Portuguese Colonization
Overview
Portuguese History and Culture
Portuguese colonization rested up to two central themes: technology and training for the Portuguese sailors. The technologies that came from the Islamic World, such as the compass, astrolabe, rudders, and sails were all instrumental in helping the Portuguese to become the first Europeans to explore the world. By incorporating these tools, the Portuguese leader Prince Henry the Navigator, established schools and trainings for these sailors that helped them correctly position themselves and their newly discovered lands. Prince Henry the Navigator is one of the most important Portuguese leaders because of his leadership and establishment of sailing practices, which resulted in the Portuguese having a different mentality for colonization. The Portuguese practiced a unique version of colonization, where instead of directly establishing control and long-term holdings, the Portuguese established very limited government, leaving the Catholic Church to play a pivotal role in the colonies; this is because the Portuguese goal was exploring and learning new areas. This developed the “Mapped it, I own it” strategy, which was based on merely being able to identify the area first. The strategy had many serious faults and issues, but it provided the Portuguese with a clear methodology of conquest of Brazil and parts of Oceania.
Learning Objectives
- Evaluate the Portuguese strategy for colonization.
- Analyze the impact of the Portuguese on the development of European traders.
- Compare and contrast Portuguese colonization between the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.
- Evaluate the importance of Brazil in the Portuguese system.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Vasco da Gama: a Portuguese explorer and one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Age of Discovery; the first European to reach India by sea.
Introduction
Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration, discovering and mapping the coasts of Africa, Asia, and Brazil. As early as 1317, King Denis made an agreement with Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha (Pesagno), appointing him first Admiral with trade privileges with his homeland, in return for twenty war ships and crews; this was done with the goal of defending the country against Muslim pirate raids. But the agreement also created the basis for the Portuguese Navy and the establishment of a Genoese merchant community in Portugal.
In the second half of the 14th century, outbreaks of bubonic plague led to severe depopulation; the economy was extremely localized in a few towns, unemployment rose; and migration led to agricultural land abandonment. Only the sea offered alternatives, with most people settling on fishing and trading in coastal areas. Between 1325 – 1357, Afonso IV of Portugal granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet and ordered the first maritime explorations under command of admiral Pessanha, with the help of Genoese. In 1341, the Canary Islands, already known to Genoese, were officially explored under the patronage of the Portuguese king, but in 1344, the Spanish kingdom of Castile disputed them, further propelling the Portuguese navy efforts.
Technology
The Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 CE brought many useful tools to the Portuguese. The incorporation of Islamic culture and arts into Portugal meant that the Portuguese integrated technologies and cultures of Islam. The Islamic technologies of astrolabe, compass, rudders, and sails proved quite beneficial to Portugal. The use of the compass and astrolabe also meant that the Portuguese had another piece of technology that allowed them to sail further into the open ocean without the fear of being lost or falling off the other side of the world. In the 21st century it is common to use GPS to find one’s way, but in the 14th and 15th centuries the best tools for navigation were the astrolabe and the compass, which provided only approximate locations for explorers. Still, the astrolabe and the compass were advanced for their time and provided the ability to move throughout the open ocean and to locations that had not been reached before. The rudder and sail were also key additions to Portuguese ship building. The rudder meant that turning in the open ocean was easier and helped to provide key movement to ships to help them move in low winds. Sails were not only triangles but also curved to attempt to catch as much wind as they could. The combination of the rudder and sail together meant that the Portuguese ships were able to make the most out of limited wind conditions, in areas such as the horse latitudes near the equator. The ability to move in low winds and tides, coupled with the compass and astrolabe meant that the Portuguese had a clear advantage over their other European counterparts who did not have access to these technologies.
Assumption of these Islamic technologies proved an important shift for both the Portuguese and the Spanish, because they gave these kingdoms an advantage over their European counterparts. Many of the other European states of the period had large square masts that did not rotate or move, and they also did not have rudders. Combined, this made it difficult to move in open ocean water.
Prince Henry the Navigator recognized the importance of these inventions early on and integrated them into his training school for explorers. Henry realized future explorers and navigators would need to be trained on how to use these tools. And the development of this kind of schooling enabled Portugal’s successes in discovering new paths and traveling to more regions. Through the training developed by Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese travelers devloped a very unique mentality when exploring.
The Portuguese developed a “I mapped it, I own it” type of stance towards exploration. This meant that for the Portuguese explorers, they were experts at finding locations, and because of that, the Portuguese thought that these new locations were proprietary information. This meant that the Portuguese were not as active in defense or negative treatment of indigenous populations because they felt that other European states were not entitled to find these areas. This strategy would prove problematic for the Portuguese, especially as other European states started expanding quickly throughout the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean Worlds, where the Portuguese were successful early in their exploration.
