The South American Republics Volume I Part 13

THE JESUITS

One of John III.'s strongest reasons for undertaking a more extensive colonisation of Brazil was the pious conviction that it was his Christian duty to promote the dissemination of the true religion in dominions which he owed to the gift of the Holy Father. He was the first and most steadfast friend of the Jesuits, then just organised and San Francisco Xavier, the Apostle of the East Indies, was sent out to one hemisphere, while the conversion of the Brazilian aborigines was determined upon in the other. With Thomas de Souza sailed an able Jesuit, Manuel n.o.brega, accompanied by several other Fathers. They began a carefully planned campaign to convert the Indians and, incidentally, to exploit them in the interests of the Order.

It is impossible not to admire the courage, shrewdness, and devotion of the Jesuits. They went out alone among the savage tribes, living with them, learning their languages, preaching to them, captivating their imaginations by the pomp of religious paraphernalia and processions, baptising them, and exhorting them to abandon cannibalism and polygamy.

Tireless and fearless, they plunged into an interior hitherto unpenetrated by white men. The reports they made to their superiors frequently afford the best information that is yet extant as to the customs of the Indians and the resources of the regions they explored.

The Indians were easily induced to conform to the externals of the Christian cult. Wherever the Jesuits penetrated, the aborigines soon adopted Christianity, but to hold the Indians to Christianity the Fathers were obliged to fix them to the soil. As soon as a tribe was converted, a rude church building was erected, and a Jesuit installed, who remained to teach agriculture and the arts as well as ritual and morals. His moral and intellectual superiority made him perforce an absolute ruler in miniature. Thus that strange theocracy came into being, which, starting on the Brazilian coast, spread over most of central South America. In the early part of the seventeenth century the theocratic seemed likely to become the dominant form of government south of the Amazon and east of the Andes.

The Jesuit wanted the Indian to himself, and fought against the interference or enslavement by the lay Portuguese. The colonists wanted the Indians to work on their plantations, to incorporate them as slaves, or in some a.n.a.logous capacity, with the white man's industrial and civil organisation. The home government stood by the Jesuits, but the colonists constantly evaded restrictions and steadily fought the priests. The encouragement of the negro slave trade was an attempt at a compromise--intended to induce the colonists to leave the Indians alone by furnis.h.i.+ng another supply of labour.

Primarily, at least, the Jesuit purpose was altruistic, though the material advantages and the fascination of exercising authority were soon potent motives. The Jesuits gave the South American Indian the greatest measure of peace and justice he ever enjoyed, but they reduced him to blind obedience and made him a tenant and a servant. Though virtually a slave, he was, however, little exposed to infection from the vices and diseases of civilisation; he was not put at tasks too hard for him; and under Jesuit rule he prospered. On the other hand, if this system had prevailed there would have been little white immigration, the Indian race would have remained in possession of the country, and real civilisation would never have gained a foothold.

Immediately after the founding of Bahia, n.o.brega sent members of the Order to the other colonies. He himself visited Pernambuco, where the stout old proprietor met him with effective opposition. Duarte did not welcome a clergy responsible solely to a foreign corporation, and over which he could have no control. In Bahia and the south the Jesuits, however, prospered amazingly. In So Paulo they laboured hard, spread widely, converted a large number of Indians, and perfected their system, but it was there they came most sharply in conflict with the spirit of individualism, and there they suffered their first and most crus.h.i.+ng overthrow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PADRE JOSE DE ANCHIETA.

[From an old wood-cut.]]

