especially in its eastern extremities, where it met the colony's fourth formation. Beginning in the captaincies of northeastern Ceara and Parafba do Norte and running almost unbroken to Santa Catarina were the forests of primary importance to the colonial inhabitants, for timber as well as for agriculture-once slashed and burned. Usually designated as tropical deciduous or seasonal forest, the colonists classified it as mata, and modern Brazilians refer to it as the Mata Atlantica. In pockets, especially in Bahia, southern Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo, the mata receives considerable rainfall, similar in quantity to that of the Amazon, and is considered to be true rain forest, yet it more closely resembles in both species and character the forests that surround it than those of the Amazon proper. Over its entire length yearly rainfall may range from 7 50 millimeters at its northern extreme to 4,500 millimeters in Sao Paulo's coastal flanks, unevenly distributed in two

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distinct seasons, wet and dry. The Atlantic Forest, like the equatorial rain forest, consists entirely of broad-leaved trees, conifers being conspicuously absent. Unlike the Amazon, however, trees here tend to be deciduous, shedding their leaves during the dry season, but there is rarely a period in which all the trees are bare. Many single trees shoot new green leaves before dropping all of those of the previous year. The Atlantic Forest itself exhibited great internal variety. Woodsmen of the northeast forests of Pernambuco and Paraiba classified their forests under three headings: mata virgem, forest that appeared as old as the world, carrying large trees that grew tall, straight, and so close together as to make travel difficult; carrasco, which also had very large trees, but growing in more open formations and having greater branching; and tabocal, which was similar to the carrasco, but full of tabocas, malicious thorned reeds that made working the forest particularly unpleasant. 42 All three formations were primary forest conditioned in their characteristics by the varying factors of altitude, topography, rainfall, and soils. Even before the arrival of the Portuguese, secondary forest was a common sight due to the agricultural practices of the Indians. Adopted almost without question by the new arrivals due to its high productivity and labor savings, swidden agriculture, or slash-and-burn, produced a variety of secondary formations, each with its own label and value. After a tract had been cleared and burned, harvested over a number of years, and then abandoned, the dense growth of small trees and shrubs that sprang up in short order was denominated capoeira. If allowed to grow for more than a decade or so--and it usually was not, as the plot was still considered to have value as farmland-the capoeira was augmented to capoeirao, which itself was useful for small timbers and fuel. After capoeira had been cleared to plant the ground a second time, what growth resulted after abandonment was the diminutive capoeirinha, a scrubby dense growth that indicated to all that the ground was no longer good for cultivation of any kind and that it was time to move on to new virgin forest. 43 Fire, natural and artificial, had been an important element in the formation of the Atlantic Forest and would play a larger role in its subsequent deformation at the hands of European agriculturalists. During the settlement of the colonial landscape, large forest fires were common and frequently the result of summer lightning storms. Occasionally fires flared with no apparent cause and were blamed on spontaneous generation, but

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31

these were more likely the result of burning slash. Incendiary material from slash could fly great distances before alighting in fresh fuel. The colonists who inhabited the forests were also sometimes careless. Fernando Freire de Castillo, whose job it was to punish the careless in Paraiba, wrote that it was extremely difficult to bring the guilty to justice "due to the wide use of smoking tobacco and the facility with which an Indian, black, or any other person passing through a forest or on a neighboring trail, drops a small spark or torch that are often the causes of massive forest fires." It was almost impossible, while the fire continued to rage, to pinpoint its origin, let alone its originator. 44 John Luccock, during his long residence in Brazil, had hoped to experience a forest fire firsthand, and he was not disappointed. Observing one conflagration from the windward side, he described sheets and spirals of flames consuming several hundred trees that dropped their crackling limbs in the great rush and roar of the holocaust's wind, a thing of beauty beyond his words. Nobody else seemed to take much notice, and when he observed in another incident that ashes were falling as far as seven miles from the fire, the inhabitants "coolly replied,- 'ah! some part of the forest has taken fire, but we shall soon have rain.'" In 1796 there had been a fire on the summit of the Tengua that was so large, burning nine months without a lull, many thought it was Brazil's first volcanic event. 45 A common misconception concerning the Brazilian forest, both that of the Atlantic coast as well as the Amazon, is its universal impenetrability. For many outsiders, the image of the tangled jungle is difficult to dissociate from Brazil itself, let alone from that of her forests. There were segments of the Brazilian forest that literally were impassable due to spiny thickets, Hanas, and swamps, or simply because they were uncharted, but on the whole the tropical forests are relatively open. Yet the image of the impenetrable jungle has been reinforced by many observers, some with actual experience, others without. Some Europeans who visited these forests first-hand described them as being so thick that it was difficult to pass be-tween trees: Semple Lisle related that in Santa Catarina one of his companions on horseback "was once literally jammed between two trees, so that it required our united efforts to disengage him. " 46 The European tended to exaggerate the thickness of the forests for a number of reasons. First of all, many of them came from regions with forests that were almost parklike, particularly if they had a preponderance of

32

The Colonial Landscape

beech, which killed all the ground cover beneath its bows to a considerable distance beyond their circumference. The forest experience of the Portuguese immigrant largely consisted of pine forests like those of Leiria, which are also open with little ground vegetation. Forests of pine are called barrens precisely for this reason. At the same time, the fuel requirements of the European population in the face of diminishing forests had gone far in keeping the forest floor clean of almost all ligneous litter. Brazil's forests, in contrast, were littered with the detritus of centuries in various stages of decomposition. Second, the narrow ecotone between Brazil's forests and fields truly was a tangle to be reckoned with. At the forest's edge, all the plants that could not flourish under the dark of the canopy throve, creating a barrier that was nearly impenetrable. For many, this was the source of the image, for they never attempted to break through, assuming that what was beyond was more of the same. Where canopy was removed due to a fallen giant or an abandoned farm, weeds, shrubs, and thickets sprang up in abundance. Capoeira was admittedly far more difficult to traverse than virgin forest. It was the shadow under the trees that maintained the forests' open quality, but it often took some work to get at it. Harry Nichols Whitford, an American forester inspecting the virgin backwoods of Bahia early this century, asserted that forests of the Northwest United States were much harder going than those of Brazil once one had broken the initial barrier.47 Locations where the entangled fringe of vegetation had been effectively removed were significant enough to have taken the toponym Boca da Mata, or Mouth of the Forest. And finally, many Europeans saw no more than great tangles of mangrove swamps from the decks of their passing vessels. Some misconceptions about the Atlantic Forest's productivity as farmland derive from the fact that what has been learned of the Amazonian tropical rain forest in the last few decades has been assumed for the Atlantic Forest as well. In many aspects this is not the case. The oxisols (formerly termed latasols), the thin, highly leached soils that have damned continuous productive farming in much of the Amazon above the flood plain, are rarely found in the coastal forests. The soil characteristics of much of the Atlantic Forest, especially in the states of Rio de Janeiro, northern Bahia, Pernambuco, and Paraiba are those of the ultisols (formerly called red-yellow podzols). 48 Both soils are easily eroded, but only the oxisols have the proclivity, due to their high concentrations of iron and aluminum oxides,

The Colonial Landscape

33

to form laterite when exposed to direct light and water, thus ruining the soil's fertility forever. Once formed, laterite can serve no purpose other than as a crude brick that is sawn for construction. Again, as in all things tropical, it is difficult to generalize about forest soils. Due to the ancient geological nature of the tropical landscape, large variations in climate, elevation, and vegetation, and intensive cycles of weathering and erosion, there are more local variations in tropical soils than in all other soils combined. The breakdown of the mother rock and minerals by chemical reaction generally proceeds at four times the rate of that of temperate forests due to tropical temperatures; and high levels of rainfall and humidity assure that the reactions occur nearly nonstop. Tropical forest soils are products of the trees they anchor. The cycling of nutrients from soil to plant and back to soil can be so nearly perfect that only the small additions made by air, dust, and water are sufficient to offset the effects of leaching. In the Amazon's case, the rate of accumulation of plant debris is roughly equal to the rate at which the humus decomposes and leaches away, maintaining a thin yet fertile soil as long as the forest remains intact. If the trees are removed, infertility quickly follows. However, in some tropical soils the accumulation of the humus exceeds its decomposition, and over the centuries a relatively deep, somewhat acidic soil is formed in which agriculture can be practiced for an extended period. It was in these latter soils that Brazil's sugar economy took root. The colonists quickly learned the relative values of the various forest soils they encountered. Antonil warned potential buyers of sugar land to learn the nuances of the local soil characteristics, or risk throwing away a good deal of capital for ground that could only produce manioc. 49 Colonists classed the soils of Bahia into three general types, which could be found either alone or in varying stages of admixture, but identification had as much to do with observing the kinds of trees on the land as it did with examining the soil itself. The massape, an unctuous, sticky soil prized in its pure form above all others, was sugar's natural mother and a child of the best virgin forest, according to Jose da Silva Lisboa. It is here that one finds the true humus natural, a soil called maf(lpe, that is black, compact, extremely viscous, and when crushed between the fingers gives the sensation of being greasy. If dissolved in water the soil precipitates, but a vegetable oil rises to the surface like cream. The soil is saturated with this oil which impregnates it from above by the

34

The Colonial Landscape

constant decomposition of vegetable matter, principally the leaves of the great trees which during past centuries formed lofty piles that, with time and rain, dissolved. Today, one finds these in any virgin forest. In general, on all lands on which are found the heaviest timbers, called madeiras de lei, one encounters the desired mafape. Land with inferior timbers has inferior soils, of which are distinguished two, salao and mixed sands. 50 Some species were so widely accepted as indicators of superior soils that they were denominated arvore padrao (standard tree) and were often left standing in the fields like billboards, advertisements of soil quality for possible future buyers, or simply as status symbols. The massape was fairly continuous in profile through the A horizon and always rested on a heavy layer of glutinous clay. Unfortunately for the planter of sugar, Silva Lisboa reported that it was not the universal soil type but only found in certain districts with extensive intervals of the lesser soils between. In the Reconcavo, the fertile crescent of land surrounding the Bay of All Saints, individuals had planted cane in massape soils with success for more than sixty years at a time without once manuring. But once the massape lost its fertility the colonists considered it dead with little hope of resurrection. And why raise the dead at considerable expense when one could create new life by deflowering the virgin forest? The salao soils, though less fertile and more quickly exhausted, had the advantage that if allowed to lay fallow from three to four years, during which time the forest growth recommenced, the land could be felled and burned anew for a few more years of productivity. The perception of the forest soils' limited fertility and an unwillingness to enhance them caused planters to view land as they would any capital good, fully expecting its value to decline to almost nothing through depreciation. This, and the fact that newly cleared soils were extremely fertile, were incentives to range farther into the pristine forest and make a completely new start. 51 ABUNDANCE AMID THE MYTHS OF DEPLETION

Despite interminable frontal attacks by lumbermen and farmers, which are certainly documentable, colonial Brazil's tropical rain and deciduous forests remained abundant. What Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote of Brazil

The Colonial Landscape

35

to the king in 15oo-a land "very full of great trees from point to point,"could still be said in 1820 with only a little less accuracy. 52 At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was no region in the whole Atlantic world with a greater wealth of accessible timber resources than Brazil. West Mrica had been poorly endowed from the start. Europe, once largely forested, had suffered excessively at the hands of human activity. In 18oo, Brazil's borders encompassed more hectares of forested land than the new republic in North America had total land area. In 1794, Jose Joaquim de Azeredo Coutinho conservatively estimated Brazil's remaining primary reserves to cover more than half of the colony. 53 Even in 1900, despite the additional ravages of coffee expansion and heightened immigration, Warren Dean estimates that the Atlantic Forest, excluding the Amazon, still held some 4oo,ooo square kilometers of virgin forest, an area about the size of the state of California. The fuel capacity alone of this reserve was equivalent to 6.2 billion tons of coal, enough to supply Brazil's total fuel needs for the next two hundred years, even if consumed at the same rate per capita as in cold, industrial England-and without factoring in regeneration. 54 Amazingly, in the face of such abundance there were many gainsayers and tellers of doom, which requires some explanation. An uncritical reading of some of the sources gives one the erroneous impression that Brazil's forests were in their final death throes-and some of these sources date from as early as the fifteenth century. Donataries, viceroys, governors, conservators of the royal forests, and sugar millers alike wrote of a forest crisis whose tragic climax was near at hand. If something were not done soon, they warned, if better laws were not passed, or if current laws were not effectively enforced, the priceless forests that contained so many incomparable trees would disappear. Although describing the very real process of deforestation that has always accompanied the settlement of forest by Europeans, colonists often had personal, unstated reasons for exaggeration. Among the most common was the self-interest of the powerful, who by legislation or royal favor hoped to limit their competitors' access to the forest. As early as I 546, Duarte Coelho reported that Pernambuco's brazilwood trees were in such a state of decline that they could not be found within twenty leagues of any of the captaincy's villages but only in the distant interior (sertao). This was surely stretching reality, for brazilwood would be profitably and primarily taken from Pernambuco well into the nineteenth century. The shrewd

