Slavery and the Economy of São Paulo, 1750-1850 9780804766852

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SLAVERY AND THE ECONOMY OF SAO PAULO

1750-1850

SOCIAL SCIENCE HISTORY

Edited by Stephen Haber and David Brady David Brady and Mathew D. McCubbins, Party, Process, and Political Change in Congress Jeffrey Bortz and Stephen Haber, The Mexican Economy, 1870-1930 Edward Beatty, Institutions and Investment Jeremy Baskes, Indians, Merchants, and Markets William Summerhill, Order Against Progress Noel Maurer, The Power and the Money

SLAVERY AND OF THE ECONOMY ,_ SAO PAULO 1750-1850

FRANCISCO VIDAL LUNA AND HERBERT S. KLEIN

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Stanford, California 2003

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

© 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Luna, Francisco Vidal. Slavery and the Economy of Sao Paulo, 1750-1850 I Francisco Vidal Luna and Herbert S. Klein. p. cm.-(Social science history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-804 7-4465-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Sao Paulo (Brazil: State)-Economic conditions. 2. Sugar trade-Brazil-Sao Paulo (State)-History. 3. Coffee industry-Brazil-Sao Paulo (state)History. 4. Slavery-Brazil-Sao Paulo (State)History. 5. Slaves-Brazil-Sao Paulo (State)-History. I. Klein, Herbert S. II. Title. III. Series. HC188 .S386 2002 330.981'61033-dc21

2002010785

Original Printing 2003 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03

Typeset by G&S Typesetters in 10.5113 Bembo

To Matiko and Crystal Lane Klein

CONTENTS

List of Tables and Illustrations

IX

Introduction 1.

Sao Paulo to 1800

11

2.

The Rise of Commercial Sugar Production

28

3.

The Growth of Coffee in the Nineteenth Century

53

4.

Subsistence and the Local Economy

79

5.

The Slave Owners

107

6.

The Slave Population

133

7.

The Free Colored in Sao Paulo

158

8.

The Non-Agricultural Sector: Artisans, Merchants, and the Liberal Professions

180

Conclusion

203

Appendix

209

Notes

217

Bibliography

247

Index

265

TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

TABLES

1.1

Population and Wealth in the Province of Sao Paulo, 1765-1777

25

2.1

Engenhos, Slaves, and Sugar Production in the Province of Sao Paulo, 1799

33

2.2

Census of Engenhos in the County of Mogi Mirim, 1825

35

2.3

Slaves on the Engenhos in Various Regions for Various Years

37

2.4

Combined Agricultural Production in Itu and Capivari, 1836

39

2.5

Combined Sugar Production in Itu and Capivari, 1836

41

2.6

Demographic and Economic Characteristics ofJundiai County, 1778-1836

43

Demographic Comparison of Sugar and Non-Sugar Counties, 1804 and 1829

50

Fazendas, Workers, and Production in Coffee, Sugar, and Animals, Sao Paulo, 1854

60

Slaves and Slave Owners by Economic Activity and Household, Areias, 1817-1836

65

Size of Holding by Economic Activity and Relative Rates of Participation of Slaves and Owners, Areias, 1817-1836

68

Households, Population, Slaves, and Agricultural Production in Areias, 1817-1836

71

Agricultural Production of Slave Households, Areias, 1817-1836

73

Coffee versus Corn Production by Size of Slave Holding and Amount Produced, Areias, 1817-1836

74

Relative Importance ofProducts in the Value ofProduction, 1836

82

2.7 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1

IX

Tables and Illustrations

X

4.2

Value and Quantity ofPrincipal Agricultural Products, 1836

83

4.3

Agriculturists Producing for the Internal Market, Sao Paulo, 1804 and 1829

84

Quantity, Value, and Commercialization of Agricultural Production, Cunha, 1804-1835

88

Population, Households, and Slave Owners, Cunha, 1804-1835

90

Quantity, Value, and Commercialization of Agricultural Production, J acarei, 1804-1829

92

Population, Households, and Slave Owners, Jacarei, 1777-1829

94

4.8

Characteristics of Corn Production, 1816 -1836

98

4.9

Distribution of Corn Output by Quantity and Slaves Used, 1836

100

5.1

Population of Sao Paulo, 1803-1836

108

5.2

Characteristics of the Population of Sao Paulo

111

5.3

Economic Activity of Slave Owners by Region and the Number of Slaves Owned, Sao Paulo, 1804-1829

117

Slave Owners and Slaves by Economic Activity and Size of Slave Holding, Sao Paulo, 1804 and 1829

122

Slave Owners in Agriculture and Slaves by Region, Sao Paulo, 1804 and 1829

124

Economic Activity of Owners by Size of Slave Holding, Sao Paulo, 1804 and 1829

126

Indicators of Slave Ownership by Region, Sao Paulo, 1777-1829

127

Distribution of Owners by Size of Slave Holding, Various Regions and Nations, 1790 -1860

129

6.1

Child/Woman Ratios for the Slave Population, 1777-1829

139

6.2

Marital Status of Adult Slaves (15 Years and Older) by Region, 1804 and 1829

142

Sex Ratio of Slaves by Size of Holding and Region, 1777-1829, and Percentage of Slaves Ever Married, 1804 and 1829

148

4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7

5.4 5.5 5.6

5.7

5.8

6.3

Tables and Illustrations

6.4 6.5 6.6 7.1 7.2 7.3

7.4

7.5

7.6

7.7 8.1 8.2

8.3

8.4

Xl

Child/Woman Ratio of Slaves by Size of Holding and Region, 1777-1829

151

Percentage of African-Born among All Slaves Whose Origin Is Known, by Size of Holding and Region, 1804 and 1829

152

Demographic Characteristics of Slaves by Economic Activity of Owners, 1804 and 1829

154

Population in the Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829 and 1831

161

Demographic Characteristics of Heads of Household in the 43 Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829-1831

164

Slave-Owning and Non-Slave-Owning Heads of Household, by Sex and Color, for the 43 Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829-1831

166

Percentages of Slave-Owning and Non-Slave-Owning Heads of Household, by Sex, Color, and Marital Status, for the 43 Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829-1831

168

Slave-Owning and Non-Slave-Owning Heads of Household, by Occupation, Color, and Sex, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo, 1829

170

Color, Sex, and Slaves per Head of Household, by Province/ County, for the 43 Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829 and 1831

174

Heads of Household, by Color and Sex, for the 43 Counties of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, 1829 and 1831

175

Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Heads of Household, by Color and Sex, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo, 1829

181

Relative Importance of Slave Ownership and Average Size of Slave Holding, by Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Occupations, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo

186

Households Engaged in the Liberal Professions and the Military, by Color, Marital Status, and Slave Ownership, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo, 1829

190

Distribution of Merchant Heads of Household and Principal Craft Activities of Artisans, by Sex and Region, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo, 1829

192

Tables and Illustrations

Xll

8. 5

8.6

Characteristics of Commercial and Craft Households, by Color, Marital Status, and Slave Ownership, for the 41 Counties ofSao Paulo, 1829

193

Characteristics of Transport Workers and Day Laborers, by Color, Marital Status, and Slave Ownership, for the 41 Counties of Sao Paulo, 1829

197

FIGURES

2.1

Price Indices for Sugar Producers and Exporters Compared with Sao Paulo Agricultural Prices, 1796-1840