Thomas de Souza laboured diligently during the four years of his administration, fortifying posts, driving away contraband traders, dismissing incompetent officials, and even building jails and straightening streets where the local authorities had neglected them. He visited all the captaincies south of Bahia and entered Rio Bay, then the princ.i.p.al rendezvous for the French privateers and traders. He appreciated its strategic and commercial importance, and was only prevented by lack of means from establis.h.i.+ng a strong post there. In So Paulo he prohibited the flouris.h.i.+ng trade which had grown with the Spaniards in Paraguay and Buenos Aires. Duarte da Costa, his successor, was accompanied by a large re-enforcement of Jesuits. Among them was Anchieta, one of the most notable men in the history of the Order, whose genius, devotion, and pertinacious courage laid the foundations of Jesuit power so deeply in South America that its effects remain to this day. This remarkable man was born in Teneriffe, the son of a banished n.o.bleman, who had married a native of the island. Educated at home, from his infancy he showed marvellous talents. At fourteen, his father, not daring to risk his son's life in Spain, sent him to the Portuguese University at Coimbra. His career was so brilliant, the reputation he acquired for profound and ready intelligence, his eloquence, and his pure and elevated ideals so remarkable, that he attracted the attention of Simon Rodrigues, John III.'s great Jesuit minister, who, like all the leaders of the Order, was on the watch for talented young men. The ardent youth was easily convinced that no career was so glorious as that of a missionary, and when only twenty years old he solicited and obtained permission to go to Brazil. n.o.brega, the Provincial, selected him to go to So Paulo and establish a school to train neophytes and proselytes into evangelists. His own letter to n.o.brega best tells what a life he found and what sort of man he was:

"Here we are, sometimes more than twenty of us together in a little hut of mud and wicker, roofed with straw, fourteen paces long and ten wide. This is at once the school, the infirmary, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, and store-room. Yet we covet not the more s.p.a.cious dwellings which our brethren have in other parts. Our Lord Jesus Christ was in a far straiter place when it was His pleasure to be born among beasts in a manger, and in a still straiter when He deigned to die upon the cross."

They herded together to keep warm, for in winter it is cold on the So Paulo plateau. They had no food except the mandioc flour, fish, and game which the Indians gave them. To the little college came Creoles and half-breeds and learned Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Tupi. Anchieta was indefatigable. Within a year he had acquired a complete mastery of the Indian tongue, and had devised a grammar for it. He wrote his own text-books, and employed his great poetical talents in composing hymns and verses to be chanted to the pupils, recounting the stories of Holy Scripture. He visited the most savage tribes in person, and acquired a marvellous moral supremacy over them. When the Tamoyos attacked the Portuguese, and the destruction of all the southern settlements seemed inevitable, he fearlessly went to the Indian camps and persuaded the chiefs to consent to a truce while he remained among them three years as a hostage to guarantee its faithful performance by his countrymen. The savages regarded him as more than human, and tradition tells of the miracles he performed. It is related that during these three years of solitary captivity he composed, without the aid of pen or paper, his Latin "Hymn to the Virgin," celebrated as one of the masterpieces of ecclesiastical poetry.

He and his companions did not disdain to labour with their hands. They used the spade and trowel, made their own shoes, taught the Indians agriculture, introduced new plants from Europe, practised medicine, and studied the botany, topography, and geology of the country. The villages of converted Indians under their government and protection rapidly spread over the So Paulo plains, and they were refuges for Indians flying from slavery on the plantations. The colonists pursued their fugitive slaves, and soon were at open war with the Jesuits. In the course of this conflict the original half-breed settlement on the plateau was destroyed and the lay Portuguese came near being wiped out.

Peace was temporarily patched up, but the Paulistas soon turned the tables and compelled the Jesuits to devote themselves to their educational inst.i.tutions in the towns, or to withdraw farther and farther into the wilderness.

CHAPTER VI

FRENCH OCCUPATION OF RIO

During Duarte's administration troubles with the Indians broke out along the whole coast. In Bahia itself the new governor had disobeyed the orders of the home government to protect the Indians. He joined with the colonists in exploiting them. A formidable Indian conspiracy was formed and the settlements on both sides of the city were simultaneously attacked. Many farms and villages were sacked, but soon the Indians were finally and crus.h.i.+ngly defeated. The coast towns of So Paulo were menaced by a great confederation of tribes who used war canoes and had learned to overcome their terror of firearms. At Espirito Santo the Indian slaves rose _en ma.s.se_, killed most of the Portuguese, and destroyed the sugar plantations.