36

The Colonial Landscape

Coelho requested that a ten- to twelve-year moratorium be placed on the cutting of brazilwood in his captaincy. Whether he wanted sole access to these trees for private contraband, or to protect the resource for the king, he only sought his own best interest, for as part of the reward for establishing settlements in Pernambuco on his own account, the king had granted him five percent of the crown's profits from the brazilwood monopoly. 55 Sugar millers (senhores de engenho) had various motives for employing hyperbole in the description of colonial deforestation. The municipal authorities of the senado da dimara of Bahia, made up primarily of this class, argued that the deplorable state of fuel resources in the Reconcavo threatened the very survival of the sugar industry and called for legislation limiting the number of engenhos that could be built in a given area of land to one -per square league. Currently, they claimed, there were more mills in the region than there were forests to fuel them. Although there were others who remonstrated that such claims were nonsense, and a later senado agreed, the king met the millers halfway in 1681 by prohibiting the construction of engenhos within one-half league of each other. The millers' primary interest was to keep the planter class in a subservient position by preventing them from building mills of their own. 56 The millers and the planters, however, joined hands in their depiction of a forest devastated by the substantial requirements of the king's shipyards. The same municipal senate, between 168 5 and 1704, made at least three formal complaints to the crown, arguing that the royal shipyard (fabrica dos galeoes), which had built six galleons in seventeen years, "was about to extinguish entirely the timbers of this captaincy to the great destruction of the prosperity of its inhabitants." Repeatedly they requested that the king remove his dockyard from the sugar-producing Reconcavo to the southern forests of Ilheus or Porto Segura, where better timber could be acquired more cheaply. They specifically mentioned the decline of the sucupira near the plantations, which was essential for constructing mills, oxcarts, and many small vessels like canoes, barcas, barcos, and saveiros, without any of which the colonial economy would cease. 57 But their complaints were somewhat disingenuous, for had there been real concern about the effects of shipbuilding per se, they would have attacked the private shipyards as well, which they did not. The private yards built and repaired more ships and required considerably more timber than the single, relatively unproductive royal yard financed by the king. 58

The Colonial Landscape

37

The planters' real complaints were two, only the first of which was mentioned in letters to the crown. When private builders required timber they acquired it with their own labor and capital or purchased it directly from individuals who did the same. When the king's intermittent shipbuilders required timber they had the means neither to produce nor to transport it. As a result the crown was forced to requisition both labor and transport vehicles from local landowners-often against the colonists' will and frequently at the height of the harvest when men, carts, and boats were most needed. Those who refused to comply were sent in chains to Salvador to be punished at the viceroy's discretion. 59 Apparently the tobacco growers around Cachoeira were most affected by these appropriations, as this region was an important source of shiptimber at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 60 The crown compensated those planters inconvenienced by the requisitions, but obviously not to their satisfaction. By 1714, they began to be satisfied. After years of complaint concerning forced appropriations, orders for royal shiptimber began to include clauses that exempted certain parties from the king's demands. No longer would sugar millers or cane planters be required to haul timber for the royal yards, as long as they needed their carts and boats for hauling firewood, which, of course, they always did. Now those in charge of the royal logging operations were advised to seek transport from local military units whenever possible. 61 Not surprisingly, even though the king continued to build large warships throughout the eighteenth century in the port of Salvador, complaints by the senate about shipbuilding in the capital and its "damages" to the local economy ceased. 62 Second, landowners of all classes also opposed the exploitation of local timbers for the construction of his majesty's ships for the simple reason that it was "their" timber, that found on their own lands, which was liable to be expropriated. But this complaint was rarely voiced, as the landowners had no grounds. The crown, in the mid-seventeenth century, had declared its sole possession of all the madeiras de lei, which included nearly all timbers suitable for building ships, no matter where they might be found. Landowners were permitted to employ these timbers, if found on their own lands, for their personal needs, but such use was null and void if the crown got to them first. So would be the opportunity to sell such timber illegally to neighbors or private shipbuilders. Hence there was a strong incentive among many who owned timbered

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The Colonial Landscape

properties, or among those who exploited the forests with or without the king's license, to practice a form of reverse obscurantism. If the crown could be convinced that in a particular area there was little timber, poor timber, or timber located too far away from ports and rivers to be profitably taken, the crown might not send its officials to take it for royal use, whether as shipbuilding timbers, dyewood, or firewood. Jose da Mendonc;:a de Mattos Moreira, an official of the forests of Alagoas for more than thirty years, described this dissembling of the forest's profusion as a common practice in which many officials, who would not inspect the forests themselves, were duped. Contrary to what the inhabitants of the northern third of the captaincy of Alagoas had earnestly informed him, the timber in the region was both plentiful and of immense dimensions. Mattos Moreira assured his readers that "all this I have ascertained by personal inspections made in the same [forests] with the greatest precision due to the fact that the inhabitants have denied the existence of any forests in these places." 63 The governor of Para, Francisco de Souza Coutinho, had to deal with the same lies. If the locals were asked casually if there were good timbers around, they would boast that they were everywhere. However, if one came holding official status, and mentioned that the king might establish a corte, a royally administered timbering operation, in said forests they would answer exactly to the contrary. Only natives and the soldiers posted in remote locations could be counted on to speak the truth, and it was generally their knowledge that helped the king's lumbermen discover the best stands of timber. Even the carpenters sent to survey the forests for the king tried to hide their findings in hope of being able to work these themselves and not under royal officials. Souza Coutinho claimed to take advantage of their duplicity by working those forests that the carpenters most impugned. He reassured the crown that future candid surveys would prove that there was yet much good timber to cut on a large scale for years to come. 64 Where the forest interests of the king conflicted with those of the local inhabitants, such misinformation was common. In one case it was the hope of avoiding the humiliation that comes with ignorance that prompted lumbermen to withhold information. Despite two royal orders in February 1784 for compass timbers from the forests of Cairu, nothing was forthcoming. When the inspector, Francisco Nunes da Costa, sought an explanation, the woodsmen claimed there were no trees

The Colonial Landscape

39

in the forests of southern Bahia that could fill the bill. Fourteen years later the recently appointed judge conservator of the royal forests, Baltazar da Silva Lis boa lamented, "What else could they say or do, being men with neither talent nor instruction in [ship] construction." In reality, the local forests did produce trees with branches and curves suitable for compass timbers, but the sawyers only knew how to reduce them to straight planks and deals. The rare trees had long been squandered for lack of the additional expertise required to fashion the more complicated pieces, or so Silva Lisboa assumed. Martinho de Mello e Castro determined that the woodsman knew exactly how to cut and fashion compass timbers-but they refused to do it out of laziness. In reality, they were paid the same wages whether they made the straight timbers, which required less labor, or the compass timbers, which required the digging out of roots and made transport far more complicated. They chose the path of least resistance to their daily royal wage, and lied about the existence of compass timbers to stay on that path. When Silva Lisboa pointed out that there were compass timbers in the local forests, the lumbermen countered that they were so large that hauling them would have been cost-prohibitive. When the judge conservator explained that their greater value compensated for their greater weight, the lumbermen insisted that such trees were so distant from ports they were impossible to haul. But by I798, Silva Lisboa had succeeded. He reported that they were then procuring such timber from a distance of less than one and half leagues, but contemplating how much more convenient the timbers would have been back in the days of Nunes da Costa. 65 Occasionally, individuals who sought license to open up new forests for logging denigrated the forests currently being exploited as exhausted and too distant from water transport to merit further attention. In I737 Father Manoel Botelho, in the hope of getting permission to exploit the forests of the Rio Doce, said as much of the forests around Cairu: "today in that region they are found so far into the interior ... that it is very costly. " 66 However, the area around Cairu remained a primary source of timber well into the nineteenth century, while the Rio Doce would not even justify settlement, let alone exploitation of its forest resources, until about I8I5, when the former was promoted by the Conde de Linhares. It is possible that Botelho used the forest ploy to exploit the Doce for gold, as it was one of the few rivers with an Atlantic mouth whose source was in Minas Gerais. Much of the correspondence that downplays the extent of the colonial

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The Colonial Landscape

forest was thus an invention to excuse the failings of a timber sector whose woes had other causes. The king's shipbuilders, and the officers who oversaw them, blamed the forest for their inability to construct vessels quickly, cheaply, or at all. They claimed that the forests were too far away, the trees too small, or that a region's timbers lacked the curvature necessary to serve well in one of his majesty's warships. 67 The constant delays of timber shipments to Lisbon were often blamed on the forest's decline and increasing distance, rather than on the real culprits: administrative inefficiency, insufficient funding, corruption, and shortages of labor and transport. The governors concealed a multitude of sins behind premature reports of the forest's demise. Of course much of what was said concerning the destruction of the forest was true. Deforestation was taking a toll that none could deny. Many observers were sincere and lacked any ulterior motive for describing the extent and rate of the devastation. But these dire accounts can only be relied upon on a very local level. Deforestation in colonial Brazil was never more than a localized event that writers, many of them urbanites or foreign visitors to Brazil's major port cities, occasionally extrapolated to the rest of the colony. Ultimately their grievous predictions for the Atlantic Forest were prophetic, yet they were also highly premature. In Cachoeira, just across the bay from Bahia where the king had built large warships for more than a century, Joaquim de Amorim Castro could describe wondrous reserves. Despite complaints about the impact of shipbuilding, and despite the fact that these forests covered prime soils for sugar cultivation, as Amorim Castro noted, he described them as extensive and interminable. 68 Rio de Janeiro and its environs were considered by many to be the worst case, and as a result, the crown had never fully established royal operations there. 69 Yet even here the forests were still productive and relatively abundant into the nineteenth century. Making the port of Rio in 1792 en route to the Orient, John Barrow remarked that "if the Portugueze of Rio have done but little towards improving nature, they are entitled at least to the negative merit of not having much disfigured her. " 70 In self-exile on the opposite Atlantic shore from the prison of Saint Helena imposed on his former emperor, Count Hogendorp made his meager living by selling charcoal produced from his modest property in the foothills above the city. 71 The mangrove forests around the bay were still viable sources of timber and

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41

fuel, and John Mawe described an "extensive flat" within the precincts of the city that was choked with mangrove. When Mawe described lumber in Rio as "unaccountably scarce, considering the quantity which grows in almost every part of Brazil," and even firewood as being costly, he in part observed the natural result of the crown's monopoly, but he was also witness to nothing less than the greatest shock ever to hit the capital's economy. In I8o8, the entire royal court crashed the city of Rio de Janeiro, having fled the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal which came in response to Portugal's unwillingness to commit to the continental blockade of Britain. The queen, prince-regent, and a retinue of I5,ooo strained the urban infrastructure, consumed more goods than the populace was ready to supply, and sent rents through the roof. Bricks, tiles, mortar, timber, and all construction materials would remain in short supply and demand high prices for some time. But it was not for lack of the resources. 72 Outside the precincts of the city, around Guanabara Bay and along the coasts east and west, Rio's timber reserves were still extensive. With the arrival of the house of Braganza in I 8o8, the king assumed the Ilha do Governador, not far from the city, as a royal game reserve due to its virgin forests and abundant animallife. 73 In the early nineteenth century, large quantities of timber were being floated down the Macacu River, whose mouth touched the northeast corner of the bay. John Luccock reported observing many specialized rafts, consisting of logs lashed to large canoes, which were broken up at the river's mouth to be carried by small sailing vessels to the city. 74 Foreigners who had the privilege of traveling beyond the limits of the capital were unanimous in their animated descriptions of the forest's plenty. Regarding those to the east, Prince Maximillian of Wied wrote that "in some places these wild romantic forests extend far along the shore, and stretch, without interruption, into the country"; and Darwin, in I 83 2, not half a day's journey out of the city wrote that "after passing through some cultivated country, we entered a forest, which in the grandeur of all its parts could not be exceeded." While staying on an estate on the Macae River, Darwin noted that "considering the enormous area of Brazil, the proportion of cultivated ground can scarcely be considered as anything, compared to that which is left in the state of nature." His comments on the landscape of the Bahian Reconcavo, in I836, are similar: "The whole surface is covered by various kinds of stately trees, interspersed with patches of cultivated

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The Colonial Landscape

ground, ... the wild luxuriance of nature is not lost even in the vicinity of large cities.... Hence, there are only a few spots where the bright red soil affords a strong contrast with the universal clothing of green. " 75 Back to the west of Rio, not fifty miles from the city, and close to the port of Angra dos Reis, Robert Walsh described forests "which remain precisely in the state they were left by the receding waters of the flood. . . . the reality exceeded my expectations." The previous decade Spix and Martius had observed the king's own slaves, from the royal farm at Santa Cruz, profitably felling timber in the Serra da Estrela of these same western forests. 76 Thomas Bennett, who had been contracted to build a sawmill for one Dona Mariana 40 miles from Rio in the early I82o's, noted that timber was among Rio's most abundant commodities and supposed that there were more than I 50 species available in the region's forests. 77 Timber was becoming scarcer. The colonists, even with their small population densities and largely manual technologies, were removing the timber trees more quickly than they could regenerate. Swidden agriculture and imported livestock assured that. And while it is true that the crown's foresters rarely produced enough timber to satisfy the king's needs; that sugar millers could not acquire fuel easily or cheaply, causing critical stoppages;78 and that shipbuilders frequently complained of the high freight costs involved in supplying their needs, all of this was par for the course. None of these realities justify the conclusion that colonial Brazil suffered from a shortage of accessible timber. When shortages occurred, when production fell below the constant, near inelastic demand for timber, it was not for lack of the basic resource but for lack of labor, capital, technology, and, most significantly, the incentives that a reasonable colonial forest policy might have provided.