34

Relation of Sugar Prices to Average Prices of All Agricultural Products, 1799-1830

34

3.1

Coffee Prices and Production, 1798-1830

56

3.2

Coffee Production, Coffee Producers, and Slaves, 1817-1830

57

5.1

Age of Slave Owners and the Number of Slaves They Owned

116

5.2

Distribution of Slaves and Owners by Size of Slave Holdings, 1777-1829

128

6.1

Age Pyramid of Creole Slaves in Sao Paulo Province, 1829

134

6.2

Age Pyramid of African Slaves in Sao Paulo Province, 1829

135

6.3

Age Pyramid of All Slaves in Sao Paulo Province, 1829

136

6.4

Age Pyramid of Resident Slaves in Sao Paulo Province, 1804

136

6.5

Age Pyramid of Resident Slaves in Sao Paulo Province, 1836

138

6.6

Civil Status of Slaves by Sex and Age, Sao Paulo, 1829

144

6.7

Civil Status ofWhite Heads of Household by Sex and Age, Sao Paulo, 1829

145

Civil Status of Free-Colored Heads ofHousehold by Sex and Age, Sao Paulo, 1829

146

2.2

6.8

MAPS

1.

2.

Major Regions of Sao Paulo in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

17

Major Trade Routes and Towns in Eighteenth-Century Sao Paulo

18

SLAVERY AND THE ECONOMY OF SAO PAULO,

1750-1850

Introduction

The Brazilian state of Sao Paulo is today one of the world's most advanced agricultural, industrial, and urbanized regions. Yet its historical evolution is little understood. Economists and historians when dealing with this extraordinarily dynamic area have concentrated on the period since 1850, when coffee finally dominated the state, or after 1880, when mass European immigration turned the city of Sao Paulo into one of the largest in the world. Although the first few generations of Portuguese settlers and conquerors have attracted interest, there is little available on the post-"heroic" period. Some of this lack of interest was due to a supposed lack of surviving quantitative social and economic data before the first national census of1872. For this reason, the accounts of foreign travelers have often served as the primary sources for studying the early development of this region. But in recent years scholars have uncovered a vast store of previously unknown and unused population and production censuses in the state archives that go from at least the 1760s until the 1850s. 1 Only slowly and partially have these complex records been examined in theses and articles, mostly in Portuguese and mostly published in local journals. This book is one of the first full-scale studies based on these unpublished censuses and in it we hope to lay out the basic outlines of the growth of the economy and society of the region of Sao Paulo from its origins in the period of European conquest and colonization to the eve of the massive introduc-

2

Introduction

tion of coffee in the middle of the nineteenth century. But most especially, this is a study of the economy and population of Sao Paulo in a crucial moment of transition from the end of the eighteenth century to the first decades of the nineteenth century. This work is based on some fifteen years of exhaustive archival research, which has resulted in the creation of a large dataset in machine-readable format that forms the core of the material we will use to examine the structure of the paulista economy and society. 2 In undertaking this survey we try to present a general outline of the basic trends which occurred in the evolution of this region from the sixteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. We examine the external and internal factors that moved Sao Paulo from a relatively marginal and isolated frontier subsistence economy to a slave-based, commercial crop export economy tied to the world market. Our approach is both structural and historical. After examining and explaining the economic forces involved in this change, we then examine the impact of change on individual groups within Sao Paulo's agricultural society, concentrating first on slave owners, next on African and Afro-Brazilian slaves, and then on the poor whites and free coloreds who were part of the non-slave sector. Finally, we examine in more detail the large minority of the population who were engaged in non-agriculturallabor and who supported the agricultural structure that was responsible for the major economic activity of this society until well into the twentieth century. There is little question that the unusual ability of the pre-1700 paulista frontier society to mobilize resources for grand expeditions to the continental interior explains the origins of the expansion of this region. Indian slavery was clearly the sustaining force for this movement, and gold and diamonds were the riches that allowed an ever expanding frontier to sustain itself The opening of the mines in the neighboring province of Minas Gerais by paulista explorers provided the crucial capital for expansion of domestic production, and the mines became a crucial export market for paulistaproduced foodstuffs. At the same time, the growth of a modern sugar industry in the province of Rio de Janeiro to the north promoted local food production, both to satisfY the expanding slave-based sugar fazendas (plantations) and to help feed the growing population of the port city of Rio deJaneiro, the leading city in the colony. The fact that Rio de Janeiro had become the leading sugar-exporting province in the colony by the second half of the eighteenth century meant that there existed a regional infrastructure of capital as well as technical expertise which could be readily applied to the rich, virgin lands of the paulista frontier once these were opened up to settlement. Two zones would prove to be the centers for the newly expanding inter-

Introduction

3

national export sectors in the province. The first was the Valley ofParaiba in the northern end of the state on the frontier with Rio de Janeiro. Rio deJaneiro was the dynamic center of Brazil, a fact which the Crown itself recognized when it moved the colonial capital there from Salvador in 1763. The Paraiba Valley, then, and its associated northern coastal ports really existed as extensions of the Rio de Janeiro economy. As such, these small towns and counties tended to be the first to share in the more modern economic trends that occurred there. It was in the valley and along the coast, for example, that the first modern sugar and coffee plantations, worked with African slave labor, appeared. But there was also a second zone of extraordinarily rich agricultural soils in the heavily forested frontier due west of the capital city of Sao Paulo. Generally known as the West Paulista region, this was to become (and still is) the richest agricultural area in Brazil. Sugar was planted here almost as early as it was in the Paraiba Valley, and once established it would sustain itself for the next three centuries, even after the introduction of competing crops. Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this expanded zone is the world's most efficient and largest producer of cane sugar. The capital generated by sugar in this region would be fundamental in opening up the forested zone of Sao Paulo to new agriculture, and the history of this area from the late eighteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century would be one of continuous expansion of the frontier in which coffee would be the sustaining force until early in the twentieth century. Of course, Sao Paulo has been known as the center of world coffee production for almost the past three-quarters of a century. But coffee only came to dominate the provincial economy after the 1850s. In the period we are studying here, coffee production was just beginning and it existed only on a relatively small scale in isolated counties. Even more than was the case with sugar, coffee developed in Sao Paulo as a strict appendage to the industry in Rio de Janeiro, which was the first great coffee center in Brazil. In the case of coffee, the southern Paraiba Valley within the province of Sao Paulo and its associated northern coastal regions would house most of the coffee fazendas in the first half of the nineteenth century. Given the early success of sugar in the West Paulista zone, and the high capital investments of equipment and labor that were needed to produce it, coffee development in the region was delayed until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, and then it often bypassed the older sugar centers without displacing them. But the establishment of these two export crops is only one part of the picture of change within Sao Paulo in the period we are studying. The other