A more serious danger was the settlement of the French at Rio de Janeiro. They had formed friendly relations with the Indians, and the name of Frenchman was sufficient to insure good treatment from most of the tribes, while that of Portuguese was a signal for its bearer to be killed and devoured. This was the epoch of the religious wars in France, and the traders to Brazil came mostly from Huguenot ports.

Admiral Coligny conceived the idea of establis.h.i.+ng a Huguenot settlement in South America, and Rio was chosen as the most available site. In 1555 a considerable expedition was sent under the command of Nicolas Villegagnon, a celebrated adventurer, who had distinguished himself in escorting Mary Queen of Scots from France to Scotland. He fortified the island in Rio harbour that still bears his name--a barren rock which commanded the entrance and was safe from attacks by land. The French kept on good terms with the neighbouring Indians, and remained unmolested by the Portuguese for four years. But Villegagnon was not faithful to his employers, though most of his party were Protestants, and Huguenot leaders had furnished the money for the expedition. He quarrelled with the Huguenots and finally gave up the command and returned to France in the Guise interest. Coligny's project of establis.h.i.+ng a new and Protestant France in South America lost its very good chance of success. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been the history of Brazil if Villegagnon had stuck to the Huguenot side. In all probability re-enforcements would have been sent, and St.

Bartholomew's Day--fourteen years later--might have been followed by a great emigration like that which went to New England during the Laud persecution. Rio and perhaps the whole of South Brazil would have become a French possession or a French-speaking state.

Not until 1558 was a strong and able Portuguese governor selected, and vigorous measures taken to expel the French. The new governor was Mem da Sa, a n.o.bleman of the highest birth, a soldier, a scholar, and an experienced administrator. His name will always be a.s.sociated with the establishment of the Portuguese power in Brazil on a footing firm and broad enough to enable it to withstand the Dutch attacks and the lean years of Spanish domination.

Upon his arrival he took measures to quiet the Indian slavery question by reducing the import duties on black slaves and by aiding each planter to acquire as many negroes as he needed to work his plantation. When his s.h.i.+ps and armament arrived he proceeded to the south. He found that the French, though weak in numbers, could count on Indian allies. As he himself writes to the Court: "The French do not treat the natives as we do. They are very liberal to them, observing strict justice, so that the commander is feared by his countrymen and beloved by the Indians.

Measures have been taken to instruct the latter in the use of arms, and as the aborigines are very numerous the French may soon make themselves very strong." He hara.s.sed the French and destroyed their fortifications but could not completely dislodge them, and returned to Bahia with his work only half accomplished. Porto Seguro and Ilheos were attacked by the ferocious Aymores and with difficulty saved from total destruction.

In the South another great Tamoyo confederation had been formed with the deliberate purpose of rooting the Paulistas out of the country and putting a stop once for all to their slave-hunting. When all seemed lost, Anchieta intervened, and succeeded in fixing up a peace. The Tamoyos were cajoled into becoming allies of the Portuguese in a final attempt to expel the French from Rio. Mem da Sa's nephew appeared with a considerable fleet, and after a desultory campaign of a year the French were obliged to retire. France did nothing to prevent or recover this inestimable loss, and Mem da Sa immediately laid out and fortified a city on a site which to-day is the business centre of the capital of Brazil. From the time of its founding Rio was the most important place in southern Brazil and the key to the whole region, but its great prosperity dates from a hundred and fifty years later, when gold was discovered in Minas Geraes.

Mem da Sa continued to rule Brazil until his death in 1572. The work of centralisation went on apace, fiscal and administrative officers were multiplied, and taxes and restrictions imposed at will. The Lisbon government laid the foundations of that restrictive system which finally confined Brazil to communication with the mother country. Nevertheless most of the settlements grew rapidly. Sugar-planting, cattle-raising, and general agriculture flourished. The Indians were expelled or reduced to impotence within striking distance of the centres of population.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLANTERS GOING TO CHURCH.