2 Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

From one absurdity are born one thousand. -MANoEL ]oAQUIM JosE. DACRuz, "SOBRE 0 REGIMENTO PARA 0 CORTE DAS MADEIRAS,"

r8r8.

When confronted with Brazil's Atlantic Forest, the colonial settler had three economic options: slash and burn it for agriculture, log it for timber, or defer the forest's demise in the expectation of some future prospect. In colonial Brazil, the two foremost options were discharged to the limits that population, ambition, and the demand for forest products and tropical agriculture would allow. But, as we will see, they were rarely done in conjunction. The last option, leaving the forest unscathed, generally succeeded only when the forest was beyond the reach of the colonial population. Three terms roughly and euphemistically correspond to the stated alternatives; namely, reclamation, conservation, and preservation. The term "reclamation" is fairly straightforward, and here means to convert land from a natural state of assumed low productivity, such as forest, to one of greater revenue, such as sugar or tobacco. Forest preservation suggests the setting aside of forest resources in perpetuity, on the grounds that they will always be more valuable to society in their undisturbed state than in any other form. In colonial Brazil, however, extractive activities dependent on intact forest, including the harvest of oils, nuts, resins, and medicinals, were of little economic consequence, although certain animal pelts and 43

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Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

some exotic bird and insect species were exported to Europe with some frequency, dead and alive. Forest conservation, which is not so easily defined, holds different meanings for different persons. 1 In this study, forest conservation will be strongly distinguished from forest preservation. The latter is often a form of wildlife, water, or soil conservation, but never, by this definition, of forest conservation. As employed below, forest conservation means to manage the forest with an end to achieving yields of timber and related forest products that are both adequate for society's needs and sustained (or at least prolonged) beyond the present so that future generations can also enjoy an adequate supply of the resource. It may also include attempts to ensure that a resource is reserved for ends that are judged to be of the highest worth for society. The history of forest use and policy in the colony can be tersely summarized: the colonist reclaimed significant tracts of woodland during the colony's 300-year history, converting it to fertile fields, although typically for only the short term; the Portuguese crown during the same period actually took steps to preserve forested lands, most often at the request of colonists concerned about mangrove fisheries and urban watersheds, and not without some success; but success in the effort to conserve colonial timber was in most cases of an extremely limited nature. Although frequently discussed and repeatedly decreed, conservation law was not implemented effectively, and it was of such comprehensive scope it was beyond the power of the colonial administration to enforce-except in part. Partial enforcement of conservation law made colonial forest conservation an unmitigated disaster, both economic and environmental. MEDIEVAL ROOTS

In the late thirteenth century, the Kingdom of Portugal witnessed one of Europe's rare achievements in forest conservation. Dom Diniz (I279I325), the so-called farmer king (rei-lavrador), is best remembered for establishing the university that would become Coimbra and launching the bases of Portuguese naval power. Among his most lasting achievements, however, according to tradition, was an unparalleled program of forestation that he directed in the district of Leiria. With the foresight of a spring farmer, the sowers cast seed over Leiria's surrounding mountains, patiently waited while the saplings matured over an elongated summer, and then

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

45

began a fall harvest that has defined the essence of Leiria's economy into the current century. 2 The forests of Leiria remained under royal protection with violators subject to the most severe penalties. The effort to defend the district from depredations required a small army and constant diligence, an onerous endeavor that had its only Brazilian complement in the extraordinary control the crown maintained over the diamond district in the Serro Frio of Minas Gerais. Carl von Martius, the most peripatetic of the foreign naturalists to visit Brazil, tarried in the diamond district and declared: "Unique in history is this idea of isolating an area in which all civil relationships are subordinated to the acquisition of royal property. " 3 Had he also visited the forests of Leiria, he might have identified them as the origin of this singular historical concept. While the crown often overlooked small infractions and backsliding throughout much of the realm, in the Serro Frio and Leiria there was little room for civilian error. The distinguishing feature of both districts was the attempt to cordon off entirely the earthly bounds of a natural resource. The districts were declared royal property and off-limits to all but those who had contracted with the crown to administer its profitable monopolies. Contractors won the right to extract these goods only by outbidding their competitors. Permanent posts manned by sentries controlled all points of entry, and mounted guards patrolled their assigned precincts imprisoning violators and confiscating their property, be they diamonds, timber, cattle, or slaves. While the diamond district maintained a small permanent population of crown officials, royal contractors, and slave laborers, the forests of Leiria were by decree emptied nightly of all persons and locked down tight.4 Leiria's mounted patrol saddled daily before sunup and remained circuiting their assigned sectors until after dusk. Guards at the checkpoints inspected all persons and vehicles entering the forest each morning to embark on their labors and ensured that the exact number withdrew the same evening. On preappointed days of the week local villagers and makers of glass with their oxen were admitted to collect fuel, but only in the form of brushwood. Nobody entered the forest with an ax save the king's timber contractors. To reduce the possibility of fire, anyone caught carrying tobacco, flint, or firearms was summarily thrown out and banished from the forest for life. Pasturing of cattle was forbidden, and all beasts of burden had to be outfitted with a loud bell, for any found without could be confiscated on the

46

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

probable cause of aiding and abetting the crime of timber poaching. Similarly, anyone caught with torches was also arrested, not so much for the possibility of fire as the likelihood they intended to break the curfew. 5 CoLONIAL FoREST PoLicY

That a forest merited defenses and precautions similar to those of a royal diamond mine tells something of timber's value to the Portuguese. And it was from the point of view of a near-barren metropolis, a world away from Brazil's unimaginably large timbers and vast woodlands, that Brazilian forest policy was formulated. While crown officials surely understood the complete impossibility of transferring such a policy to a colony with unbroken single forests larger than Portugal itself, Leiria would remain an ideal that inescapably colored their aims. The increasing magnitude of forest devastation in Portugal, and the impact that reality had upon the minds of public officials, played as large a role as any in the development of colonial policy. Just as Portugal's remaining forest pockets were regarded as critical to the welfare and defense of the kingdom, with time, so too would Brazil's stands of quality naval timber. Also of significant influence were the alarmist reports that came out of the colony with increasing frequency. Dire depictions made the crises appear the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Under these influences, Portugal's colonial forest policy, as it emerged in the mid-seventeenth century, was the world's most restrictive. There were many examples in contemporary Europe on the scale of the royal forests of Leiria, but no other crown attempted to make those restrictions general and binding for the whole expanse of a kingdom. By the year I 6 52, the Portuguese crown had claimed sole possession of the madeiras de lei, or timbers under the law. These strictures were applicable to the whole of Portuguese America, regardless of previous rights to private property, and even of one's need to clear land for agriculture. In other words, the crown, while it would also eventually reserve for itself particular forests, maintained a blanket policy of reserving the colony's most valuable tree species, and did so right into the nineteenth century. By contrast, the hated British Broad Arrow policy of New England, socalled because of the practice of chopping an arrow-shaped scar on royal trees, was a minor inconvenience. In 1691, under the new charter that

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

47

made Massachusetts Bay a crown colony, England declared white pines (Pinus strobus) more than 24 inches in diameter to be the sole property of the navy. Although the ban was subsequently extended to all white pines of any size from Delaware to Nova Scotia, the policy remained limited to a single species and, unlike that of Portugal, dared not include trees on private land or in incorporated townships. 6 Even French forest legislation, the envy of European despots, lacked the reach of Portugal's colonial timber laws. Organized in 1669 under the direction of Colbert, recently appointed secretary of naval affairs, the Ordonnance des eaux et forets gave the crown only preemptive rights to timber within ten leagues of the sea or two leagues from navigable rivers. In other words, the crown could exploit the timber it needed within that area with no opposition, but whatever landholders cared to fell at a particular moment remained for their private use or profit. Although crown prerogatives were later extended to fifteen and six leagues respectively, and the king could, after 1700, survey all said forests in order to reserve selected timbers for the navy under martelage, the crown's rights to French timber were essentially limited to what they might require at any one time and did not preclude private harvesting of the forest's trees. 7 Although no power attempted to monopolize colonial timber resources to the extent of Portugal, monopoly was a common approach to securing crown revenue for many states. The Iberian courts in particular took to heart Aristotle's injunction that the way for government to make money was to acquire and enforce a monopoly. 8 By this means, as by taxation, state power was both expressed and, more often than not, abused. Monopoly took a number of forms. Sometimes the crown took exclusive control of an entire resource, like timber, whale oil, brazilwood, or diamonds, occasionally going so far as to control every aspect of the commodity's production, processing, and sale. It did so in the case of timber to varying degrees. In the majority of cases, however, the crown sold to the highest bidders the rights to extract these commodities, usually for short contractual periods, or granted them outright to favorites. Another common form of monopoly was that of the exclusive right to trade specific goods. At varying times throughout the colonial period the king alone, or his licensees, could trade in spices, slaves, tobacco, salt, fish, wine, and other essential staples. Hence the Portuguese sovereign's title of "merchant king." During two periods, the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

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monopoly rights were granted to favored trading companies. This was Portugal's attempt at joint stock organization. Such groups not only had exclusive prerogatives to certain trade goods, but also over specified geographic regions and ports. And occasionally the crown made itself a monopsony, that is, the only entity that could legally purchase certain goods, like hemp or tobacco, and hence controlled their distribution. This was also tried with timber for a short time. So, the crown might monopolize the extraction, production, trade, purchase, or sale of all kinds of goods-all for the purpose of increasing revenue by excluding competitors. In some cases, such as those of brazilwood and diamonds, true natural monopolies with few competitors outside the kingdom, the crown hoped monopoly would limit production and maintain high prices. In brazilwood and timber the crown actually championed and justified monopoly as a conservation measure. But it went much further. The crown monopolized ownership of the timbers, even though they were on private land; it monopolized their extraction, as only licensees could do the actual cutting; it attempted to monopolize transport services, both land and water, but with little success; and it even monopolized the sale of Brazil's timbers in Portugal, as it did with all timbers through the timber customs house, which we will discuss below in greater detail. The madeiras de lei, the timbers ostensibly protected by law from the ravages of all persons except the king and his licensed contractors, were those trees of the Brazilian forest of sufficient size and quality to be useful in naval and civil construction and cabinetry. Documents occasionally iden.tify particular timbers as madeiras de lei by name, such as those described above for the framing and planking of ships; yet, surprisingly, one cannot find an official comprehensive inventory. Antoni! named fifteen separate Bahian timbers in I7II as madeiras de lei but added that "others similar to these" were so classified as well. 9 Possibly, it was in the crown's interest to maintain a certain ambiguity about that to which it had exclusive right. It is certain that the list, if it did exist, became longer as knowledge of the forest and tree species expanded, but it is difficult to say exactly how long it might have become. 10 One forest ordinance for Sao Paulo has an appended list of thirteen madeiras de lei common to that captaincy; the document itself betrays its tentative nature, however, stating that if a tree were of questionable status, it could be felled only if three royal inspectors voted unanimously in the negative concerning its status as a madeira de lei. One dis-

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senting vote protected it. The fact that no colonist is reported to have pleaded ignorance of a tree's status suggests either that the list was short enough for all to remember, or so long that nearly any useful timber was grudgingly assumed to be royal property. 11 Beginnings and Justifications

The Portuguese crown took an interest in the Brazilian forest almost from the moment of its discovery. Indeed, during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, forest products were the only colonial commodities of any known value. The forests' density and extent were so great that whatever goods the land held (fertile soils, pasture, gold, precious stones, or docile slaves) were effectively concealed behind the forest's many-layered curtains. It is no surprise that in both Portuguese Brazil and British North America, timber was the earliest viable export. As brazilwood was the first Brazilian export in the early sixteenth century, so too was the valuable white cedar from Jamestown a century later. With the beginning of settlement of the donatary captaincies in the 1530's the crown took measures to secure its interests in the colony's woodlands against the attentions of its vassals. In the letters of grant presented to the donatary captains the king retained for himself and his heirs sole possession of the "brazilwood from the said captaincy as well as any spice or drug of any kind that may exist there." No individual could sell or export brazilwood without the king's specific license under penalty of the loss of all property and exile to the island of Sao Thome "forever." Setting a precedent that would be followed in later forest legislation, the king, rather oddly in this case, permitted the colonists to employ brazilwood for their own personal needs.U The regimento of 1605 eliminated the personal-use clause and fully set down the strict conditions and limitations under which the king's monopoly would be exploited. With only minor additions, the 1605 regimento would remain in effect after Brazil's independence. 13 While our knowledge of the unfolding of dyewood legislation appears relatively complete, the historical record only allows us to venture guesses about the first steps of the larger forest policy's development, and these must be reached indirectly through eighteenth-century sources. We do not know when the blanket strictures against cutting the madeiras de lei were first enacted. Estimates have ranged from an unlikely mid-sixteenth-century origin, to an implausible possibility in the early nineteenth. 14