4

Introduction

part is the increasing commercialization of the traditional food-crop industry, which grew to supply both human and animal populations within and beyond the provincial borders. To produce food crops, ever more African slaves, recently imported into the province, were utilized. Both food-producing farms as well as the new sugar and coffee fazendas were employed in the ever expanding production of traditional food and animal products. Clearly, there were both increasing efficiencies of production on the larger estates along with some complementarity for the use of slaves. Slaves could easily be diverted from sugar during "dead" periods when their work was not needed for sugar, or lands not viable for sugar could be diverted to food crops. Also, the slaves themselves created a guaranteed market for these products. In the case of coffee, farmers took advantage of the pre-existing infrastructure of roads, labor, and markets to expand food production so as to pay for the introduction of coffee. In particular, traditional food production, above all corn, rice, and beans, sustained these coffee farms until the slowly maturing coffee trees could come into production. All of this growth was achieved with an expanding African slave labor force rather than as a result of any major technological revolution. The province in many ways was a classic American frontier, with abundant and relatively cheap land but relatively expensive labor. This situation might have led to a family-farm frontier except for two basic factors-the government only distributed legal land titles in large acreages (the so-called sesmarias), and it was more than willing to support either Indian or African slavery. Though squatting was common enough, the control of land remained in the hands of an elite. Once land was made viable by clearing and cultivation, legal owners were quick to eject squatters and take direct control over the land. This elite also had access to arms to capture Indians and to use these Indians in turn to open up mines and capture more Indians, all of which eventually provided the capital necessary to import more servile workers from as far away as Africa. But what made the growth of slavery plantation agriculture in Sao Paulo unusual, even by the standards of Brazil, was its multiproduction output until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. Whereas there was some food production for slave consumption in all regions, the paulista food production on commercial sugar and coffee estates far exceeded local needs and food surpluses were sold on the market by the planters. In this, the fazendas of Sao Paulo differed from the mono-production norm of the sugar engenhos of northeastern Brazilian and the Caribbean islands. Because of poor communications to the coast, surpluses produced in the Sao Paulo frontier region had difficulty reaching external markets. Everyone was therefore en-

Introduction

5

gaged in food production both for consumption and also to generate capital from sales to local and regional markets. Even as commercial outlets expanded, transportation improved, and production became more concentrated in the hands of the largest slave owners, mono-production would not take hold before 1850. Everyone produced rice, beans, and corn, even if they were also senhores de engenho, that is, sugar mill and plantation owners. Everyone kept pigs, and large numbers offarmers sold both the meat and the resulting lard of these ubiquitous animals. Some of the very largest sugar and coffee producers typified such multi-production units. In the first major coffee area in Sao Paulo, that of Areias, for example, one of the largest coffee producers in 1836, with a very substantial 92 tons of coffee output per annum, also produced very significant amounts of corn (78 tons), beans (13 tons), and rice (8 tons) using 176 slaves, these non-coffee products accounting for 15 percent of the total value of that year's crops. These figures are quite impressive by the standards of the day, but multi crop output was the norm even for much smaller coffee producers. In the interior frontier sugar country ofltu, for example, there was one senhor de engenho who owned 98 slaves and produced a significant amount of sugar-some 44 tons. But like the coffee planter from Areias, he also grew significant amounts of corn, rice, and beans-far more than he needed to feed his slave-labor force, and these food crops accounted for 22 percent of the value of his total output. The intensification of traditional food production along with the growth of new export crops was sustained by an expanding slave-labor force. This explains the other major process occurring in the province during this period-the increasing stratification of production. Small farmers still produced pigs and raised food crops, but with each passing decade more of these staple products came from the fazendas, and the largest slave owners were constantly increasing their share of both the new commercial export crops like sugar and coffee, as well as staple crops like rice, beans, and corn. Even more impressive was the fact that much of this expansion came about using traditional agricultural methods, spearheaded by an elite that concentrated its resources on purchasing increasing numbers of slave laborers. Almost all the government reports and travelers accounts from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries described the lack of sophisticated agricultural technology in the province. The failure to use plows and fertilizers, the dependency on mule transport, and the lack of substantial housing, even on the largest slave fazendas, were all commented upon. In the early nineteenth century, almost a century after such complaints first appeared in a provincial government document, travelers were still commenting on the precariousness of the farming methods: the use of fire to clear

6

Introduction

fields, the infrequent use of fertilizer, the almost exclusive dependence on the hoe. One well-informed critique noted in 1836 that: On the farms of Sao Paulo one hardly sees any domestic animals being used. The use of plows in the sugar estates has only just began. The agricultural instruments being used are just the hoe, sickle and axe. 3 The early coffee estates did not properly select their beans, often taking berries too early, nor did they prepare or dry them properly. 4 Only in the refining of sugar did one see in the province the use of more advanced machinery, but in general, even here, agricultural methods were relatively backward. If technological innovation was not the key, what can explain the dynamic growth of agriculture in this period? Rather than the introduction of new technology, it was the opening up of virgin lands that explains this major growth. These lands, in turn, could be exploited only through the application of more labor. Thus, all available resources were concentrated on increasing labor input, and the purchase of slaves became an ever more important investment. Before the middle decades of the nineteenth century, baronial mansions did not exist, and many travelers and contemporaries noted to their great surprise that there seemed to be little difference between the housing of squatters and that offazendeiros. The big house and slave quarters, which had long been the standard in Bahia and Pernambuco, was still not the norm in this very rustic southeastern society. Rather, the wealthy invested all their spare capital in purchasing slaves and expanding their output by expanding their work force. The abundance of virgin land also meant that initially there was little interest in conservation practices. The priority was the purchase of slaves, since this was the only factor of production that was in short supply. Of course, the introduction of work animals and better tools would have also increased labor efficiency and output. This seems to have been the case in other slave regions in the Americas, and it is unclear why it was not the case in Sao Paulo. Possibly, the unusual availability oflarge numbers of Africans up to the year 1850 made a difference. With the closure of most importing markets after the ending of the Atlantic slave trade by the British and North Americans in 1808, and especially after the introduction of new sources of slaves from Mozambique, who began to arrive in large numbers in the first decades of the nineteenth century, local prices and availability of Africans probably made investments in humans more productive than investments in technological change. Though foreign visitors and government officials complained about the backwardness oflocal agriculture, local planters only worried about African labor supplies and the costs of transport. Until 1850, paulista planters

Introduction

7

used the international slave trade to purchase their slaves; after that date, they had sufficient capital to pay the higher prices demanded for slaves brought from other regions within Brazil. But until the arrival of the railroads in the 1870s, the demand for better transport was never fully satisfied. Planters did pressure the government to maintain the roads for the pack trains of mules, to provide rest stations for these animals, and to improve the ports from which their coffee and sugar were exported. It is also evident that in the second half of the nineteenth century, local planters finally responded to rising labor costs by introducing modern farming methods and new technology. The opening of the railroads also brought into production vast new quantities of land, putting less pressure on the older zones and allowing for more scientific use of soils and resources, primarily in the West Paulista region. While the Paraiba Valley was lost to modern commercial agriculture because of extreme soil erosion, this was not to be the case elsewhere in the province. The single area that employed new technology from the beginning was sugar. Even in its most simple phase of small, vertical-cylinder mills powered by men or animals-the so-called trapiches or engenhocas, which produced the simplest brown sugars, molasses, and cane alcohol (cacha~a)-new technology was introduced and the paulista mills were little different from those anywhere else in the New World. Moreover, heavy investments in machines was required after the move toward larger, horizontal-cylinder water mills with complex boilers. These so-called engenhos were needed to produce refined white sugar, the only product that found a ready market beyond the provincial frontiers. 5 All of this equipment set the sugar producers apart from the other agriculturalists. There also slowly emerged by the end of the eighteenth century a complex and well-developed mule-transport system which replaced the use of Indian slaves as human transport. Finally, the increasing role of paulista pioneers and products outside the province created a credit and marketing infrastructure that enabled local planters to begin major exports as well as pay for imports of goods and slaves. In the period from 1750 to 1850, the deepening of the market, the growth of new towns and counties carved out of the forest, the expansion of traditional food crops, and the new boom in commercial export crops all had a direct impact on the population of the province as well as on the structure of ownership and wealth. Without any question, the key element here was the arrival, in ever greater numbers, of slaves brought directly from Africa. It was Africans and their slave descendants who opened the forest and produced an ever greater portion of the crops grown within the province. In turn, the control of ever greater numbers of slaves marked an increasing stratification within this formerly open society. More and more production came