[From an old print.]]

At Mem da Sa's death the civilised population numbered about sixty thousand, of whom twenty thousand were white. The provinces of Pernambuco and Bahia had each twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Rio had some two thousand and So Paulo perhaps five, the remainder being divided between the smaller settlements--Parahyba, Rio Real, Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo. Except in So Paulo most of the inhabitants were engaged in sugar-raising. The hundred and twenty plantations produced annually forty-five thousand tons of sugar, while Portuguese goods to the value of a million dollars a year were imported.

A sugar _fazenda_, or plantation, const.i.tuted a little independent village, where the owner lived surrounded by his slaves in their cabins, his shops and stables, mills and mandioc fields. The grantees had paid no purchase price for the land, and held it on condition of paying a tenth of the product and a tenth of that tenth, a tax which survives to the present time, only it is now called an export duty of eleven per cent. Land was not otherwise taxed, and to this day direct taxes on farm property are almost unknown, though imposts of every other conceivable kind have been multiplied. The tracts granted were large; the owner could hold them unused without expense; the most powerful incentive to sale and division of land did not, therefore, exist. Brazil became and remains a country of large rural proprietors.h.i.+p. Landowners are reluctant to sell or divide their estates, taxes on transfers are excessive, and land is not freely bought and sold. Consequently the rural population is widely scattered, grants extend far beyond the limits of actual settlement, there are few small farmers and very little careful culture. Brazil is a country of staple crops and non-diversified agriculture. A fall in sugar or coffee produces a disproportionate disturbance in financial conditions, and land not suitable to the staple crop of a region is left to lie idle. Immigration has been r.e.t.a.r.ded because land has been hard to obtain except by special government concession, and because private owners do not care to sell their land to settlers. Except in restricted cases, the rural immigration--negro and South European--has been for the purpose of furnis.h.i.+ng labour for the large proprietors, and not to form a landowning and permanently established population.

The Jesuit travellers describe the Brazilian people in 1584 as pleasure-loving and extravagant. In the sugar provinces fortunes were very unequal. In Pernambuco alone more than a hundred planters had incomes of ten thousand dollars a year. Their capital, Olinda--now the northern suburb of the city of Pernambuco--was the largest town in Brazil and the one where there was most luxurious living and the most polite society. In general the people were spendthrifts, and notwithstanding large incomes were heavily in debt. Great sums were spent on fetes, religious processions, fairs, and dinners. The simple Jesuit Fathers were shocked to see such velvets and silks, such luxurious beds of crimson damask, such extravagance in the trappings of the saddle-horses. Carriages were unknown, and instead litters and sedan chairs were used, and these remained in common use in Bahia until very recent times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CADEIRA.]

From Pernambuco and Bahia communication with the mother country was constant and easy. So Paulo, however, differed radically from the sugar districts. Wheat, barley, and European fruits grew on the So Paulo plateau, but there was little export to Portugal, and imported clothes were scarce and dear. The Paulistas were constantly on horseback and wore the old Portuguese costume of cloak and close-fitting doublet long after it had been disused at home.

Bahia and Pernambuco were fairly well built towns, though unfortunately in the Portuguese style of architecture, whose solid walls, few windows, and contiguous houses make it ill adapted to a tropical climate. In spite of its unsuitability it was universally adopted, and even yet largely prevails in Brazil.

CHAPTER VII

EXPANSION

In 1581 Philip II. of Spain succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng himself on the throne of Portugal as the successor of the rash Sebastian, dead fighting the Moors at Alcacer-Kebir. The decadent and demoralised Portuguese nation made hardly the semblance of a struggle for its independence. The very ease with which Philip obtained the kingdom left him no pretext for depriving it of administrative independence. Native Portuguese continued to hold office in the colonies and to enjoy a monopoly of Brazilian commerce. Internally, therefore, the change did not much affect Brazil.

But in foreign relations the effect was profound. Brazil became a part of a well-nigh universal monarchy, and one of the battle-fields of the struggle which had begun between Spain and the Protestant powers.