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Those who have placed the policy of the madeiras de lei in the sixteenth century probably do so as a result of inaccurate translation, for the term does not seem to appear at so early a date. A term employed in the colony's first century is pau real (royal timber), but collateral evidence suggests that the meaning of royal is not in its sense of kingly possession, but in that of a timber's proportions being of regal grandeur. In I 587 Gabriel Soares de Sousa classified Bahia's timber trees as being either madeira real, those of great height and girth, or madeira meia, trees of "middling" size. Many of the latter category, as he described them, were of renowned utility, sure to have been appropriated by the crown had the intent been extant. 15 During the same decade, the Jesuits, who controlled twelve leagues of rich coastal forests in southern Bahia, granted plots to tenants, "imposing upon them the onus of cutting neither paus reals or true lianas (cip6 verdadeiro) without their license," suggesting that they, not the crown, had legitimate possession.16 Just as the term engenho real, or "royal" sugar mill, distinguished large sugar mills driven by water from smaller affairs powered by animal traction, so too did pau real describe trees that were of a size and stateliness deserving of the word "regal." In neither case is there any implication of crown ownership. 17 Baltasar da Silva Lisboa, the judge conservator of the royal cortes in the late eighteenth century, asserted that the law's inception was contemporary with the establishment of the royal shipyard ({abrica das fragatas) by Sebastiao de Lambert in 1666 at Ilha Grande. It was only from this date that the crown imposed on "proprietors the burden of conserving the timbers designated to be under the law (os paos chamados de lei)." 18 The inspector Francisco Nunes da Costa wrote of the timber question in 1774 and noted that a modest timber regimento had been enacted by Philip IV (I621-4o) that was bolstered with another by John IV (1640-56) in 1653. Nunes da Costa lamented the lack of penalties severe enough to demonstrate the value of the forests, and the "abomination" of burning them. 19 The most authoritative estimate, however, seems to have been made by the nineteenth-century Bahian scholar Inacio Accioli de Cerqueira e Silva, who identified section twelve of the regimento of September 12, 1652, as the law's origin, although he concurred with Silva Lis boa that it was not incorporated into the letters of land grants until 1666.20 A severe loss of Iberian shipping is partial reason for the crown's sudden interest in reserving Brazil's best trees for itself. In the second quarter of the

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51

seventeenth century, due to war and expected ship mortality, the Spanish crown, which remained sovereign over Portugal and her dominions until r64o, began to consider Brazil and her timbers as possible sources of military ships.21 In a single year the combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet had lost more than 6o vessels in battle. A concerned subject reported that the scarcity of shipping had threatened their capacity to carry Brazil's sugar to Europe and generated freight rates so high that only shipmasters, he claimed, were profiting from sugar cultivation. 22 Unable to maintain her own naval inventory, the Spanish crown necessarily neglected Portugal's. And things seemed to worsen with the accession of John IV to the Portuguese throne. In two unfortunate years, r647-48, Portugal lost 249 of 300 ships, over So percent of her total marine (both naval and merchant ships), in the attempt to wrest northeast Brazil from the control of the Dutch. By royal letter of r65o, a galleon of 70o-8oo tons was ordered to be built each year in Brazil, resulting in the first construction of large, crown-financed ships in the colony. 23 The same crises that drove Antonio Vieira's proposals to establish the fleet system to protect merchant shipping from pirate attack (begun in r649) also compelled the crown to turn to the colony and its immense timber resources to rebuild the Portuguese navy. It is logical that the crown would have moved at midcentury to reserve for its own use colonial timbers appropriate for the building of warships. The enactment of the law of the madeiras de lei was in essence the extension of the prohibition against the felling and exporting of a single species, brazilwood, to the remainder of Brazil's preferred hardwoods. This was nothing less than the monopolization of most marketable timber resources by the crown,24 but it was a monopoly that differed in character and force from the better-known resource monopolies of brazilwood, diamonds, salt, or whale oil. In some ways it was more permissive; in others more severe. A major concession to the private landholder was the traditional exemption to exploit the madeiras de lei on his or her own property for personal needs. The farmer could fell sucupira to build mills and small sailing vessels, or pequi and pau roxo to build his house, due to their resistance to termites, but these and other such timbers could not be sold to anyone other than the king's licensed timber cutters-not even to one's neighbors. Under no circumstances could they be exchanged without a license. Licenses were granted for various reasons. Generally, an individual had to have experience in lumbering and access to at least twenty workers, slave

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or free, before consideration. 25 Private shipbuilders certainly had license, for they needed the madeiras de lei and could not exploit timbers clandestinely due to the established nature of their profession. Licenses may have been bid upon, but the practice does not seem common, although gifts to governors and local captains who had authority to grant them can be assumed. Occasionally the hard-luck case was made, and an individual might successfully petition the crown for permission to cut timber on the grounds of having no means to support his family other than logging.26 However, illegal cutting, the grievance of many forest officials, demonstrates that licenses were in shorter supply than there were individuals willing to labor with the ax and saw. Oddly, during the course of the eighteenth century, the crown increased its direct control over the production of timber in the colony. Most of Europe's maritime monarchs had learned by long experience that contracting with private persons was by far the most efficient and least expensive means to secure timber. Portugal followed this pattern in the exploitation of other resource monopolies such as brazilwood, whale oil, and salt. But for crude timber, the Portuguese crown somehow felt it was more important to supervise timber operations directly and enforce the virtue of the operators than to assure a plentiful and inexpensive lumber supply. By the end of the century the government in Bahia had only one remaining contractor in its southern jurisdiction who cut timber on his own account. All other operations were under the direct control of royal officials who oversaw the work, paid the labor, and rented the transport. Persons who had previously cut on their own accounts were often happy to enter the king's service, where labor and transport costs were the king's responsibility, and salaries, although often tardy, were paid regardless of productivity or quality. As the king's official, one could also coerce certain members of the population-the Indian, the indigent, and the soldier-into service, often a necessity because of the crown's poor reputation as a paymasterP

The Meaning of Conserva~ao All forest legislation in Brazil was justified with predictions of an imminent dearth of timber in the colony, which, in the crown's logic, explained the constant failure to make the colony produce and export naval ship timber to her grand expectations. Conservafiio, a cognate of the modern English term "conservation," was the declared end of the numberless laws, orders,

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and decrees that reiterated the forest laws and amplified the penalties for breaking them. Although the idea that the forest was something other than an exploitable commodity had never entered their thinking, the Portuguese understood the basic principles of forest conservation. In correspondence idealistic officials discussed the issue of sustainable timber production through various practices: selective cutting, natural reseeding, artificial replanting, and defending forest lands against the farmer both before and after the forest was exploited. But what did the crown really intend by its frequent use of the word "conserve"? There are at least two ways of approaching the question. First we will look at the duties of the primary officials in charge of forest conservation in Brazil, and then examine forest legislation itself in the controversial ordinances formulated at the end of the eighteenth century. In a massive effort to make the forests of the kingdom produce timber in respectable quantities, the crown established the office of judge conservator (juiz conservador) of the royal cortes, first in the pines of Leiria in 1783, then at Ilheus and Alagoas in 1797, and at Rio de Janeiro in 1798.28 The title "judge conservator," without its genitive, would suggest a new office created specifically to improve and protect the afflicted Brazilian forests, but in reality it was a post with a very long history throughout Portuguese dominions, and it had no connection to the forest or to resource conservation of any kind. Nearly all institutions with recognized privileges (for instance, the students of Coimbra University, ecclesiastical and lay brotherhoods, foreign merchants) had their own judge conservators whose principal function was to ensure that each party's specific entitlements and immunities were not violated. Indeed, those who held the post were referred to in general as conservators of the privileged (conservadores de privilegiados). Likewise, crown monopolies such as tobacco, playing cards, and soap had a conservator of monopolies (conservador dos estancos), an office often held in conjuction with that of royal treasurer. 29 And with the organization of the joint stock companies during the Pombal administration, each had two judge conservators appointed, one at Lisbon and another at Porto, who tried and sentenced those committing infractions against the company's privileges. Conservation here was also primarily the enforcement of the company's monopolies. 30 The title of judge conservator was also conferred by the king upon the English merchant who served in the capacity of consul general, resolving the conflicts that arose between the bureaucracy, Portuguese merchants, and English expatriates in Lisbon. The

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post was established at Rio de Janeiro by the prince in r 8o8 at British request, and all English residents relied on the office's influence to defend their particular rights as foreigners. 31 The judge conservators of the royal cortes in Brazil were in reality neither judges nor conservationists, but more akin to prosecutors and, above all, administrators of the king's felling operations. It is notable that their titles employed the distinction "royal cortes" as opposed to "royal forests," for the business of cutting timber for the crown was paramount over that of conserving it. In 1790 the full job description for the judge conservator in Leiria, whose responsibilities were fewer than those of the judge conservators in Brazil, was to prosecute outsiders who stole from the forests and, more particularly, those within its administration who might, for reasons of "venality, negligence or friendship," corrupt the regulations of the king's pine forests. 32 The judge conservators of Brazil had similar responsibilities and initially also held the post of ouvidor in their respective districts, which expanded their prosecutorial power. 33 But they also were charged with administering the day-to-day activities of the felling operations, which might be strewn over hundreds of miles of coastline and river networks. When not traveling among the various cortes, they spent much of their days in the production of correspondence, making excuses to the governor for delayed shipments, and threatening local administrators for their delinquency and supposed sloth. Of these duties, both prosecutorial and administrative, Baltazar da Silva Lisboa, the judge conservator in Ilheus, complained. More advanced in his views of forest conservation than his superiors, he had expected his position to entail replanting, the elimination of excessive waste at harvest, and, at the very least, careful and systematic selection of the timbers to be felled. But the position of judge conservator, in his eyes, had been reduced to that of an overseer, or worse, a simple shipper and purchasing agent: These cannot be the ends of their [the conservatorships'] creation, for any simple carpenter can perform them. The word conservator implies the intention to conserve the forests, to improve the business of felling operations by enlightened principles, ensuring that the trees cut are of high quality and felled in the right season, when there is no more expectation of growth, and they are about to weaken; how to take advantage of all the pieces that the beautiful trees can provide, conserving the flexibility of their fibers, their compatibility and strength. 34

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As it was, he hadn't the time or the funds to accomplish the conservator's higher purposes, as he saw them. The Plans

In conjunction with the appointment of a new colonial forest administration under the judge conservators came the culminating statement of forest policy in the colonial period. The crown had come to admit that the law of the madeiras de lei that protected particular timber trees singly wherever they might stand, had been a miserable failure. The law had been flaunted with impunity: a few individuals felled the king's trees to risk their sale in the domestic market; more commonly, others burned them where they fell to expand their plantings, the much-lamented ravages of "iron and fire." The royal letter of March 13, 1797, announced the intent to revamp colonial forest policy and declared that the king would no longer attempt to defend individual species of trees in the coastal areas, but now claimed full possession of not only every tree found within ten leagues of Brazil's coasts and rivers, but all the land falling within those boundaries as well. Incredibly, all previous land grants made in coastal and riverine forested areas were to be expropriated, and the grantees indemnified with tracts of similar size in the interior. 35 The highly controversial ordinance that resulted from the royal letter was referred to as "the plan" (plano) by both its friends and enemies, and actually consisted of a handful of documents written by local officials according to royal guidelines for each of Brazil's timber-producing captaincies.36 The plans, all formulated between 1799 and 18oo, are the most convenient sources from which we can determine the ends of Portuguese forest policy. They are the summation of all past timber policy into one set of comprehensive documents. There is a coherence to the plans' general propositions to demarcate and protect the forests, but a suprising amount of variation in their formats and specific enactments. While that of Bahia and Alagoas is legalistic and comprehensive in format, those for Sao Paulo and Paraiba are informal and carry the heavy personal stamp of the writer or writers. In some cases the authors followed the crown's harshest lines, in others they softened the impact of the legislation's intent by creating minor exceptions. Without exception, the plans dropped-or, in the case of Bahia, shelved indefinitely-the highly unpopular proposal to retake privately held forest

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lands in coastal areas; the crown had to concede its infeasibility due to the dearth of accurate information about the size and location of exploitable forests, not to mention colonial opposition at every level from subsistence farmer to governor. One personal exception, Governor Francisco de Sousa Coutinho of Para, upon whose ideas much of the plans' propositions were based, was very pleased to finally have authority to proceed and even thought the crown too benevolent for offering interior lands as compensation. The actual task was beyond his means, however, as nobody in the region knew which forests had the timbers the crown sought, nor did they know which rivers were navigable. He would have opened cortes on the Amazon long ago had he the necessary cartographic informationY The governor of Parafba, Fernando Delgado Freire de Castillo, argued that he could not indemnify confiscated grants with interior lands, as all good interior land had already been granted as well. Besides, in his captaincy, he insisted, landowners respected the madeiras de lei, only using them for personal needs, as was legal. Moreover, he warned that the effort to demarcate ungranted forested lands was a complete waste of time and money, as the past had clearly demonstrated. The inhabitants already knew these forests were off-limits, but they invaded and cut them anyway. "Demarcation lines neither make the forest more fertile nor do they serve as obstructions to their destroyers," he wrote, asking in addition, if old lines could not be enforced, what good could come of drawing new ones? 38 Even the attempt to regularize existing grant boundaries and demarcate the limits of the known royal forests went unrealized, as surveyors had neither the competence to use a transit in the precipitous forests of the coastal ranges nor the courage to challenge the paperless claims of powerful landowners and their armed attendants. Apparently only in southern Bahia was any land expropriated by the crown, thanks to the energetic efforts of Baltasar da Silva Lisboa, who acted before the tide turned and paid for the surveys out of his own pocket. 39 Probably delighted at the opportunity to forcibly take land from individuals who had defied his previous efforts to protect the forests while he was ouvidor in Ilheus, he and a handful of surveyors inspected much of the coast from Cairu to Canavieiras and concluded that most of it had never been formally granted to the inhabitants. The squatter's claims that their lands had been purchased by themselves or their parents after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759 were false. Only those holders in the area between