8

Introduction

under the control of an elite of slave owners who were constantly increasing their share of both output and labor. The impact of the arrival of so many older and predominantly male Africans would influence even the patterns of growth of the local population, especially of the local slaves. Whereas the more moderate volume of migration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may have allowed for a positive rate of natural growth among black and mulatto slaves, the newer mass immigration would lead to a negative growth rate for the slave population, which could only be compensated for by the constant migration of ever more African and non-paulista slaves. To sustain growth in the export sector and the expansion oflocal and regional markets there was an expansion of the non-agricultural sector as well. Craft industries were prevalent throughout the province, and these grew with the expansion of the local economy. In fact, a significant share of the local population was not in agriculture, which was little different from the case of most other nineteenth-century agricultural societies. But what makes Brazil and Sao Paulo quite different from all such slave societies in the Americas in this period is the fact that free colored formed a very important part of both the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. In almost the entire skilled and non-skilled labor force, free colored were numerous, and they dominated in many trades. Though free colored represented only a minor part of the slave-owning class, they were nevertheless important, even in agricultural production. By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the maturing society and economy of Sao Paulo would be comparable to many other areas in the Western Hemisphere. In terms of its ratio of slaves and slave owners, and the average number of slaves held per owner, Sao Paulo looked very much like the slave regimes in the United States at that time. In its sugar economy and the economic activity of its slaves, paulistas shared many characteristics with northeastern Brazil sugar centers and the major West Indian sugar regimes. Finally, the unusual importance of the free colored population, which Sao Paulo shared with most of the other slave economies within Brazil, could only be compared to Cuba. It will thus be our aim here to show both the unique qualities and the commonalities of the slave society that emerged in Sao Paulo in this crucial period of change. At the same time, we are concerned with trying to understand the unusual features within Sao Paulo society that laid the groundwork for the construction of the extraordinary agricultural and industrial economy which was to follow. In writing this history of Sao Paulo over a fifteen-year period, we have had the assistance of a number of friends and colleagues at various stages. In the

Introduction

9

first place, we both owe an extraordinary debt to Matiko Kume Vidal for her long and intense collaboration in the collection of the primary information which forms the basis of this work. We would also like to thank the staff of the Arquivo de Estado de Sao Paulo, who made access to this documentation possible. Our research assistants, Danilo Taveira, Ana Cosenza, and Roberto Heredia, provided important assistance, andJoao Alves was extremely helpful in the early processing of the data. We would also like to express our deep appreciation to Clotilde Paiva and Laird Bergad for providing us with their primary data from Minas Gerais. Also, Horacio Gutierrez and Ramon Fernandez allowed us access to their data from Parana and the Litoral Norte. We would also note that an earlier version of Chapter 7 appeared in the November 2000 issue of the Hispanic American Historical Review, but it has been thoroughly revised for this volume. Collecting the information was only one part of our long involvement with others. From the beginning we have had the intellectual support oflraci del Nero da Costa, and we have been greatly stimulated by our discussions with Nelson Nozoe and Jose Flavio Motta. In the writing of this book, Laird Bergad, Stanley Engerman, and Steve Haber offered fundamental criticisms that have greatly helped us turn this into a coherent work. Finally, we thank Maria Ligia Coelho Prado, who provided the opportunity for us to work together.

Chapter 1

Sao Paulo to 1800

Before analyzing the economy and society of Sao Paulo from the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, it is essential to put this period of change into perspective. The extraordinary growth and change which we will examine in the rest of this work occurred in a rather poor and unusual society, even by most New World standards. Until the late eighteenth century the province of Sao Paulo, at the southern limit of the Portuguese colony of Brazil, was, like much of North America at the time, a lightly settled, forested frontier. But it was resident to a rather unusual combination ofindians, mestizos, and whites. By the standards of the rest of Brazil, it was a backward region, peopled by the marginal elements of Portuguese society. Probably in no other region of the Americas had Indian slaves and Indian and mestizo free workers been so fully integrated into a white-dominated colonial regime. As allies, dependents, and slaves, the local Indians were tightly woven into the fabric of paulista society and formed the base of its armies, its farm laborers, and even its urban workers. This gave local society an unusual mestizo aspect and created a frontier population famous for its military prowess, its exploring ability, and its extraordinary mobility, attributes which carried paulista bands over all of Western South America from the Amazon to the Rio de la Plata. 1 The region which forms the present state of Sao Paulo was called Sao Vicente in the early colonial period and was one of the first areas to be explored by the Portuguese. Yet it would remain a marginal area until well into 11

12

Sao Paulo to 1800

the eighteenth century. Because of its distance from European markets and the difficult access to its rich agricultural lands in the central highland plains, it would not become the center for the sugar economy which the Portuguese brought with them from the eastern Atlantic islands. Rather, it would be the northeastern regions of Bahia and Pernambuco that the Portuguese would develop into the world's leading sugarcane industry in the first two centuries of Brazilian colonization. In the Northeast, an ideal growing climate, excellent soils easily reached from the coast, and a closer proximity to European markets were factors crucial for the implantation for a major sugar industry. 2 This meant that the Northeast initially became the central zone of the colony's export economy and the home of its royal government. Although some sugar and its derivative, cane alcohol (aguardente), were produced in the province of Sao Paulo from the beginning, these industries only satisfied local needs, because of the difficulties of transport and the lack of markets, and did not become important until the second half of the eighteenth century. Far from the seat of colonial authority, this region was characterized by slash-and-burn agriculture, small coastal settlements and modest highland villages, and scattered peasant farms producing subsistence food crops in a densely forested interior. Though marginal to the export economy, Sao Paulo did become a unique center for a dynamic population of explorers and Amerindian slavers, which was largely a response to the exigencies of the Indian frontier in which they resided. To expand their frontier and to obtain servile laborers, the local settlers (called bandeirantes) organized large, militia-style armies (bandeiras), composed of whites, Indians, and mestizos. These played a vital part in expanding the colonial settlement into the interior and the southern grasslands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and opened up the central Brazilian gold and diamond mines in the region known as Minas Gerais in the eighteenth century. They also provided a steady stream oflndian slaves for the more advanced colonies to the north from the beginning of settlement until the early eighteenth century. But this ever growing military activity only moderately affected local growth. Even within its own regional context, Sao Paulo would remain less developed than the neighboring provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais until the definitive implantation of coffee in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The success of the Portuguese in transforming the northeastern region into a dynamic export center was based on slave labor, initially of Amerindian natives and later of Africans. The increasing scarcity of Indians, their growing resistance to enslavement, and their high rates of mortality due to the new European diseases forced the Portuguese to seek African slaves as