All South America was now under the same monarch; boundary questions between Portuguese and Spanish America apparently ceased to have any importance. The enormous extension of Brazil toward the interior over territory formerly conceded to be Spanish occurred during the sixty years of Spanish domination. The Spanish monarch did not have time to spend on Brazilian matters, and the colonists were less interfered with from Lisbon and Madrid than might have been expected. Portuguese historians have much exaggerated the evil effects of the English, Dutch, and French half filibustering, half-trading descents on the coast, which occurred during this period. The pillage of a few towns was more than compensated by the commerce that sprang up; much Brazilian sugar escaped paying the heavy export duties; settlement extended rapidly over new territory, and the importation of negroes continued.

As early as 1575 a settlement had been made in Sergipe, but the great expansion over northern Brazil began under the rule of Philip's first governor-general. In 1583 he sent troops to take possession of the important port of Parahyba, where some French traders had obtained a foothold that prevented the inhabitants of Pernambuco from spreading north beyond Itamarica. The Spanish mercenaries were at first successful, but they could not stifle the serious Indian war which broke out. The Pernambucanos had better success, because they knew how to take advantage of the dissensions among the savages. Fortifying a town at Parahyba, they permanently established their sugar plantations in its neighbourhood, and then these indefatigable and land-hungry Creoles pushed on farther to the north. In 1597 Jeronymo de Albuquerque, the greatest of Brazilian colonial generals, attacked and defeated the powerful Pitagoares Indians, and established the colony of Natal, the nucleus of the present state of Rio Grande do Norte. This brought the Pernambucanos to Cape St. Roque. To the south they had spread as far as the San Francisco River, there meeting the Bahianos who, by 1589, had taken possession of the present state of Sergipe.

North of St. Roque the Portuguese so far had done nothing except make some desultory voyages of observation, though they claimed the coast to and beyond the mouth of the Amazon. The donatories of the captaincies in that region had not succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng any settlements. In 1541, Orellana, one of those recklessly heroic Spaniards who had helped Pizarro conquer the empire of the Incas, was a member of an expedition which crossed the Andes near Quito and descended into the forested plains, looking for another Peru--the fabled El Dorado. They finally found themselves on a great river flowing to the east, and, since their provisions were exhausted, boats were built and Orellana was sent on ahead to try to find supplies. He could not find enough to feed the main body and decided to float on down the river, well knowing it must finally bring him to the ocean. After a voyage of more than three thousand miles he came to the great estuary of the Amazon and thence made his way to Spain. No important results followed this wonderful discovery. Orellana himself shortly returned to the mouth of the river, but he could not find his way up the labyrinth of waters.

To reach the plains from the Pacific or Caribbean settlements is nearly impracticable, and the Amazon valley remained unsettled. Meanwhile the seed planted by old Duarte Coelho germinated and grew into a vigorous tree whose branches were spreading out over all North Brazil. The seventeenth century had hardly begun when the hardy Pernambucanos invaded the country lying north and west of St. Roque, hunting Indian slaves, and good places for cattle- and sugar-raising. In 1603 Pero Coelho, an adventurous Brazilian then living at Parahyba, made a settlement far to the north-west of Natal, on the coast of Ceara, and penetrated eight hundred miles from Pernambuco. Unreasonable aggressions against the Indians brought on temporary reverses, but the Pernambucanos persevered, and the Jesuits also established missions. By 1610 the region was pretty well under white control, the Indians being incorporated to a greater extent than was usual in the settlements farther south.

The next forward movement was precipitated by a formidable French attempt to colonise Maranho. Daniel de la Rivardiere, a Huguenot n.o.bleman, conceived the idea of carrying out on the north coast Coligny's plan of a French Protestant colony. In 1612 he landed on the island of Maranho with a large and well-appointed expedition.