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Cachoeira Grande and Pinar, had any claim to indemnification. Silva Lisboa argued that in many places the forests did not belong to anyone; they had not even been invaded by the inhabitants, who relied upon fish and shellfish for sustenance and who had no need to fell the forest for farming. 40 In cases where the settlers held legal title, he and his men laid claim by signing the required documents, allowed one month to pass in which any might make petition to oppose the seizure, and then with a "Long Live the Queen, Our Lady," took the parcel for the king's reserves. 41 Of course petitions were numerous and both titled holders and squatters refused to vacate the forests. Even around Cairu, the very seat of the judge conservator, the people continued to farm in the forests as they always had. Only military force could have removed them, and the crown was unwilling. Apparently all seizures made by Silva Lisboa were relinquished. Colonial shiptimber would have to continue to be cut from previously named royal reserves and from the royal timbers growing on private land. 42 The plans' enactments that considered direct forest conservation were few, but not neglected. The plan for Bahia and Alagoas, which was written by a team led by Silva Lisboa, surprisingly addressed only the issue of waste, suggesting that any trees that might be employed as compass timbers not be squandered in making straight members or planking. While it was implied that the judge conservator should "propagate" the forest, there is no mention as to how, in contrast to all past failures, that was to be achieved. 43 On the other hand, Fernando Delgado Freire de Castillo, author of the plan for Paraiba, not only mandated forest propagation by the replanting of as many trees as possible each year in cut-over lands, but ordered that secondary forest (capoeira madura) be both protected from common or private use and annually thinned (limpar) to promote the establishment and maturation of the more valuable trees. This was nothing short of revolutionary. Previously, the crown's procedure had been cutout and get-out. It had shown no interest in the fate of forest land once it had been mined of its first free harvest. But it remained one of few such conservation strategies, and was almost certainly never implemented. 44 It has been mistakenly asserted that despite the crown's difficulty in enforcing its rights over royal timber, those rights "had been upheld negatively, in that the crown paid for labor and freight only, never for timber itself. " 45 The king's logging operations in southern Bahia rarely had to rely

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upon private holdings to meet its needs, but if they did take timbers from previously granted land the crown customarily compensated the holder, paying for the inconvenience by the piece or the cartload of timber. 46 The charters of the Pombaline joint stock companies granted the privilege of cutting timbers wherever the company pleased, but required that those taken from private land be paid for at the current priceY This tradition, which preceded the enactment of the king's timber law in I 6 52, was honored even by the plans. That for Paralba stated that "as it is not my Royal wish to deprive the inhabitants of the profits that can come to them from their own forests, the royal treasury will pay each landholder 240 reis per cartload of wood, as has always been practiced. " 48 But this was hardly compensation; 240 reis, about the average daily wage of an unskilled, non-Indian worker, was only a meager fraction of the timber's value on the stump, and the price often did not outweigh the attending damage that royal timber operations wrought upon private forest land. Neither did it cover the offense of what landholders saw as a forced seizure of their property. This extension of royal beneficence, however, had no part in some of the plans. As mentioned, the crown had always permitted the personal use of the madeiras de lei on one's own property, as long as timber was not sold or burned indiscriminately in the sugar mills' furnaces. But Sao Paulo's plan now placed restrictions on even this minor use of royal timber by limiting the annual personal timber exemption to the value of 4,ooo reis, the equivalent of about a dozen coarse floor planks. 49 For any necessity over and above that modicum landholders had to compensate the crown, unless the timber was for the construction of a sugar mill, in which case the holder paid half price. 50 The Paulistas never could profit from royal timber found on their own land, but now they would have to pay the king for use of the same timber that they cut with their own axes and fashioned with their own labor for their homes, fences, mills, and boats. In addition to the failed attempt to expropriate forested lands from titled farmers and the commendable intentions to replant the forest, the only other truly new provision embodied in the plans was the creation of a crown monopsony on planking timber to finance the cortes. But this too would fail. Under the apparent influence of Silva Lisboa, who had long wanted the king's lumber operations to be fiscally self-sufficient, the plans of Bahia, Alagoas, and Paraiba contained clauses through which it was

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

59

hoped the cortes would be freed from the treasury's purse strings. Always a beggar for its share of the local tax base, the cortes had long been in the hamstrung position of operating with few funds and absolutely no credit. Payments to laborers, contractors, and suppliers of provisions were notoriously late, with predictable consequences for productivity. The plans now required that the valuable madeiras de lei preferred for the planking of ships, namely, tapinhoa, putumoju," vinhdtico, and oiticica in Bahia, and gororoba, sapocairana, and sucupira in Paralba, could no longer be bought or sold by anyone other than the royal naval arsenal. All such planks had to come direct to the intendant of the arsenal, who might then resell them to private shipbuilders, at a sizable profit. Now, in addition to being sole owner of Brazil's select timbers, the crown became the only entity legally permitted to buy and sell the colony's best planking. During the first year (August I799-]uly I8oo) of this edict, the arsenal sold 73 5 cubic meters of planking and about I2o framing timbers for a total profit of 2,5 50 milreis, a significant sum, but only about one-quarter of the sum necessary to finance Bahia's cortes in an average year. 51 The plans were instruments of greater monopolization of timber resources by the crown, rather than efforts at improved forest conservation. Conservation clauses appear, but only rarely, and they are mostly defensive, not proactive. Royal funds and personnel continued to be employed primarily in the felling of trees and in the prosecution of those who did so without license, rather than on the proposed propagation of the forest. And due to the forest's abundance, propagation should have been a low priority. What was necessary, as some pointed out, was the forest's effective defense against the real perpetrator of its demise, the farmer. The crown frequently expressed a sincere interest in slowing the rate of deforestation in the colony and ensuring timber resources for such crucial requirements as the construction of royal warships; however, one cannot avoid seeing in its actions the same avarice that monopolized brazilwood in the previous century. In addition to acquiring naval timber for its own purposes, the crown intended to market the same superior product to the merchant marines and naval yards of other European states, and to do so without any competition from private entrepreneurs in the colony. 52 The crown's policy was monopolistic rather than conservationist; royal claims of "conserva~iio" were often no more than noble justification for royal avarice.

60

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

One might argue that any positive effort by the crown to save timber from the ravages of colonial farming for the benefit of naval shipbuilding must surely be classified as a form of conservation. Was not this the directing of natural resources to their highest ends, those that most benefited the whole society? But if the crown was profiting at the expense of many other important branches of the colony's economy, branches it was wont to promote, such as agriculture and merchant shipbuilding, its ends may have been greatly overvalued. Azeredo Coutinho put it bluntly when he asked, in essence, what was the point of reserving for the royal navy all of Brazil's best timber, more square leagues of forest than Europe had square leagues, when, as a result of the king's monopolistic tendencies, there was hardly a merchant marine left to protect? Other nations, he insisted, understood that without a vibrant merchant marine warships were both unnecessary and even burdensome upon the state. 53 There is little doubt that despite copious legislation, significant penalties, and constant royal ranting, forest law was frequently flaunted by colonists and royal officials alike. It was simply impossible to enforce a forest policy of such comprehensive scope in a colony of such extensive proportions. But this is not to concede that the policy had no repercussions for the economic prosperity of the colony and for the health of the forests. While it has been argued that Portugal may have been the most ineffective of colonial powers and among the least successful of metropolises in the enforcement of colonial policy, this is probably only true commensurate to what it was trying to achieve. When the crown put its mind to it, it could be every bit as tough and comprehensive as the Spanish crown, the diamond mines being one example. And not only were the aims of England's Broad Arrow policy comparatively meager relative to Portugal's, but they were imposed ineffectually upon a mature and thriving timber economy, which saw to the policy's demise. Portugal's far-reaching forest policy checked Brazil's timber sector before it had a chance to become established. If the risk of prosecution in Brazil was small, it was nevertheless very real, and most colonists who inhabited the forests knew individuals who had spent time in jail or in exile, had lost their possessions, or were on the lam due to infractions against the forest laws. Prince Maximilian, while traveling about Cabo Frio, met one Captain Carvalho, who "had been formerly accused of exporting those useful kinds of timber, which are the property of the Crown, and was imprisoned by order of the government." The

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

61

imprisonment of individuals of less social importance than captains was widespread.54 Because the crown made every stage in timber's production from felling to exporting an illegal act, it was relatively successful at enforcing its ban on timber exports without license. Illegal clearing of the forest was widespread, but illegal logging was a rather hazardous endeavor. One might risk the sale of crown timber on his land to his neighbor or to other local interests, but in attempting to transport it even moderate distances, particularly over water, opportunities for prosecution increased exponentially. In New England, by contrast, once a pine mast had been felled and dispatched from the forest, there was no way the crown could determine from where it had come. Every following step the logger might take was both risk free and profitable. In Brazil, mere possession of any madeira de lei was prosecutable, from the stump to the port of Lisbon. If local contraband was risky, illegal export to Europe was nearly impossible. Timber was a high-bulk, low-value good, and few were likely to risk its prohibited trade; one was far more likely to be caught with a few tons of timber in the hold of a ship than a few grains of gold in the heel of a shoe. As we shall see, Brazil's safe harbors were few, and the risks and difficulties of ships combining with illegal cutters on remote coasts were not worth the value of timber that could be safely laden. Certainly, royal officials could be bought, but in the timber trade they might have to be bought three or four times down the chain of marketing it, making the cost of "sanctioned" contraband excessively high. One might quickly legitimize timber by selling it to a licensee, but licensees would pay no more than the cost of labor, at best, as they could take it themselves with a minimal payment. So, while I acknowledge the evidence for contraband, I believe it to be the result of the crown's diligence in efforts to enforce the monopoly rather than suggesqve that smugglers made a significant contribution to Brazil's timber exports. Economic and Environmental Impact

Hence the monopolistic nature of Brazil's forest policy succeeded in preventing the growth of a potentially profitable economic activity for the colony's large subsistence populations, often themselves forest dwellers, among others better capitalized. Brazil's forests held timber that commanded high prices in European markets, but Brazil never produced enough of it to make much of a difference in the colony's accumulation of wealth. In addition to outright waste, monopoly's great detriment was the

62

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

destruction of incentives to invest in the sector and establish more productive capital. While the felling of prohibited trees for local use or their burning for clearing held little risk, setting up a sawmill on an accessible river without royal license would have been foolhardy. Those who had the means to invest in the felling, production, and export of lumber were prevented from doing so by the probability of losing it all as a penalty for intruding on the king's monopoly. Such pervasive threats did not exist in the British colonies, where even if one were caught breaking what few laws there were, a local judge and a jury of one's peers were apt to rule in one's favor. And in place of restrictions on most timber goods, the crown was actually paying bounties to private producers. The much-lamented high price of Brazilian timber in both Brazil and Portugal was undoubtedly a function of the restricted nature of the business rather than of any scarcity. In r8r8, Brazilians could buy timber imported from the United States at half the price of domestic lumber. Warren Dean is partially correct in claiming the relative high price of Brazilian timber was the result of a lack of technology, and hence of international competitiveness;55 but it must be remembered that only competition breeds competitiveness, and monopoly has never had a need for technology, nor-even more significant for Brazilhas it any interest in technology's dissemination. 56 Portuguese forest policy failed miserably in its other stated objective, to conserve colonial forest resources. Some have held that the crown's pervasive forest laws may have saved Brazil's forests from an earlier demise, but in reality they accelerated the process of wasteful destruction. Swidden agriculture was in itself a practice wasteful of resources lamented by all thoughtful observers, but forest law in Brazil exacerbated the problem to horrible dimensions. During an extended anchorage at Rio, John Barrow, one of the great explorers of his age and founder of the Royal Geographical Society, was one of a handful of contemporaries who commented on the consequences: The country produces an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber, suitable for all purposes of civil and naval architecture; but the cutting and disposing of it is a monopoly of the Crown. The first object of every man, who obtains a grant of woodland, is to destroy the best trees as fast as he can; because he is not only forbidden to send them to market, but may have the additional mortification of being oblig-