Sao Paulo to 1800

13

the major alternative servile labor. 3 The supremacy ofBrazilian sugar on the European markets until the second half of the seventeenth century guaranteed the capital needed to import Africans. The continued exportation of sugar, even after the Portuguese monopoly was broken by the entrance of the West Indies into production, sustained the movement of slaves from Africa into the next century. 4 The change in international markets and the dislocations caused by the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco in the seventeenth century led to the progressive decline of the Northeast within the Brazilian economy, however. The south-central zones now became the more dynamic centers of sugar production, and with the opening up of the rich gold mines of Minas Gerais in the early eighteenth century, this region now became the most important economic and political center in the colony. But even as the south-central region became ever more important after 1700, Sao Paulo was the province slowest to develop and it presented an evolution distinct from that of its neighboring provinces. Without viable products for the international market, the occupation of the region was a slow process based on the cultivation of subsistence crops and ranching. The shift to African slave labor here took the longest time. Although a few Africans were to be found in the province from earliest settlement, it was the local Indian population, either as slaves or as settled villagers under the control of the white and mestizo colonists, who were the fundamental labor force until well into the eighteenth century. 5 Large numbers of Indians had been reduced to subservient, pacified villages (called aldeamentos) that were exploited for labor, 6 even as the local colonists also continued to enslave Indians. Given the comparative poverty of the region, free and enslaved Indians remained the core of the labor force available to the small white and mestizo population. But increasing government and church opposition to Indian enslavement, together with the growth of economic activities that permitted the paulistas to buy expensive African slaves, gradually led to the substitution of Indian slaves for African slaves after 1700, resulting in the end of Amerindian enslavement by the middle of the eighteenth century. In turn, the settled Indians of the aldeias did not survive as an autonomous culture after the middle of the nineteenth century. 7 It was this attraction of Indian labor which initially determined the pattern of settlement in the province. The region of Sao Paulo was defined by a coastline of approximately four hundred kilometers, 8 behind which stood the barrier of the Serra do Mar mountain range. To the west of the mountains was an extensive highland plain (called the planalto) which contained the best quality and most abundant of paulista lands. The coast itselflimited dense population because of its frequent inundations, extensive mangrove

14

Sao Paulo to 1800

swamps, and lack of rivers into the interior. After a quick but precarious colonization of the coast in the middle of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese pushed into the highlands, planting a few small villages some eighty kilometers inland. Opening up a road to cross the Serra do Mar had represented a major effort, but once they had reached the plana/to, highland rivers that flowed north, southeast, and southwest could then be navigated using canoes to explore the interior forests. Later, the demand for slaves would keep these difficult routes open. The future city of Sao Paulo was the first highland area settled, 9 since it was on the best route (a traditional Indian path) from the coast to the planalto. 10 It also offered good, open grazing lands in an otherwise dense and inhospitable forest, and enjoyed a temperate climate, good rivers that penetrated into the backlands, and high grounds that permitted a defensive settlement. 11 The region was inhabited by several Indian tribes who were gradually conquered and incorporated into the world of the colonists. 12 With this Indian population base and a few whites, the town of Sao Paulo became the nucleus for a slow but systematic expansion and exploration of the highland interior. 13 In the regions close to the new settlements, the forests were destroyed by fire and a rudimentary agriculture was taken up. Basic foodstuffs became the first plantings, along with some cotton for the home manufacture of clothing. These were shifting, rural homesteads and settlements, since slash-andburn agriculture quickly depleted the fertility of the soil and the few settlers would then move on to new, virgin forests. In the first century of colonization, settlement and exploration followed the valleys of the Paraiba and Tieti~ Rivers, 14 with a constant establishment and abandonment of small farms and villages based on available lands and Indians. The ownership ofland was formalized by government grants of possession called sesmarias, but most colonists simply appropriated their lands, given their distance from formal government. The majority of the population was scattered on small farms dispersed in the forest. Only a small portion of each county's population resided in the small urban nucleus of the settlements, which served only for local government and religious and commercial activities so that these villages were quite precarious and grew slowly if at all. After the quality of land, the availability of Indian labor was the major factor influencing settlement. The lack of local Indians forced the colonizers to penetrate ever more deeply into the planalto forests, even mobilizing major expeditions to other regions of the colony as well as to the distant lands of the Spaniards. 15 Colonists would eventually organize massive slave raids against the Spanish Jesuit Indian missions in the Rio de la Plata region. 16 Through these first two centuries, the Indians were in fact the majority of

Siio Paulo to 1800

15

the local population. As Alcantara Machado noted, "No settler exists, however miserable, who does not exploit an Indian." 17 These "negros da terra," as historians have called them, became the primary workers in agriculture, where women predominated, and the males were crucial as human cargo carriers in maintaining the transportation network in the period before the extensive use of mules. 18 Indian slaves participated in all the incursions into the backlands and made up the majority of the troops and carriers in the famous bandeiras. They even had a fundamental role in the defense of the Portuguese settlements against enemy tribes, though at all times and in all places they were utilized as forced labor and were bought, sold, and even inherited by the Portuguese colonists. Local Indians were also sold to other provinces, such as the Northeast sugar regions. 19 Though the extent of this Indian slave trade is debated, 20 there is no question that it was crucial in the evolution of the paulista economy since it provided one of the few sources of export income for a province that was still largely oriented toward subsistence agriculture. Despite the exploration and penetration of the interior highland forests, a substantial part of the provincial population remained on the coast. Of the seventeen counties (vilas) in existence at the end of the eighteenth century, only nine were in the highlands, and none of these was farther than two hundred kilometers from the sea. 21 After the capital, the next region of importance in the highlands was the Paraiba River Valley, running north from Sao Paulo to the border with Rio de Janeiro and paralleling the coast behind the Serra do Mar. Its soils were highly fertile, but it was located between two mountain ranges and problems of rapid deforestation, a result of improper mountainside farming and the limited availability ofland, led to sharp cycles ofboom and bust. This region developed from two different centers. In the southern Paraiba Valley, settlers utilized the capital city as the base for the commercialization of their products, whereas in the more northern settlements of the Valley two new roads were developed that cut across the Serra do Mar to link settlers to the northern coastal ports ofUbatuba and Sao Sebastiao. In turn, these ports were more closely tied to the port of Rio deJaneiro than to Santos or the city of Sao Paulo. But the best and most level soils in the province were to be found in the region known as the Oeste Paulista (West Paulista), which was due west and northwest of the capital. Its heavily forested plains were difficult to penetrate, however, and it was only at the end of the seventeenth century that the area was slowly opened, in a northeasterly direction from Sao Paulo along the river valleys of the Tiete (the most important river), the Atibaia, the Piracicaba, and the Pardo. Until late in the century the only centers of population were Jundiai and Itu, the latter on the Tiete River and both still no more than

