Ouro Preto and Brazil's Cities of GoldThe Portuguese had long been looking for silver. No one had envisioned the creation of Ouro Preto as consequence of the discovery of gold - or black gold. If the Spanish had discovered a mountain of silver (Potosi) in their half of South America, surely, they believed there was a similar mountain in the Portuguese half. Portugal had not fared well during the sixty years it was held "captive" by the Spanish crown (1580-1640). Colonies were lost; the Dutch had invaded and held the northeast of Brazil until 1654; the growing plantations of the English and Dutch on the islands of the Caribbean had ended Brazil's sugar monopoly. By the end of the seventeenth century Portugal was in dire financial condition; mineral wealth had to be found in Brazil. Throughout the seventeenth century the interior, or sertao, of the Portuguese colony was crisscrossed by bandeiras, quasi-military companies from Sao Paulo, culturally and racially mestizo, with their hundreds of Indian retainers. These bandeirantes traveled through the sertao--sometimes for years--capturing Indians, who would be brought back and sold as slaves to the plantations on the coast. Their travels pushed back the borders of the Portuguese colony and helped lay claim to the current contours of Brazil. Search for precious metals leading to the discovery of "black gold", literally "Ouro Preto" Theirs was also a constant search for precious metals. How fortunate that the Portuguese crown had finally sent trained mineralogists to Brazil, for they were on hand to confirm in 1695 that the Paulistas had discovered, not silver, but gold!
Ouro Preto A gold rush creating "Ouro Preto" As word of the discovery of gold spread throughout the colony and to Portugal, there began one of the great gold rushes in human history. From Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia, from Europe, over land and following the course of rivers, thousands hurried to the mines. Tens of thousands of African slaves, destined no longer for the sugar plantations of Brazil's northeast, were moved to the mining area. Gold was found in dozens of rivers and streams, and, like California one hundred and fifty years later, had to be panned and washed out laboriously. Ouro Preto - Black Gold In Brazil, this was done by African slaves. The Portuguese, perhaps fortuitously, were then taking Africans from the "gold coast" of Africa, Africans who had their own experience with placer mining. In this manner, the Portuguese imported not only a labor force but the appropriate technology as well. At first, the mining camps were lawless settlements. The Paulistas laid claim to the whole region of mines and tried to keep out all others, those whom they termed emboabas. However, they could not. These struggles led to the "War of the Emboabas" (1708-09), resulting in the defeat of the truculent Paulistas and the strengthening of the power of the crown. The Portuguese crown also attempted to limit the movement to the mines, but it too was largely unsuccessful. To feed the growing population, huge cattle drives from Brazil's northeast and caravans with every necessity (from salt and flour to iron tools) carried on the heads and shoulders of Africans and Amerindians, traveled to the mining areas from ports along the coast. One discovery of gold (Ouro Preto) led to another, as miners pushed from river to river, further into the sertao. Curling around the mountainous valleys, close by the gold-rich streams, the rough settlements of miners and merchants, Europeans, Paulistas, and Africans, grew uninhibited and organically, free of city planning. Often the rude early churches were perched on hilltops. Here the Portuguese slowly installed the officers of the crown, established public order, smelted and extracted the royal 20 percent tax on gold, the quinto, and with the help of ecclesiastical authorities, organized dozens of urban centers. (The source of most of this information is Parisina Malatesta's text, translated from the Spanish by Ruth Morales)
Ouro Preto Brazil's gold was shipped from Parati 
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