Sugarcane Cycle in Brazil

The Sugarcane Cycle (1530-18th century)

Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe.

Tobacco, cotton, cachaça and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century.

The first sugarcane farms were established in the mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. The period of sugar-based economy (1530-c.1700) is known as the "Sugarcane Cycle" in Brazilian history.

Sugarcane was cultivated on large patches of land, harvested and processed in the engenhos, which were the houses were sugarcane was milled and the sugar refined.

Over time, the term engenho was applied to the whole sugarcane farm. The dependencies of the farm included a casa-grande (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the senzala, where the slaves where kept.

Initially, the Portuguese relied on aborigine slaves to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing black African slaves.

Portugal owned several commercial facilities in Western Africa, where slaves were bought from African merchants. These slaves were then sent by ship to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions.

The idea of using African slaves in colonial farms based on monoculture was also adopted by other European colonial powers when colonising tropical regions of America, like Spain in Cuba, France in Haiti, the Netherlands in the Dutch Antilles and England in Jamaica.

The Portuguese severely restricted colonial trade, meaning that Brazil was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies.

Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine, olive oil, textiles and luxury goods - the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian merchants frequently exchanged cachaça, a distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, for slaves.

This comprised what is now known as the Triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period.

Even though the Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles, located much closer to Europe, causing the sugar prices to fall.

Golden Baroque inner decoration of the Franciscan church of Salvador
(first half of 18th century).

The Iberian Union and Dutch incursions

In 1580, a succession crisis led to Portugal forming a personal union with Spain under the Habsburg King Philip II. The unification of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640. The Netherlands (the Seventeen Provinces) obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil.

Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering the coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed gold and silver literally in barrels before a large Spanish fleet recaptured the town.

From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda, and with the capture of Paraiba in 1635, the Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe, without, however, penetrating the interior.

But the large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went, and the ironic result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was that the price of sugar rose in Amsterdam.

During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence in Recife of the Grand Duke John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637-1641).

Nassau invited scientific commissions to come and research the local flora and fauna, resulting in additions to the time's knowledge. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Some survive up to this day.

After several years of open warfare, the Dutch formally withdrew in 1661; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Little Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remained of these failed attempts.

The Quilombos

Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labour, mostly of black African origin. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organising themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland.

These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos, gathered not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. The largest of the quilombos was the Quilombo dos Palmares, located in today's Alagoas state, governed by semi-mythical leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi.

The Dutch and later the Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed Sao Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695.

Of the many quilombos that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities.

Inland expansion: the entradas and bandeiras

Since the 16th century the exploration of the Brazilian inland was attempted several times, mostly to try to find mineral riches like the silver mines found in 1546 by the Spanish in Potosí (now in Bolivia).

Since no riches were initially found, colonisation was restricted to the coast where the soil was suitable for sugarcane plantations.

The expeditions to inland Brazil are divided into two types: the entradas and the bandeiras. The entradas were done in the name of the Portuguese crown and were financed by the colonial government. Its main objective was to find mineral riches, as well as to explore and charter unknown territory.

The bandeiras, on the other hand, were private initiatives sponsored and carried out mostly by settlers of the São Paulo region (the paulistas).

The expeditions of the bandeirantes, as these adventurers were called, were aimed at obtaining native slaves for trade and finding mineral riches.

The paulistas, who at the time were mostly of mixed Portuguese and native ancestry, knew all the old indigenous pathways (the peabirus) through the Brazilian inland and were used to the harsh conditions of these journeys.

At the end of the 17th century, the bandeirantes expeditions discovered gold in central Brazil, in the region of Minas Gerais, which started a gold rush that led to a dramatic urban development of inland Brazil during the 18th century.

Another consequence of the inland expeditions was the westward expansion of the frontiers of colonial Brazil, beyond the limits established by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.

Sugarcane in Brazil