16

Sao Paulo to 18 00

one hundred kilometers from the city of Sao Paulo. But through this region passed the route to the mining centers of the distant interior. That and its extraordinary fertility would make it a major commercial agricultural region by the end of the eighteenth century. Once fully settled by the end of the nineteenth century, it would become one of the world's greatest agricultural regions, a status it maintains to the present day. The coast, initially the most settled region, was itself divided into two areas. The relatively poor southern coast region (litoral su0 ran from Santos to the southern limits of the colony (capitania) and contained the small population centers ofSao Vicente, Santos, Peruibe, Iguape, Cananeia, and Itanhaem. The richer North Coastal region (litoral norte) ran from Santos to the border of the province of Rio de Janeiro and contained the two important ports of Ubatuba and Sao Sebastiao, which were also producers of sugar, cane alcohol, and food crops of some significance. But the coast eventually lost its importance as an agricultural producer because of its limited land availability, poor climate, and the moderate fertility of its soils. The final region of the colony was known as the Southern Road (Caminho do Sul) and was defined by the interior "road," or trail, which led from the city of Sao Paulo to the southern grazing lands ofBrazil. Like most "roads" in Brazil, this was really an unpaved, simple extension of an old Indian path. Only in the eighteenth century would mule trains become the sta1 dard means of moving goods along the "caminhos" of the province, which un1 il that time continued to use Indian head porters to move goods. Moreaver, it was during the eighteenth century, precisely because of the growing dm 'linance of mule transport, that the Southern Road region became an impm tant economic crossroad, through which passed the mules, horses, and cm rs for the markets of Rio de Janeiro and for the mines of Minas Gerais anc Goik The major settlements of this region (Sorocaba, Curitiba, and Paran 1gua) were poor areas, dedicated to subsistence agriculture and to grazing. WI ile forested regions in the Parana area to the west would become impm tant in the late nineteenth century, the eastern area of this region, initial y the most densely settled, had poor soils and limited agricultural potential outside of a few limited areas, though it was the province's only supplier of 1 he native tea known as erva mate. ~or most of the early colonial period, the economy of the province was bas ~d primarily on the cultivation of subsistence food crops, above all corn, beans, and rice, with some production of manioc and wheat. Paulistas also produced sugar and cane alcohol for local consumption, cotton for spinning into rough cloth, and they raised pigs, horses, cows, oxen, and mules, and did minor fishing along the coast. Like most of Brazil, there was also a thriv-

Sao Paulo to 1800

17

MATO GROSSO

MINAS GERAIS

RIO DE

PARANA

0

100 km

Map 1. Major Regions of Sao Paulo in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

ing cottage industry producing cotton textiles, clothing, tools, and ceramics. 22 In gen eral, the level ofagricultural technology was primitive, with commercialization restricted to the nearest urban centers and between the interior towns and the coast. This reduced level of paulista exports to other areas of the colony in turn limited the colony's capacity to import. 23 With a primarily inward-oriented economy and only modest connection to the outside, the population of the province grew slowly. Though data is limited, most commentators suggest a late-seventeenth-century population on the order of fifteen to twenty thousand persons, including pacified Indians and mestizos.24 Until well into the eighteenth century, the white population in Sao Paulo was small and was outnumbered by the "civilized" Indians. Moreover, the whites were so isolated from others in the colony and the metropolis that there were probably few of them who were not, in effect, mestizos.2 5 African slaves were also few in number, until after 1700, and were probably brought from Rio de Janeiro.

18

Siio Paulo to 1800

To Minas Gerais

To Malo Grosso

.curitiba

Map 2.

Major Trade Routes and Towns in Eighteenth-Century Sao Paulo

T his slow evolution of Sao Paulo began to change with the crisis provoked in the Portuguese imperial economy when the northeastern sugar producers lost their dominance in the world market in the mid-seventeenth century. With the fall of revenues from Bahian and Pernambuco sugar producers, the Crown decided to support other colonial activities. Promoting the exploration of the territory and the discovery of new sources of metals were a few of these options, and the paulistas were leaders in both. Not only had they become the great explorers of the interior in their search for Indian slaves, they had also had exploited some gold sources close to the city ofSao Paulo. 26 At the end of the seventeenth century the Crown decided to stimulate the search for metals through grants of special privileges for paulista entrepreneurs willing to undertake exploration.27 This government support was to prove vital for the economic growth of the colony. In the last years of the seventeenth century paulista explorers succeeded in finding gold in the unoccupied territories north and west of the province. 28 These new alluvial deposits were quickly exploited by men w ho came from all over Brazil, though the paulistas were initially the most important of these first miners. Outnumbered, they soon lost their control over the gold fields and some of them abandoned these interior regions and returned to Sao

Sao Paulo to 1800

19

Paulo. 29 Though the opening up of the gold fields would ultimately have a major positive impact on the province, in the very first years of the gold rush there may have been a reduction in the resident paulista population. Although the local population may have grown after these initial losses, this growth seems to have been limited since no new counties were established in the capitania in the period from 1705 to 1767. 30 As the slave and free population of the mining region grew rapidly, Minas Gerais became a new and vital market for the paulistas. Local agriculture suddenly gained an important market for its output, and the Minas Gerais consumption of imported food and animals grew at a dependable and steady pace. 31 Crown policy even furthered this paulista export market by going so far as to prohibit sugar and aguardente production in the new mining regions, so as not to distract resources from mining. 32 It was an opportunity for Sao Paulo, which the colonists fully exploited. The most obvious sign of changing times in Sao Paulo was the dramatic growth of the black slave population after 1700. What had been primarily an Indian labor force now became both a free white and African slave-labordominated market. In 1700 the paulistas were authorized to obtain slaves directly from Africa for the first time. 33 Once this flow of slaves from Africa began, it grew steadily each year, and this new labor force would be crucial in the implementation of a thriving sugar and coffee export economy in Sao Paulo. But growth was not continuous for the local economy. In the 1730s a new and shorter road was opened between Rio de Janeiro and the gold mines, bypassing Sao Paulo completely. Also, as the economy of Minas Gerais grew, so did its local agriculture, which also reduced demand for paulista products. 34 To give some idea of the comparative markets, Minas, which had been settled fifty years earlier, had 200,000 persons at mid-century, 35 whereas Sao Paulo, after more than two centuries of occupation, had only some 83,000 inhabitants in 1768. The so-called "New Road" to Minas had a negative impact on Sao Paulo but proved an extraordinary stimulus for the port of Rio deJaneiro, and the Crown recognized this importance by moving the capital of the colony from Salvador de Bahia to Rio in 1763. The concentration of metropolitan interest in the Minas Gerais-Rio de Janeiro complex and the bypassing of Sao Paulo by the New Road probably explains the loss of administrative autonomy of the capitania of Sao Paulo in 1748. For the next seventeen years, the region would be subordinated to the government at Rio de Janeiro. Although local historians have explained this loss of autonomy as a supposed reaction to the decadence of the capitania, in fact Sao Paulo actually continued to grow modestly in this period. Its ex-