Vasco da Gama
The long-standing Portuguese goal of finding a sea route to Asia was finally achieved in a ground-breaking voyage commanded by Vasco da Gama. His squadron left Portugal in 1497, rounded the Cape and continued along the coast of East Africa, where a local pilot was brought on board who guided them across the Indian Ocean. De Gama reached Calicut in western India in May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese improve their economy that, until Gama, was mainly based on trades along Northern and coastal West Africa. These spices were at first mostly pepper and cinnamon, but soon included other products, all new to Europe.
The second voyage to India was dispatched in 1500 under Pedro Álvares Cabral. While following the same south-westerly route as Gama across the Atlantic Ocean, Cabral made landfall on the Brazilian coast. This was probably an accident, but it has been speculated that the Portuguese knew of Brazil’s existence prior to this incident. Cabral recommended to the Portuguese king that the land be settled, and two follow-up voyages were sent in 1501 and 1503. The land was found to be abundant in pau-brasil, or brazilwood, from which it later inherited its name. But the failure to find gold or silver meant that for the time being Portuguese efforts remained concentrated on India.
As the Portuguese were exploring the Indian and Pacific Ocean Worlds, they came into contact with new populations and also were increasingly interested in getting new goods from the regions. The Portuguese traders followed the Spice Routes in the Indian Ocean and soon came to acquire many of the spices, such as sugar, from the tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean. Sugar was a very important product for the 15th century, because it added flavor to foods and in Europe it was very expensive.
The Portuguese getting access to sugar cane meant that they could plant their own sugar in similar tropical climates. This development resulted in Portugal seeking tropical areas that were much closer to Europe, in order to establish sugar production. One of the best locations for the Portuguese to establish sugar production was on the islands of the Canary and Azores, near northeastern Africa. This was ideal because of the tropical climate, closeness to Europe, and ease of access to ports. The Portuguese began establishing sugar production sites, and they quickly discovered that to ensure the maximum amount of money from planting they would have to resort to a different type of farming. Portuguese farmers began to plant in large plantations, which required large amounts of labor to produce products. These farms were modeled on the Roman system of haciendas and estates.
The development of the plantation system meant that the Portuguese needed lots of agricultural workers to develop sugar. This was where the Portuguese had a significant problem: they did not know from where this labor was to emerge. There was a small indigenous population on the islands of the Canaries and Azores, and these populations refused to work for the Portuguese. The indigenous population’s refusal meant that the Portuguese had to look elsewhere for plantation labor. There was a small Jewish population in Portugal that were first offered to migrate to the island as a way to practice their cultural and religious beliefs. This method was unsuccessful because the Portuguese were too demanding of the workers; many of the Jewish peoples on the islands either failed to meet their contracted goals or they simply refused to continue to work. This meant that the Portuguese estate owners looked to another source of labor: African slaves.
The Transcontinental Slave Trade started as early as the Portuguese’s first colonial settlement off the coast of Africa. The need for slaves resulted in the Portuguese contact with Central African tribes, such as the Kingdom of the Kongo. The relationships that the Portuguese developed with the Kongoese were central in the overall development of the colonies at the Canaries and Azores. Trading weapons, finished goods, and some gold for slaves in Africa provided a key source of labor for the Portuguese. By getting African slaves, the Portuguese were then able to develop their colonial model of plantation style economics and sugar production. This abhorrent system entered the European mentality with the Portuguese and would become central to how other Europeans developed their colonial economic relationships.
Brazil
As the Portuguese continued to explore throughout the 15th into the early 16th centuries, their colonial footprint was growing throughout the world. Many of the Portuguese explorers knew the best routes throughout the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific. Through a coincidence of accidents and luck, the Portuguese discovered Brazil and developed a key colony that would become a major resource center.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
brazilwood: a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (This plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used to make bows for stringed instruments. The wood also yields a red dye called brazilin, which oxidizes to brazilein. Starting in the 16th centuries, this tree became highly valued in Europe and quite difficult to get.)
engenhos: a colonial-era Portuguese term for a sugar cane mill and the associated facilities
Captaincies system: the colonial government of the Portuguese in Brazil that was heriditary. There were ten captancies in colonial Brazil.
Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese explorer and military commander that sailed in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Cabral set sail in early 1500, following a route to India, like his predecessor Vasco da Gama. Cabral and his men found themselves in an unusual predicament. They passed the equator and thought that they were sailing westward as far as they could from Africa. This route proved to be fateful because, in less than one month after their leaving port, what they found instead was a new land on the northeastern coast of Brazil. This new land was christened as Monte Pascoal, meaning Easter Mount, because it was found during Easter week.