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

63

ed to entertain the King's surveyor, whenever he thinks fit to pay him a visit, with a numerous retinue, for the purpose of felling the timber, which he as owner of the estate has not the power to prevent.57 It was not just timber for lumber and shipbuilding that suffered this fate. Jose Paulo de Figueiroa Nabuco Araujo noted that the case was exactly the same for the prized brazilwood: Farmers and proprietors consider the existence of brazilwood on their lands as a misfortune ... and endeavor by all means possible to be liberated of this burden, from which they can profit nothing. It is true they freely receive these lands with the burden [to conserve the brazilwood trees], but it is also certain that only by excessive personal virtue could they think to sacrifice their own self interest which is often nothing less than a sparse subsistence. 58 And royal timber operations on private land were not only offensive to the perceived rights of landowners, but highly damaging to the trees the crown did not take. Prince Maximilian reported that "when a large tree was felled it drew down many other trees with it to the ground; because· all these forests are interlaced and twined together by the strongest ligneous climbing plants; many trunks were broken off by others, and remained standing like colossal pillars. " 59 Fresh stumps, shattered boles, and the ruts of oxcarts across private land were not only forms of property damage but remained potent, enduring symbols of the crown's affront to personal dignity. True, slashing and burning was employed primarily as a labor-saving and soil-enhancing technique, but it served as well to obliterate all evidence of the destruction of royal property. Converting fine hardwoods to fertile ash may have been the least effective application of timber resources, but there were others entailing similar consequences. To build himself a new dwelling on his plantation in Pernambuco, Henry Koster acquired the necessary timber from his neighbor at Engenho Novo, as the trees were conveniently situated. The construction, which was typical in the colony, was of pau a pique, wattle and daub, which might be better translated as "stud and mud." Koster lamented "that such beautiful woods as those which were used, should be employed in purposes so much beneath their worth." The timber's legal unmarketablity created a situation in which a highly valuable good could be

64

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

rationally employed in a mean application. Neither Koster nor the senhor of the Engenho Novo could sell these "beautiful" timbers, and it is significant that the latter party, probably in order to avoid any trouble, "ultimately refused to be paid. " 60 The magnificent pequia, one of the colony's most valuable compass timbers, was sometimes felled just to collect its coveted fruits, usually enjoyed only by monkeys and parrots. The remainder was left to rot on the ground by persons who had no opportunity to profit further by it. The pau de arco, another prized shiptimber, was frequently split into small pieces, bundled and used as a torch to light the night shifts in the sugar mills. Remarkably, Brazil's renowned hardwoods, the envy of the shipbuilder and cabinetmaker alike, were utilized in such mundane applications as fencing and even as fuel for the fires of the sugar mills, even though there were literally hundreds of less valuable species more appropriate for such tasks. 61 Crown restrictions drastically altered allocative efficiency in the colonial economy such that goods of some value were treated as worthless by colonists, but received excessive returns for the privileged few. In North America the cost of clearing one's land could be almost completely offset by converting the encumbering timber into lumber. Sawmills, in many cases, were the first edifices to be raised, before homes, barns, or churches. In the 176o's, a single farmer on the Hudson produced 17,ooo feet of boards, 970 planks, 2oo,ooo shingles, 6o,ooo staves, and 260 pieces of timber from his 1,6oo-acre plot, quantities sufficient to make some of Brazil's captaincies blush. 62 As we shall see, timber production was very important for the British colonies, north and south, and in no small way contributed to the regions' economic successes. In Brazil, at least after 1652, one might be prosecuted just for clearing the land, let alone trying to profit from it. And so they did not. According to Jose da Silva Lisboa, Baltasar's better-known brother, land clearing took the following form: The planting of sugar begins by cutting and felling the forest, if the plantation is to be made on new ground. When the forest is virgin, composed of trees of enormous thickness and size, if it is convenient, boards are sawn for the making of sugar chests. Otherwise, all is reduced to ash. 63 Sugar chests were constructed of a softwood, jequitiba, that had been excluded from the list of madeiras de lei for the sugar producer's benefit. To prevent the destruction of the king's timbers on private land by fire, the

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

65

plans had mandated yearly inspections of all lands within coastal areas, and the prosecution of any person who burned his or her forest plots without previous inspection and license. But the incentives to burn and the disincentives to conserve were both too great. Morton has explained the plans' failures to be the result of the opposition of local fabricantes, lumber producers, who combated its specific regulations with obstruction and the opportunistic use of the doctrines of economic liberalism. 64 However, it is misleading, first of all, to view the plans as singular events in the history of colonial forest conservation, around which a crisis developed. On only two points, the resumption of royal land grants, which was dead on arrival, and the crown monopsony of hull planking, which lasted but a year, did the plans contain anything novel. For the most part the plans were nothing more than the reiteration of policies and threats that had been in effect for the last century and a half. Their enactments failed no more or no less than had previous forest legislation. It was not the licensed fabricantes, an illiterate group of woodsmen who were almost wholly in the pay of the crown, who opposed the policy with strikes and laissez-faire ideology. They could only gain by increased access to virgin forests close to water transport. These and all the king's licensed, independent timber contractors had long benefited from the king's monopoly and the artificially high prices it created in the colony. As we have mentioned, initial opposition came from landowners who defied the crown's attempt to wrest land from those with legal title. 65 The plans did not seek to harm licensed timber producers at all, and some crown officials desired more loggers who could be licensed to cut the forests without royal backing. The plans demonstrate plainly that the crown knew the real threat to the king's trees was not illicit timber cutters but planters ravenous for virgin land. The real opposition to the king's monopolistic forest policy, which was much older than the plans, came from landed interests who had never had legal right to profit from the timber on their own estates, and from thoughtful individuals, both Brazilian and foreign, who believed the pitiful state of colonial lumber might be overcome if more liberal policies were instituted. 66 As mentioned, the second new proposal that appeared among the plans' resolutions was that of the naval arsenal taking on the role of sole buyer and supplier of the colony's peerless planking timbers. This, like the resumption of land grants, spelled the doom of the plans in their original

66

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

form, not because of opposition, but due to the crown's total inability to perform the task. Commencing in August of 1799, all planking timber had to be brought to the royal warehouses in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Belem, where set prices were to be paid to all those who had been licensed to cut. In Bahia, despite Silva Lisboa's claim that prices were set sufficiently high to motivate cutters to bring the planking in great abundance, very little timber was actually forthcoming. The issue was not whether the crown had set prices high enough, but whether or not the timber producers believed the crown could pay for the timber once delivered. The consequences of the monopsony were almost instantaneous. 67 There was no significant opposition by the fabricantes; they simply melted away. Silva Lisboa himself did not explain the problem of ensuing low production by the rebellion of local interests. The real problem, he explained, was that none of the producers could afford to fell the forest without advance payment to attract laborers and transport. Others, knowing the crown's poor payment record, simply refused to work without advance pay. As a result, many of the laborers left the timber regions for employment elsewhere, others sold their boats, which had been engaged to haul planking timber to the city, because they had no other place to employ them. 68 In the forests of Jequiri~a, where much of the planking was cut, only Jose Rodrigues was willing to fell timber without being paid in advance, but it is probable that those of his status were leery, well aware of the crown's record in paying its debts. One or two deliveries of the monopsonized planks without payment and they too might be in the same situation as their indigent competitors. Private shipbuilders, the major consumers of timber in the region, had apparently offered licensed cutters payment in advance for ship planking, or at least prompt compensation on delivery. When the legislation prohibited planking's purchase by any but the crown, the capital necessary to fell and haul the timber dried up. So did the incentive for those who could fell the forest on their own account. Licensed loggers not directly employed by the crown sold their timber to the merchant shipbuilders, almost without exception, because here they could get ready money. As a result, private shipbuilders were always better supplied and more promptly served than the royal yards. Silva Lisboa lamented the "disrepute of royal government as foreigners could find in private warehouses the timbers they required, and could not find them in the royal arsenal." 69 All the crown could gen-

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

67

erally offer was credit, and poor credit at that. Silva Lisboa complained that royal officials made large orders for vinhatico and tapinhoa plank without putting up the cash to purchase it; rather, they offered notes from the customs house. This only proved their "summa ignorancia," he explained, for it was common knowledge that such timber could not be purchased from fellers except with metal coin. 70 Antoni! had warned sugar millers that if they did not promptly pay their debts to the providers of fuel and plank by the time of the fleet's departure they would not be able to secure those goods, try as they might, for the next harvest, "neither will there be found anyone willing to trust money or goods into the hands of those who are not likely to pay, or who do so so late and with such trouble that one runs the risk of ruin. " 71 It was advice the crown did not take, and counsel the local governors were often unable to heed for lack of forthcoming funds. The king's well-known inability to pay promptly for his declared royal goods created a general aversion to producing them. The failure to promote hemp, also a royal monopoly, in Santa Catarina had a similar cause. The crown frequently distributed free seed to farmers and promised them 3,200 reis per arroba (14·75 kilos) of product. But the farmers, rather than dedicate a whole season to a crop that they believed would not be easily converted to cash by an impecunious king, boiled the seed before sowing to show it would not grow on their soils. 72 Saint-Hilaire noted that others, knowing that "they could only sell it to the government which paid poorly," planted only the bare minimum required to benefit from certain privileges. 73 Before Bahia's planking monopsony, it was the royal arsenal that relied on the private shipbuilders for hull planking, and letters of credit were all the naval intendant could offer merchant shipbuilders when royal timber production fell short of his needs, which it often did. As a result of accruing interest, the king had paid as much as 30 percent more for timber as did private persons. 74 The monopsony, however, had turned the tables, and now the crown was charging the shipbuilders 20 to 30 percent above the timber's original cost even if paid on time. 75 The crown, however, had bit off much more than it could chew. Even had it had sufficient funds to pay timber producers in advance, as well as cover its own direct operations, and thus maintain past production levels, the arsenals simply did not have the capacity to supply the naval dockyard, local shipbuilders, and Lisbon with the quantities of planking

68

Forest Policy with Portuguese Roots

customarily required by each. From January to November of 1799, largely before the date from which the arsenal's corner on planking began, the arsenal received 1,089 shiptimbers, 505 general construction timbers, and 1,440 planks. 76 The comarca of Ilheus alone, in the same period, exported to greater Salvador 5,425 shiptimbers, 5,946 general timbers, and 61,788 planks, 38,260 of them of the named restricted varieties. 77 This does not include timber coming from the northern captaincy of Alagoas or from the environs of the Reconcavo and Cachoeira. In order to maintain planking supplies, the arsenal's personnel and warehouses would have had to handle at least 26 times the volume of that received by them in the year 1799. In the monopsony's first year, from August 1799 to July 18oo, the arsenal only managed to supply 2,468 planks to private builders, surely insufficient to meet their needs.7 8 The cost of the planking's transport rose as well, as it no longer could come direct to the private yards but had to be unloaded, then reloaded, at the arsenal. In Bahia, the monopsony lasted one year. Production fell off so drastically and shortages of plank became so severe that the governor suspended it and opened the sale and purchase of the restricted timbers to all. In a letter to Silva Lisboa he justified this act against the king's plan on the assumption the king would do likewise in the same situation, and he counseled the judge conservator to follow through to avoid delaying the recovery any longer than necessary. 79 The arsenal monopsonies at Rio de Janeiro and Belem apparently failed as well. 80 The highly selective nature of colonial lumbering, the result of the forests' dispersed species patterns, and the relatively light impact of eighteenth-century transport technology on the soil and surrounding vegetation, promised an economic activity that had few negative results for the forest ecosystem at large and held the opportunity for sustainability. The felling of a few dozen giants per hectare, especially if carefully done, made nary a dent in the canopy. 81 And when the farmer did not follow the feller into the forest, the smaller specimens of Brazil's choice hardwoods continued to grow to provide a later harvest and continuous natural reseeding. The crown did little to protect timberland that had already been exploited for shiptimber, for the assumption was that once cut, timber never grew back. Some colonial officials pointed out that error of generalization. What was true of clear-cutting for sugar, manioc, or tobacco did not hold for the areas selectively cut for generations. Silva Lisboa reported that clearings

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69

made by natives more than one hundred years previous still had no timber worthy of ships on them; however, in selectively harvested virgin forest, they regrew well either by artificial or natural reseeding. Certain species, including the sucupira, according to Mattos Moreira, grew back at rapid rates in the primary forest where the farmer had not arrived. 82 Some of the plans applied this knowledge, recommending that exploited virgin forest on private land also be protected, yet while the crown owned the madeiras de lei landowners continued to have little incentive to protect them as the king's nursery. Had the crown relinquished its hold on the colony's prized timbers and granted free license to any who desired to harvest timber, more individuals might have found their living in the selective cutting of the forest, and fewer would have had to destroy the forest in order to produce crops. Certainly they could have had at least one harvest before their first planting. The monopsonies were the final fetters in a heavy chain that finally broke the timber sector's back. The governors moved to intervene rather than risk extensive damage to the colony's ability to produce shiptimber at all. Yet colonial loggers had been operating under a heavy chain for a century and half with notable consequences for both the citizens and the forests they inhabited. The chain prevented the timber sector from thriving, shackled the individual from profiting from timber on his or her own land, and, like a drag chain, laid low many valuable trees to no worthy end. It was a losing situation for all sides. The king, his subjects, and the forest would have been arguably better off, under the circumstances, had there been no forest policy at all. 83

3 Brazil's Timber in the Atlantic Basin

The richness of botanical amethysts The violet tree's diverse waters, The gilded pequia whose dazzling brightness Is inlaid in lesser woods like a gem: The vinhtitico tree, which when beheld, Appears a vast and extensive nugget of gold; The hardest of woods which rival iron, Like angelim, tataipeba, and the sucupira. Trunks of varying color and quality Which singly serve as canoes, Affording girth of such capacity, They carry forty paddles and one hundred riders. And there are, in quantity, through all Brazil, For building, such excellent timbers, That by dispatching these on vast rivers to the sea, All of Europe can be filled with ships. 1 -FR. JosE.