20

Sao Paulo to 1800

ports increased, as did its population, while African slavery consolidated itself as the principal servile labor force in the colony. The secular decline of gold production in the period after 1750 provoked a rethinking in the royal administration. A new policy was established of stimulating agricultural production, and a renewed interest was shown in expanding the southern frontier toward the Rio de la Plata in competition with the Spanish. 36 Sao Paulo at this time was the southernmost area of effective settlement and had the known military capacity to undertake this expansion. In 1765 the region again became a co-equal and autonomous capitania with its own governor. The new governor, Morgado de Mateus, 37 bitterly criticized what he perceived to be the economic backwardness of the region and proposed means to increase local commerce, agriculture, and population, along with organizing a defense against Spanish incursions in the south. 38 He and later governors saw the "problem" of paulista agriculture as a question of modernizing production so as to export high-quality products, and establishing a more modern communications infrastructure to promote these exports. It is difficult to judge how effective these proposed reforms were. Agricultural practices changed little until the early nineteenth century, and few new products were exported before then. On the other hand, traditional agricultural products were expanding and a sugar export sector was finally established in the West Paulista and North Coastal region, which may have been helped by government investments in roads and ports. Growth certainly was encouraged by the expansion of the market of the viceregal capital city of Rio de Janeiro. 39 Government investment in the last thirty years of the eighteenth century included the clearing and maintenance of roads for mule transport, creating grazing areas and rest stops for the animals-crucial for the preservation of their cargoes-and building a paved Santos-Sao Paulo road, which was completed across the Serra do Mar in 1791. 40 Even with the road completed, a part of the route between the mountains and the port was often inundated and required the use of canoes for the final passage, all of which had a negative impact on transportation costs to the port of Santos. 41 To try to increase the volume of exports, Governor Bernardo Jose de Lorena in 1789 ordered the centralization of all commerce of the capitania in the port of Santos and prohibited all other ports from participating in interregional trade or international commerce. This decree had a negative impact on the north littoral ports, whose protests led to constant changes in the government restriction, until in an 1808 decree, the Crown granted all ports the freedom to trade with all regions. 42 All these administrative efforts to improve the quantity of exports at Santos had little effect. Until well into the nineteenth

Sao Paulo to 1800

21

century, the shipping trade at Santos remained primarily a coastal trade oriented toward Rio de Janeiro, even for shipments originating in Sao Paulo and ultimately destined for overseas markets. It was only with the full development of the West Paulista region, whose best outlet to world trade was through Santos, that this port finally became a major direct-export center. But the improvement of the road networks throughout the province by the Crown clearly lowered transportation costs and guaranteed the universal usage of mule transport. The second major impact of state spending was as a result of the funds spent for Portugal's frontier wars with Spain. The war efforts of almost a century on the Rio de la Plata frontier heavily involved the population and economy of the capitania. Men and supplies for these wars came primarily from Sao Paulo. This military interest explains the great concern of Crown officials in grouping the population in stable communities and placing the economy and its transport infrastructure on a sound footing. Even the demographic indices of this period reflect the important military activity carried out by the Portuguese. Among males, the age group subject to recruitment was much reduced in the free population, either because of recruitment or because of males escaping the Army for other regions. 43 There were also some new activities related to industries growing further to the south of the government-promoted expansion of the southern frontier toward the Rio de la Plata. By the late eighteenth century a major ranching economy in the grasslands of the newly settled province of Rio Grande do Sul had begun. Sao Paulo's unique location guaranteed its monopoly position as the principal supplier of southern-raised animals, principally mules, to Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. By the eighteenth century mules had become the primary draft animal in the southern and central part of the colony and were the primary beasts ofburden on the region's trails. There were few roads anywhere in Brazil that could accommodate carts or wagons, and with the end of Indian slavery all goods now moved on the backs of mules. These animals were produced in the pampa grasslands to the far south of Sao Paulo and were brought north to the southern paulista town of Sorocaba to be sold to merchants coming south from Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Probably some of the greatest wealth produced in the capitania in the earlynineteenth-century period came from this mercantile activity. 44 Finally, in the middle decades of the eighteenth century new gold fields were discovered in Goias and Mato Grosso and access to them was via land and water routes that crossed Sao Paulo. 45 Although gold production declined everywhere after 1750 and some of this interior trade was lost, most of the new cities that appeared in the interior of central-southern Brazil re-

22

Sao Paulo to 1800

mained connected by a complex transport infrastructure in which Sao Paulo was a fundamental actor. In the second half of the eighteenth century much of this new economic vitality would be reflected in various changes within the paulista economy. Most probably stimulated by the mining markets, commercial production of sugar would finally became a reality in several places early in the century, 46 and by the end of the century Sao Paulo would finally became a significant exporter of this product. 47 This slow but steady economic growth brought with it an expanding local population. By the late 1760s, the first years for which we have reliable data, the population had reached 83,880 persons, of whom 23,333 were African slaves, with another 2,736 Indians resident in the special aldeias. 48 Clearly, the high ratio of slaves was unusual for the region and reflected a more intimate relation of the local economy to national and international markets than had existed earlier in the century. 49 The replacement of Indian labor by African slaves brought profound changes in the demography, social structure, and local culture of Sao Paulo. It also brought the province into harmony with the rest of the colony and resolved an increasing labor crisis within the province due to the progressive decline of its Indian population. The ability of the paulistas to import slaves is reflected in the changing ratio of African-born inhabitants in the local Afro-Brazilian population. Though direct data exist only for the nineteenth century, we can utilize the proxy of the number of men and women among the slaves as an indication of the ratio of African to native-born slaves. 5° In Sao Paulo in the year 1768, the sex ratio of the slaves was 131 males to 100 females. Supposing a ratio of 100 males per 100 females among the nativeborn and 200 males per 100 females among the African-born (this high male ratio is close to the norm for all slaves arriving directly from Africa in almost all trades), then we can assume that 60 percent of the locally held slaves were born in Brazil and 40 percent in Africa. 5 1 In the earliest period of transition to African slave labor, slaves were more dispersed in the general population than in later periods and most slaves worked in the production of foodstuffs and on small farms. It has been suggested that this type of small-farm activity was probably less intense than the plantation gang-labor system subsequently adopted for sugar and coffee in the region, and that this may have affected mortality rates. At the same time, given the slow start in the importation of African-born slaves and/or the arrival of native-born black slaves from other regions, it is possible that in the first half of the eighteenth century the black slave population may have experienced a positive rate of natural growth before the onrush of slaves directly from Africa later in the century. In that case, the colony may have seen the

Silo Paulo to 1800

23

same pattern of population growth as experienced in the British North America colonies of the Chesapeake Bay area, whose slave population achieved a positive rate of natural growth in the late seventeenth century. But in Brazil these positive rates quickly disappeared with the avalanche of African slave arrivals in the last quarter of the century and they never recovered. This was in sharp contrast to British North America, where in Virginia, for example, the heavy immigration of Africans only temporarily slowed natural population growth among native-born slaves, which once again showed positive numbers by the 1720s. 52 As we shall see, under the impact of ever greater African slave arrivals the slave population of the province of Sao Paulo would experience only negative growth from the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Other Brazilian regions where such African arrivals slowed or stopped altogether did experience positive growth rates among their slave populations in the nineteenth century. This was the case with Minas Gerais and Parana after 1800. 53 In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the capitania ofSao Paulo was composed of seventeen vilas (or counties) plus the city ofSao Paulo, which in turn was divided into thirty-seven parishes ifreguesias). Whereas little had changed in the first half of the century, the last new vila having been created in 1705, some seven new counties were established between 1767 to 1773. 54 The city of Sao Paulo and its surrounding region made up fully one-third of the total population of slaves and free persons in the capitania. In the combined free-person census of 1765 and the slave register of 1768, the total population of this region was 20,000 persons, of whom 29 percent were slaves. 55 The Valley of Paraiba to the north of the city also grew, due to its close ties to the nearby markets of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. But its agricultural production was primarily dedicated to foodstuffs until the end of the century. In the 1765/1768 census only 18 percent of the capitania's population resided there, the largest counties being the old counties of Guaratingueta and Taubate, which had served as a base for some of the major incursions of the paulistas into the hinterland, or sertiio. 56 It was in the backlands of the West Paulista zone where most change occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century. Here would be established a major sugar-producing region. In the late 1760s there were only the two counties ofJundiai and Itu, but these counties were now producing most of the capitania's sugar exports. The region also benefited from its location on the route to the new mining areas of Goias and Mato Grosso, which involved both a land and water route, with the Tiete River crossing the territory. 57 In the Southern Road region there were three counties inhabited by some 18,000 persons. The primary activity on these southern highlands was