Jeronymo de Albuquerque fortunately happened to be on the north coast when news came of this alarming intrusion. Sending his s.h.i.+ps on to ascertain the truth of the report, he hastened overland to Pernambuco to get a force together. With three hundred whites and two hundred Indians he started to expel the French. An a.s.sault on a fort defended with artillery was out of the question, so in his turn he fortified himself, cut off the French from access to the sea, and ambushed their foraging expeditions. In such a game, his men, inured to the climate, had an immense advantage. Forced to a.s.sault Albuquerque's position, the French were repulsed. They begged for a truce, and went home at the end of a year. Albuquerque took possession of the French town, and in 1616 secured all the rest of the northern coast to Portugal by founding Para, just to the south of the mouth of the Amazon. Several settlements were made along the coast east of Para and also west in the estuary itself.

The Indians proved docile and were easily incorporated to so great an extent that the Indian element is more predominant in Para than in any other state on the Brazilian littoral.

On the island and around the bay of Maranho a prosperous colony grew up. Certain enterprising business men made a contract with the government and started a regular propaganda for immigrants, and induced a large number to come from the Azores. The state thus founded was one of the most prosperous in Brazil, and was especially celebrated for the politeness and cultivation of its inhabitants. Some of the greatest names in Portuguese literature are those of Maranhenses. It is commonly said that the best Portuguese is spoken in Maranho, and not in Lisbon, Rio, or Porto--just as the English of Dublin, Aberdeen, or Boston is considered better than that of London or New York, and the Spanish of Lima and Bogota better than that of Madrid, Barcelona, or Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile population and wealth had been increasing satisfactorily in the older provinces south of Cape St. Roque. By 1626 Pernambuco and Bahia had grown to be towns of something like ten thousand inhabitants, and the people of the respective provinces numbered about a hundred thousand. Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and Espirito Santo had made no progress, but Rio had become a city of six thousand, while the sh.o.r.es of her bay and the adjacent coast were now fairly settled. Rio and Santos really performed the function of ports for the foreign commerce of Paraguay and the Argentine because the Spanish laws did not permit these colonies to have ports of their own. Campos was now settled and its sugar industry was prospering. On the So Paulo plains the Paulistas had spread to the north-east to the headwaters of the Parahyba and borders of the present state of Rio, and north-west down the navigable Tiete, along which they found an easy track for their expeditions in search of slaves. The Jesuits had long since been unable to control or check the Paulistas, and had abandoned the missions near the coast. In the remote interior, along the Parana and its great tributaries, the defeated priests thought that they would be safe, and about the end of the sixteenth century they entered that region by way of Paraguay. The Paulistas recked little of the government, especially now that the king was Spanish, and, advancing the claim that Spanish Jesuits had established missions on Portuguese territory, they proceeded to wipe out the new missions.

It seems incredible that their little bands could have penetrated such distances and accomplished such results, but it is on record that they tracked nearly to the Andes, and practically exterminated, the aboriginal population of half Brazil. The Jesuits tell us that between 1614 and 1639 four hundred Paulistas with two thousand Indian allies captured and killed three hundred thousand natives. In 1632 they utterly destroyed the great Jesuit settlements on the Upper Parana, though this involved an expedition of fifteen hundred miles, much of which is to this day rarely penetrable. One of their expeditions was like an ambulating village--women, children, and domestic animals accompanying it. They sometimes were obliged to stop, sow a crop, and wait for it to mature before they could proceed. For the time being, these predatory Paulistas almost reverted to the nomadic stage.

Naturally, no complete record of these expeditions survives. Their members were not literate men, and it is only when they fought the Jesuits, or when they discovered minerals, that a record of their routes has been preserved. We know that before 1632 they had traversed all of southern Brazil, and Paraguay, and even eastern Argentina and Uruguay.

Incursions to the north and west followed shortly. There is an authentic record of an expedition reaching Goyaz as early as 1647, and it is probable that by that time they had penetrated the central plateau which stretches across to the Andes, had seen the headwaters of the southern tributaries of the Amazon, and had followed the eastern mountain chain almost to the northern ocean. The Paulistas secured to their country and their race more than a million square miles of fertile and salubrious territory.