DE SANTA RITA

DuRA.o,

Caramurn, 1781

Of Brazil's colonial exports, few were as well distributed over the breadth of the colony as timber. Sugar predominated in many of the captaincies but was negligible in the colony's northern and southern extremes. Ninety percent of 71

72

Brazil's Timber in the Atlantic Basin

Brazil's tobacco came from Bahia. Rio Grande do Sul, late in the colonial period, was the exclusive producer of wheat, and Maranhao led cotton exports by a large margin. Cacao was a product of the Amazon, and even mining and cattle ranching were delimited to rather narrow geographical bounds. Timber, on the other hand, was exported from every coastal captaincy by the end of the colonial period with the only possible exception being Piaui. By 1629, according to one Spanish source, timber was being exported from every Brazilian captaincy from the port of Parafba do Norte to that of Angra dos Reis in southern Rio de Janeiro. 2 Unfortunately, statistical data concerning exports of tirpber, as for colonial exports in general, are wretchedly sparse. Despite that difficulty I hope in this chapter to identify and describe the most important centers of production, and to give the reader a general idea of the extent of timber exports and their importance to the colonial economy. When one comprehends the relative magnitude of Brazil's timber exports, especially in the face of monopoly, the frequent claims for Brazil's potential as an important supplier of timber to Europe become more credible. It was only after 1796 that crown officials began formally and consistently to record the value of Brazil's exports to Portugal, and I will rely on these heavily. 3 But there is also a relatively good, though limited, sampling of mapas, or tables, which enumerate the commodities carried by the fleets to Portugal for the period I7 49-6 5. These are scattered over many archives and generally only report the quantities exported rather than their value. 4 The dearth of fleet data prior to this must be blamed on the loss of records in the Lisbon earthquake in late 1755. With the abolishment of the fleet system in 1765, yearly trade reports declined in number until about 1777, when they were replaced by similar reports from the colonial governors. While data are scanty, they are sufficient to give a general picture of timber production and export in the late eighteenth century, and herein I will describe the relative significance of the colony's major ports of trade. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, neither Bahia nor Pernambuco were the largest exporters of Brazil's timber. 5 Despite the crown's constant attentions, Bahia exported only a little more than half the value of timber exported by Rio de Janeiro during the period 1796-r8r9. Tabler demonstrates the dominant role played by Rio de Janeiro during the last two decades of the colonial era, and earlier documents suggest this was the situation throughout much of the last half of the eighteenth century as well.

Brazil's Timber in the Atlantic Basin

73

Table 1

Timber Exports from Brazil to Portugal by Region, 1796-1819 (in milreis)

YEAR

1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1815* 1816 1817 1818 1819 TOTAL PERCENT

RIO DE JANEIRO

PERNAMBUCO

BAHIA

PARA

9,352 8,798 5,919 7,010 7,387 11,425 13,066 5,660 10,369 7,766 8,278 6,850

992 592 2,925 884 6,219 3,046 3,030 7,043 4,526 6,050 1,813 4,039 86 1,623 427 2,350 7,010 2,556 4,049 5,763 10,982 6,685 749 83,439

1,172 200 2,114 1,398 737 746 2,121 2,288 2,640 629 22,610

26,037 24,497 48,295 32,904 36,055 46,075 59,703 55,051 42,977 38,100 35,680 47,244 2,255 11,400 10,404 9,646 33,238 18,408 34,418 44,426 44,567 53,045 13,362 767,787

10.9%

2.9%

100.0%

6,209 3,282 31,361 11,665 13,094 19,653 33,842 27,139 17,015 15,578 14,790 23,430 438 3,274 5,562 1,969 9,335 5,794 14,328 13,403 12,706 12,688 4,390 300,945

2,910 3,219 1,714 10,172 3,638 9,230 12,669 12,379 22,182 6,297 186,290

9,024 11,748 8,005 12,599 8,791 9,594 8,687 14,461 9,928 8,203 10,218 12,698 1,731 2,421 996 1,499 5,323 5,683 6,065 10,470 6,212 8,850 1,297 174,503

39.2%

24.3%

22.7%

MARANHAO

460 77 85 746 564 2,357 1,078 748 1,139 503 581 227

TOTAL

SOURCE: Balanfa geral do commercia do Reina de Portugal com os seus dominios e na(8es estrangeiras. [r796-r8r9]. BNRJ, Sec;;iio de Manuscritos. *Data for r814 are missing.

Pernambuco was the second largest exporter, and it should be noted that timber figures do not include the value of the captaincy's brazilwood, which was classified under the category of drugs (drogas), as were spices, oils, and medicinal plants. Pernambuco's dyewood exports in many years exceeded the value of Brazil's entire timber exports. 6

74

Brazil's Timber in the Atlantic Basin

It should also be noted that exports were identified by their final port of embarkation rather than their actual point of origin. For much of the colonial period, only a limited number of ports were permitted to export under the fleet system, hence these few entrepots gathered timbers from extensive hinterlands. Maranhao's exports included those of Ceara, although the latter port occasioned direct exports. Timber exported from Rio Grande do Norte, Parafba, and northern Alagoas was channeled through Pernambuco, despite many complaints about the inconveniences of Recife's limited port facilities. Bahia, an excellent port, warehoused timber coming from southern Alagoas, the Reconcavo, Ilheus, Porto Seguro, and locations as far south as Espirito Santo, much of it intended for the royal arsenal at Lisbon. Rio de Janeiro was the gathering point for timbers arriving from forests as far north as Espirito Santo and as far south as Santa Catarina, although the majority came from the regions of Macae, Cabo Frio, Santos, and the Bay of Guanabara itself. Even Para, which relied almost solely upon sources of timber situated around Belem's estuaries and the mouth of the Tocantins, occasioned timber exports originating far up the Amazon on the Rio Negro. PARA

The potential of Para and the Amazon's banks as sources for shipbuilding timber had been noted from at least the Pedro Teixeira expedition to Quito in 1637. Father Cristoval de Acunha chronicled the passage and described forests that could provide every necessity for the construction of great ships: timbers of massive dimensions, tar and pitch, an abundance of fibers from which could be fashioned cordage and oakum, even cotton for sails. If ships were to be built in Para, nothing but nails would have to be imported from Europe, he believed. 7 The first efforts by the crown to export the timbers of the equatorial forest commenced about 1740. However, timber arrivals from Para were of little consequence before 1750, and the Marquis de Pombal must be credited with the first successes. 8 Although the price of the first royal timbers to enter the port of Lisbon from Para were higher than those coming from northern Europe, Pombal and his colonial governors believed that with time that could be remedied. Fernando de Lavre requested a price list for European timbers placed in port at Lisbon so he could consult it when adjusting the prices paid for timber produced in Para and thus ensure its ability to compete. By 1753, Para

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was exporting three shiploads of timber per year valued at 3,744 milreis. 9 The most nagging problem facing royal timber production in the Amazon was the Jesuits' control of native labor. If the crown were to export large quantities of timber at competitive prices, it would need access to large numbers of native laborers who could be paid with inexpensive cotton cloth. It is unknown how much the Jesuits were involved in the production of local timber, but they were without question the largest producers of canoes. The king's casa de canoas was constantly short of labor as poor treatment and miserable pay resulted in labor flight from royal service to the Jesuit aldeias, where conditions were usually better. As late as 175 5, Governor Francisco Xavier de Mendon'Sa Furtado wrote his brother, the future Marquis de Pombal, that Para's whole economy was a "cadaver" that needed resuscitating, and the promotion of timber exports would be key to that end. However, he argued, "without these Indians, Your Excellency already knows nothing can be accomplished. " 10 The populace had long complained of the Jesuits' nearmonopoly on Indian labor, but the obstructions the fathers placed in the way of the Pombal's ambition to export tropical timber were significant factors in the justification offered for their expulsion in 1759.1l With the Jesuits out of the way, Pombal established a royal shipyard at Belem in 1761, using the expanded labor force. A number of large ships were built, the first being a nau appropriately named the Be/em in 1767. After 1770 it was reported that one ship (navio) was launched each year from the royal yard, although this is difficult to verify. 12 The crown's dominance of the timber sector was greater in Para than in any other region, in large part due to the successful transfer of the labor monopoly into royal hands. As in no other captaincy, timber exports from Para were largely the king's, were felled under royal officials, and shipped in vessels built at Belem's own royal shipyard for the purpose. The captaincy's total timber exports in 1791 all belonged to the crown, except some 200 grape trellis poles, 12 timbers, 52 boards, and a few staves, all valued at less than 1,ooo milreis and much of it intended for other Brazilian ports. The value of the king's timber was at least 6,923 milreis, more than 9 5 percent of the king's total direct interest in the year's exports. The largest share was destined for the navy yards in Lisbon and the army's artillery corps, the remainder being 24,646 billets of firewood for the royal pantries. 13

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Table 2 Timber Produced, Consumed, and Exported by Belem do Para, 1784-95 (value in milreis) 1784-89

1790-95

27,900 Billets of fuelwood exported Total timbers entering the arsenal at Belem 3,604 100% Consumed at Belem's royal shipyard 0% 0 Consumed in local forts, artillery, etc. 0 0% 3,613 101% Exported to Lisbon's arsenals Discrepancy* 7 1%

126,875 11,487 100% 4,264 37% 2,270 20% 5,173 45% 2% 220

Value of exports to Army Arsenal, Lisbon 8,414 32% Value of exports to Naval Arsenal, Lisbon 18,051 68% TOTAL VALUE OF EXPORTS 26,465 100%

2,738 10% 23,785 90% 26,523 100%

SOURCE: Francisco Caldeira Coutinho do Couto, Contador, "Mapa geral de toda a entrada e sahida de madeiras no Arsenal Real da cidade do Gram Para," Para, June 1, 1796, IHGB, DA, 6,1,4. *The discrepancies are explained by timbers produced previous to, but consumed or exported during, each sexennium.

Yet timber operations in Para were of little extent. In 1797, Governor Francisco de Souza Coutinho numbered the locations in which timber was then being exploited by both private and royal lumberman at five, one of them only recently reopened at his insistence. Three were within a few hours of the city on the rivers Acara, Moju, and Carapuru, and the remaining two were situated on the islands facing the current town of Abaetetuba and on the lgarape-mirim, which linked the Moju with the Tocantins. There were no timber operations more than a half an hour's stroll from water transport. Exports, he explained, still brought little income, but were much greater than they had been (see Table 2).l4 The considerable increase in production from the late 178o's to the early 179o's is only indicative of the kinds of swings common to timber production in Para, and in this case it is credited to the entry of private woodcutters into royal contracts in 1791. Timber exported to the army's arsenal consisted mainly of heavy cants (square-hewn timbers) which were reduced to axles, spokes, and felloes for gun carriages. Similarly, timber shipped for the naval yard at Lisbon also often went as roughly squared cants, of which the

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governor complained because of the high freight fees these incurred compared to finished timbers. Much of the increase in production from one sexenium to the next was consumed almost entirely in the construction of three charruas, which were built exclusively for the export of timber. 15 PERNAMBUCO AND PARAfBA

The history of timber exports from Pernambuco and Parafba is much older, but sources concerning activities during the first two and a half centuries of the colonial period are few. During the second quarter of the seventeenth century, the invading Dutch benefited from Pernambuco's timber as well as the captaincy's sugar plantations. At one point they considered moving the capital to the Island of ltamaraca, rather than Olinda, not only for its defensible position and abundant potable water, but also for its large reserve of trees, which were exploited for shipbuilding, construction, and fuel for the mills. The Dutch had also established a shipyard at Nazare, which they effectively destroyed at their defeat by sinking three frigates at the harbor's entrance. 16 In 1671, John Ogilby, cosmographer to Charles II of England, described Pernambuco as the most significant timber exporter of the South American continent. "Some woods," he claimed, "extend themselves three hundred Leagues in length, and are full of Trees, so tall, that an Arrow shot upwards falls short of the top of them." "The Wilds of El Gran Matto [Mato Grande?], afford the best Wood, with which they drive the greatest Trade in the Village of Laurenzo. " 17 Much of the region's trade consisted of brazilwood and other dyewoods such as tatajuba, but lumber and the many fine native hardwoods certainly played a part. Robert C. Smith may be correct in his assertion that "Recife was the wood-capital of colonial Brazil," but it only holds for the period to 1750, at the latest. 18 Felix Jose Machado, Pernambuco's governor in 1714, requested that ships be built in Recife due to the abundance of timber, and the Overseas Council recommended it experimentally to the king, but it appears that royal shipbuilding was never firmly established, if at all. 19 Private smacks-double-masted schooners used in the coastal trade-were built in abundance by Pernambucanos, as they were by the Paraibanos, who refused to purchase them from Recife due to high prices. By 175 5, Recife had, like most major ports, become part of Pombal's plans for greater colonial inputs for Lisbon-built warships so as to become