24

Sao Paulo to 1800

ranching, while on the allied southern coast was produced a modest agricultural surplus, which was exported in coastal trade to counties as far north as Rio de Janeiro. 58 On the coast, as noted earlier, were many small, isolated ports whose inhabitants were engaged in subsistence farming, salt production, fishing, and some sugar and aguardente production. The North Coast was the more important area of this littoral, given its proximity to Rio de Janeiro and the roads leading from its ports to the Valley of Paraiba. 59 Because it was the principal port of the capitania, Santos had the highest percentage of slaves in the region in this period- 40 percent of the total population compared to 29 percent for all the littoral. Sao Vicente, the first settlement founded in the capitania, was now of minor importance, whereas the villages oflguape e Canam':ia, south of Santos, were unusual in producing rice as well the usual coastal products. A census of wealth for the Province ofSao Paulo, taken between the years 17 65 and 17 6 7, gives us a panoramic view of regional wealth in this period. 60 Residents of the capital region enjoyed 40 percent of the declared wealth of the province, with the West Paulistas accounting for 20 percent and Paraiba Valley and coastal residents each accounting for 15 percent of total wealth (see Table 1.1). The richest centers of wealth, based on declared rents, were the city of Sao Paulo, with 25 percent of the total declared rent, the areas of Itu (West Paulista) and Santos (Coast), with approximately 13 percent each, and Sorocaba (Southern Road) with 10 percent. Using per capita rates gives the same results: Sao Paulo, Itu, and Santos show average per capital rates of wealth superior to the rest of the regions. The richest regions in the capitania, then, remained its urban centers. Among the wealthy regions, only Itu was primarily dedicated to commercial agriculture. This seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that merchants (mercadores and homens de neg6cios) made up the wealthiest segment of the population, 61 and they were concentrated in the urban centers of Santos and Sao Paulo. There were also farmers who were able to produce above subsistence, and they also formed an important elite sector of the rural population -along with senhores de engenho, or sugar mill owners, and the more capitalized local merchants. More than half the families registered in this census of wealth had declared that they "possessed nothing." They represented the segment of the population that was engaged in subsistence agriculture and/or were day laborers. Many of these persons without goods to declare were highly mobile, moving constantly in search of new, unexploited areas to farm, engaging in slash-and-burn agriculture, and quickly abandoning their ftelds after a few years because of soil exhaustion.

Table 1.1

Population and Wealth in the Province of Sao Paulo, 1765-1777

Population -176511768

Free

Slaves

Total

Paraiba Valley

11,185

3,727

14,912

Capital Region West Paulista

19,439 6,000

28,307 8,734

Southern Road Coast

14,325 9,598

8,868 2,734 3,910

Total

Population -1777

18,235 13,692

60,547

83,880

Free

Slaves

Total

Sex Ratio of Slaves

18,102

4,901

32,315 8,352

9,054 2,634

23,003 41,369 10,986

Southern Road

19,146 10,261

4,355

23,501

4,304 25,248

14,565 113,424

Paraiba Valley Capital Region West Paulista Southern Road Coast Total

130 143 149 131

Capital Region West Paulista

Wealth in 176511767

137 117

4,094 23,333

Paraiba Valley

Coast Total

Sex Ratio of Slaves

88,176

Total wealth (Mil Reis)

Percentage of Wealth by Region

123 110 111 124 127 117

Number ~f Mean Wealth Families by Families

142,689 426,113 214,495 103,064 169,649

14% 40% 20% 10% 16%

2,676 3,511 1,456 1,081 1,173

53 121 147 95 145

1,056,009

100%

9,897

107

Free population, 1765: letter, Governor Morgado de Mateus to Conde de Oeiras. 10 December 1766. DIHCSP 73:61-65. Slave population, 1768: letter, Governor Morgado Mateus to Conde de Oeiras, 22 February 1769, DIHCSP 19:285. Population, 1777: AESP, "Listas Nominativas de Habitantes" (see Appendix). Wealth, 1765/1767: Canabrava, "Urna econornia de decadencia," 95-123; the author based her analysis on the censuses reproduced in DIHCSP 72:27-28. SOURCES:

26

Sao Paulo to 1800

The distribution of wealth and poverty within the capitania can be seen in the relative numerical importance of families without possessions compared to families that were able to declare some wealth. In Pindamonhangaba, Jacarei, Taubate, and Guaratingueti, all in the Paraiba Valley region, such families constituted more than 60 percent of the free population. In the wealthiest counties of Sao Paulo, Santos, and Itu, they represented 50 percent the population. In the small farming areas around the capital, such as Santo Amaro,Juqueri, and Guarulhos, however, they were only 35 percent. This suggests there was a much more homogeneous population of small farmers in these relatively poor agricultural zones, but that they could sustain an active commerce with the local market in the city of Sao Paulo. 62 It also suggests there was more rigid stratification in the wealthier zones. By the time of the first systematic county population censuses in 1777, the population of the province had increased by 15 percent from the previous decade. But not all segments of the population increased at similar rates. The number of slaves had increased little, and the ratio of male to female slaves had declined, which stands in contrast to the strong growth of the free population in this period. 63 This variation between rates of growth for slave and free populations may be explained by a number of factors-the return of paulistas who had migrated to Minas, due to a declining economy there; and/or higher rates of manumission among slaves, for example. Conversely, the negative impact on the local economy of the decline of the gold mines may have led to both a slowing of slave imports as well as a return of free paulistas from the mining zones. The evidence of the decline in the sex ratio among slaves seems to indicate that the province in this mid-century period had not received any major supply of slaves coming directly from Africa. This period of stagnation seems to have been only a pause in an otherwise steady pace of growth. Antonio Manoel Mello Castro e Mendon1on refer to the areas of Sorocaba and Itapetininga. "In metric tons. For conversion rates used for weights and measures, see Luna and Klein, "Nota a respeito de medidas para graos utilizados no periodo colonial."

counties; their number actually fell over the next thirty years, only reaching levels greater than 600 again in 1836. At the same time, production after 1815 increased everywhere, as did the average number of slaves per engenho and production per sugar estate. From approximately 6,000 slaves working in sugar in these twelve counties in the 1790s, the servile work force rose to between 10,000 and 13,000 by the 1830s. Given the decline in the number of producing units, this meant that the average number of slaves per engenho rose from ten to thirty in this period. As might be expected, certain regions stand out as early-nineteenthcentury producers. Itu was clearly the most important sugar-producing county in this period. In the first fifteen years of our sample, it accounted for more than 40 percent of the production in the twelve counties. The region originally defined by the Itu county boundaries maintained its importance, but the progressive dismemberment of the county itself meant that the "reduced" Itu accounted for only a fifth oflocal production by the late

The Rise of Commercial Sugar Production

34

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