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less dependent upon the Baltic and Dutch middlemen. Unlike in Para, the difficulty was not primarily labor, but insufficient funds. One official complained that of the 33,6oo milreis sent to Bahia, 24,000 were taken for the capital's infantry, and what remained for Pernambuco was not enough to fund the cortes. Timber cutters were so lacking in capital that if not paid for the first shipment, they could not afford to bring a second. As a result the crown could not expect the timber ordered for the 6o-gun frigate at Lisbon until the following fleet unless a special charrua was sent some time later. 20 Despite concerns, the crown consistently failed to make sufficient funds available for the purchase of timber. In 1757 21 promissory notes, totaling 5,587 milreis, were granted to as many lumbermen. 21 Lumbering activity in Pernambuco's hinterland was extensive, and it is difficult to pinpoint any particular region that dominated. Many documents suggest that the majority of large shiptimbers for the yards in Lisbon originated in Paraiba, particularly from the area of the Bahia de Trai~ao, and from the northern ports of Alagoas such as Porto Calvo, Camarajibe, and Jacuipe. The region had a relatively greater population, and nearly all the land from the sea to the fall line had already been granted before the king began to reserve ungranted land as royal forests. Hence, the general pattern was private ownership below the fall line, and royal ownership above. In fact, descendants of the Paulista regiments who had destroyed the runaway slave community of Palmares in 1694 held much of the land around Porto Calvo, which had been granted to their ancestors as reward. 22 Inland, where cutting for local needs had been less pronounced, the forests were abundant throughout the region, but the crown largely took advantage of its ownership of the madeiras 'de lei on private land near the coast, as these were least costly to transport. Some argued that the forests of Pernambuco proper were depleted and no longer contained the large timbers required by royal ships, but Mattos Moreira, with a generation of experience in the region's forests, most recently as judge conservator, could in 1809 still describe the land from the border of Alagoas to the town of Paraiba as nearly pure stands of forest only occasionally pocked by the coastal settlements, larger mills, and the natural breaks of the drier sections of the north. As Pernambuco's forests had been little affected by naval shipbuilding, large timbers abounded. He took great pride in being able to supply Lisbon with five thousand timbers for the royal palace from forests no farther than three level leagues from Recife itself. 23

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BAHIA AND ALAGOAS

Bahia has been traditionally regarded as the core of colonial timbering, and as far as the intensity of royal initiative was concerned, this remains true. As the colonial capital and center of colonial shipbuilding, Bahia's forests were the subject of almost constant royal attention, beginning in the r65o's, when both timber legislation and the king's shipyard had their beginnings. 24 Even in the last decades of the colonial period, despite exporting less total timber than either Rio de Janeiro or Pernambuco, the port of Bahia probably remained the primary supplier of Lisbon's royal dockyards. In the first decade of the seventeenth century, Francois Pyrard de Laval described the coast of Brazil as "well-nigh all covered with woods; and even about and around the towns it is all forest, swarming with apes and monkeys which work much mischief." He claimed that the citizens of Salvador, Bahia, the only town and port he actually visited, lived almost entirely on fish, as they dreaded entering the forest due to the fearsome nature of its carnivorous beasts and venomous snakes.H In that he must have been mistaken, for Diego de Campos Moreno noted that exports of timber to Portugal from Bahia were already sizable. 26 The Jesuits, who possessed twelve leagues (8o km) of coastline in the richly timbered vicinity of Ilheus, appear to have been the primary producers of wood in the region for much of the seventeenth century. In r6 51, the governor general at Bahia requested from the Jesuits' fabrica in Ilheus the jatai-peba boards necessary to floor the gallery of the royal palace, as he had been informed that none could produce timber as quickly or as well as they. A letter from the Jesuit Provincial at Salvador accompanied the order, requisitioning whatever Indian labor was wanted to dispatch the work promptlyP Many of the black-robed fathers, never having taken vows of poverty, had been trained in the arts of carpentry, carving, turning, cooperage, and the building of ships, and passed these skills to their native dependents congregated into the industrious aldeias. Father Joao de Castro (r629-1702), for example, served many years as "sawyer of the timber" in Camamu and later as foreman of the timber operations in the forests belonging to the Jesuit College in Bahia. 28 After r647 the crown began to play a greater role in the exploitation of the forest. It needed war material for ships, forts, and gun carriages to

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defend against the Dutch and finally expel them from the Northeast. Occasionally small parties of soldiers under the direction of a carpenter were organized to cut wood for the king's needs. A few months before the law of the madeiras de lei would give the governor general legal power to take what he needed without regard for private land boundaries, he requested permission from Catharina de Goes to extract timber, with compensation, from her lands adjacent to the fort on the Morro de Sao Paulo, which was in need of repair. 29 After the law went into effect, the requisitions came in rapid succession. 30 Despite the work of the Jesuits in Ilheus, nearly all the timber required by the crown had its origin on the private lands of the Reconcavo, and the labor consisted of its inhabitants who, like feudal vassals, owed the king their service, especially in this time of war. In November 1654, seven separate orders consisting of 200 planks, ro,ooo posts for stockades, r 36 beams and logs, dozens of boards and 2,ooo baskets of charcoal were divided up among the various settlements, including, moving clockwise around the bay, Jaguaripe, Itaparica, Maragogipe, Iguape, Cachoeira, Saubara, Santo Amaro, Sergipe do Conde, Matoim, and even parishes as close to the city as Cotegipe and Paripe. 31 Before 1715, Bahia's established timber operations had never been under the direct administration of the crown. They were exclusively a private affair. Royal demand for ships and other timber needs gave increased impetus to the sector, but timber was cut under the direction of either the Jesuits or private licensed cutters. In August 1715, John V moved to take greater control of the Bahian timber supply. He ordered the establishment of two to three feitorias whose sites were to be selected from the southern forests of Jaguaripe, Camamu, Cairu, and Boipeba by Manuel Fernandes da Costa, the master carpenter sent from the Lisbon yard to oversee the operations. One of Da Costa's initial tasks included marking each madeira de lei in the chosen forests with five strokes of an ax in the form of a cross, and the viceroy reminded the inhabitants of their obligation not to fell trees so marked, or any others that could receive such a mark. 32 Manuel Teixeira de Souza was named the first administrador of the king's timber operations at Cairu in March 1716, and the appointment of lesser officials followed. 33 It was in this period that the crown, in response to local complaints from sugar producers, officially moved operations for royal timber production to the southern comarcas and refrained from requisitioning the boats and oxen of the millers, who could not afford to spare them during the long

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sugar harvest. This in part explains the king's decision to cut timber on his own account. No longer willing to force private persons and capital to supply his needs, the means had to be created. Throughout the rest of the century the king's officials worked the forests of Jequirica, Cairu, Boipeba, and Camamu, and then expanded south into Ilheus. Royal operations apparently never reached as far south as Porto Seguro, the site of Brazil's discovery, except to occasionally snatch a mainmast for a manof-war. As late as I8o7, Joiio Rodrigues de Brito was able describe Porto Seguro as a place of extreme backwardness, which he blamed on the king's timber restrictions, especially those on brazilwood. 34 The early results of the king's operations near Cairu were highly satisfying to the viceroy, the Marquis de Angeja, who took an active interest in their success, spending more money on the cortes than was intended by the crown. Without the king's say, he ordered the construction of two charruas to haul timber to Lisbon and dipped into the inviolable customs revenues, much to the aggravation of the Overseas Council. He consigned nearly so,ooo milreis to the logging operations when the king had only designated 2,400 to cover both royal timber exports and the construction of naus in Bahia. The viceroy was chastised, and the king ordered the colonial governors to disobey him should he continue to contradict previous regimentos concerning timber activities. 35 None of this seemed to dampen the viceroy's enthusiasm. He asked the captain of the charrua Sao ]oiio Batista, who had previously hauled timber from northern Europe, to tell him how the timbers of Cairu compared in volume, length, and quality to those that were customarily imported from Holland to Lisbon. When the captain, on his arrival in Cairu, assured him that "never have there entered similar timbers into the dockyards at Lisbon," the viceroy was fully content. 36 Unfortunately we do not know how extensive exports were as a result of Angeja's efforts. Providing only an indication, the historian Sebastiiio da Rocha Pitta wrote in I730: Each year four of his majesty's frigates carry from Bahia and Pernambuco prodigious timbers admirable for their dimensions, strength and incorruptibility, from which are built at the Arsenal, or Ribeira das Naos, at Lisbon, magnificent galleons, in addition to those [timbers] employed in the construction of ships in this city [Salvador], from which have left many examples which are viewed by Europe and Asia with admiration. 37

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Despite the crown's entrance into timber operations in 1715 in the southern comarcas, for much of the first half of the century most of the timber produced for the king still originated with private persons, many of them living in the Reconcavo. Antonil 'claimed that timbers growing around the bay, particularly those above Santo Amaro, were greatly preferred for quality over similar timbers coming from the southern comarcas, such as Patipe, for the construction of mills. They were, as a result, higher priced, despite their relative proximity. 38 The performance and productivity of the royal enterprise in the south fluctuated with the crown's interests and needs, sometimes exhibiting a great deal of vigor, at other times disappearing entirely. At the time of the fleet's sailing in March 1753, the master carpenter had received neither timber nor news from the southern feitorias. He reported that none of the timber with which the fleet had been laden had come from the king's cortes, but from sugar millers, planters, the Jesuits, and independent Indian villages, and as much as half originated locally around the bay rather than from the south. 39 The king's feitorias apparently continued to muddle along for the next quarter-century until the crown took the first effective step toward increasing control of Bahia's timber supply in May 1780 with the establishment of the Inspetoria dos Reais Cortes. In the year 1777, Portugal, for the first time, produced comprehensive and reliable statistics for her imports and balance of trade, revealing the nation's weakest economic sectors. One of those was timber, and Bernardo Jesus Maria shamed Portugal for her reliance on foreign imports and failure to exploit either national pines and beeches or colonial resources in Brazil or Africa. How could Portugal, he asked, import 1,842 paddles from foreign nations when Portugal's beech trees could serve the same ends, not to mention the possibilities Brazil offered? Why do we purchase nearly 13,000 wooden rosaries from the Germans and Italians, he asked, when we have access to more beautiful woods than either of them? In 1777, Portugal expended 66,934 milreis in the purchase of foreign timbers, mostly English, when by all rights she should have exported that much and more, to the improvement of her balance of trade. The state of the kingdom's timbering was unpardonable, insisted Jesus Maria. 40 The new forest administration was very likely a result of his criticisms, and under the direction of the newly appointed inspectors (inspetores), the crown eventually took control of nearly all the timber operations in the

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southern comarcas of Bahia. For the first time, large ungranted tracts of land were set aside as royal reserves. Individual cutters of the southern forests, previously working as private licensees, were now appointed to the semiofficial positions of administrator and subordinate fabricanteY Initially, neither received a salary for their work on behalf of the crown, but the benefits of the king's employment were substantial and included access to labor, various opportunities for corruption, and sufficient legitimacy to make local contraband a possibility. 42 Immigration to the forests of Ilheus was dosed to all, and only established inhabitants were permitted to participate in lumbering. More people, it was feared, could only mean more deforestation by farming. Luis Caetano de Simoes, who served as inspector for the period 1780-82, spent much of his time expelling interlopers and imprisoning those inhabitants who refused to volunteer their labor. Domestic contraband in the area was a significant complaint, but he warned that little could be done about it as long as in Salvador "there are those who foment and, by all means, patronize it. " 43 Francisco Nunes da Costa, who served as inspector for the next decade, was zealous in his efforts to protect royal timber from the ravages of farmers and contrabandists through the setting aside of royal forest reserves. Nunes da Costa might be seen as a transition figure from the forest official whose only interest was to cut down the forest to one who took a sincere interest in protecting it, albeit solely for the crown. He prohibited the cutting of all timber for merchant shipbuilding in the southern comarcas without special permission from himself and the governor. The governor's opinion was that for a long time private shipbuilders and their suppliers had "wasted" large trees, potentially useful to the navy's largest ships, in the production of smaller merchant shiptimbers.44 Certain cutters had long had special permission to cut jacaranda from the forests around Rio das Contas, but this was also discontinued as it was discovered they were using such license to cut all kinds of timber in the area to the detriment of the king's interests. Nunes da Costa reserved all the jacaranda in the area for the public works, thus killing its private commerce. This proved a benefit to the royal cortes, because the logs themselves, although not used in naval construction, could be easily bartered for provisions when supplies and cash ran low. 45 A second initiative promoted by Nunes da Costa was to put the fabricantes, timber entrepreneurs, under direct royal control by making them

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contra-mestres, or foremen, and paying them salaries. It was hoped that once on the king's payroll they would no longer seek to supplement their earnings by engaging in illegal activities, but an unexpected consequence was that now when mistakes were made by the inexperienced in the felling and forming of shiptimbers, it was the crown rather than the producer who paid for the error. Nunes da Costa's battle was constant, one in which there were as many losses as gains, but the free use of the forest by farmers and merchant shipbuilders certainly became more difficult. And while the ban on immigration may have slowed the rate of deforestation, it also limited the labor supply available to extract the king's timber. The crown was making similar moves in the forests of Alagoas, from which many of the king's largest compass timbers were extracted. Already by 1757 the port of ]aragua was reported ready for a strongbox in which monies for the king's lumbering operations could be safely kept. 46

Apparently the funds arrived, for by the end of the year there was so much timber delivered at ]aragua ready for export to Bahia that the viceroy ordered all cutting stopped for fear it would rot on the ground, attesting to the productive capacity of the colonists when cash was readily available and well advertisedY During the last two decades of the eighteenth century, Jose da Mendon