Cabral and his men soon found that this land was unique and began exploring the territory. They discovered that the Northeastern corner of Brazil was tropic and an excellent location for developing sugar production. They also found that the local trees could be harvested and used to produce a deep red dye. This tree is a Brazil tree, and it is what the region is named after. brazilwood trade was key to the Portuguese early colonies and would be a central reason for the further exploration of Brazil.
The early exploration of Brazil also established the development of a colonial government. The Brazilian government was known as a captaincy; these were developed in the early 16th century when the Portuguese monarchy used land grants with governing privileges as a way to colonize new lands. This system provided a unique way of providing a government system. There were ten different captaincies in Brazil that divided the northeastern coastline of Brazil. These captaincies had limited government oversight from the Portuguese government and the colonists were subject to few specific rules while in Brazil.
The majority of the early Brazilian settlement was located along the line of the northeastern coast. The Amazon River was dangerous for many of the Portuguese settlers because of the diseases that the mosquitos spread and the difficulties travel created. One of the few groups that became central to Brazilian exploration was the Jesuit priests, who traveled to the Amazon looking for indigenous people to convert. The Jesuits were a major force in Brazilian colonization. The Jesuits were a branch of the Catholic Church, who was very interested in spreading their faith. This becomes one of the key methods of the Portuguese colonization is the way that Christianity plays a part in the Brazilian colonization.
In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived in Brazil to patrol the entire coast, ban the French, and create the first colonial villages on the coast, like São Vicente. The Portuguese crown devised a system to effectively occupy Brazil without paying the costs. Through the hereditary Captaincies system, Brazil was divided into strips of land that were donated to Portuguese noblemen, who were in turn responsible for the occupation and administration of the land, while answering to the king. The system was a failure with only four lots successfully occupied: Pernambuco, São Vicente (later called São Paulo), Captaincy of Ilhéus, and Captaincy of Porto Seguro. The captaincies gradually reverted to the Crown and became provinces and eventually states of the country.
Starting in the 16th century, sugarcane grown on plantations along the northeast coast —called engenhos—became the base of Brazilian economy and society; these relied on slaves to make sugar for export to Europe. At first, settlers tried to enslave the natives as labor to work the fields. However, colonists were unable to sustainably enslave Natives, and Portuguese landowners soon imported millions of slaves from Africa. Mortality rates for slaves in sugar and gold enterprises were very high, and there were often not enough females or proper conditions to replenish the slave population. Still, Africans became a substantial section of Brazilian population; and, long before the end of slavery in 1888, they began to merge with the European Brazilian population through interracial marriage.
The indigenous people of Brazil were in a very unique position. The Brazilian rainforest was dense and provided limited means of agricultural production. This meant that there were few large tribes, instead, most of Brazil’s indigenous populations were smaller and had limited resources. When the Portuguese arrived, they had no clear laws about protections of the indigenous peoples. These two factors meant that the indigenous people were in a unique position in the Portuguese system. The settlers wanted to use the indigenous people as labor, but when the Portuguese came to make them laborers the indigenous people could escape and live outside of the Portuguese system, where Portugal could not find them.
The Gold Rush
The discovery of gold in Brazil was met with great enthusiasm by Portugal, which had an economy in disarray following years of wars against Spain and the Netherlands. A gold rush quickly ensued, with people from other parts of the colony and Portugal flooding the region in the first half of the 18th century. The large portion of the Brazilian inland where gold was extracted became known as the Minas Gerais (General Mines). Gold mining in this area became the main economic activity of colonial Brazil during the 18th century. In Portugal, the gold was mainly used to pay for industrialized goods (textiles, weapons) obtained from countries like England, as well as to build magnificent monuments like the Convent of Mafra, especially during the reign of King John V.
The discovery of gold in the area caused a huge influx of European immigrants and the government decided to bring in bureaucrats from Portugal to control operations. They set up numerous bureaucracies, often with conflicting duties and jurisdictions. The officials generally proved unequal to the task of controlling this highly lucrative industry. In 1830, the Saint John d’El Rey Mining Company, controlled by the British, opened the largest gold mine in Latin America. The British brought in modern management techniques and engineering expertise. Located in Nova Lima, the mine produced ore for 125 years.
Gold production declined towards the end of the 18th century, beginning a period of relative stagnation of the Brazilian hinterland.
The Portuguese system of colonization followed key ideas of using technology to find regions, and the school of Prince Henry the Navigator provided a key resource for the Portuguese establishment of a “I mapped it, I own it” mentality. The Portuguese need for labor in their newly founded colonies meant that they started the establishment of the slave system that other countries would further use to almost the end of the 19th century. Brazil was the biggest colonial establishment of Portugal. The Portuguese attempted to first use the indigenous population as a source of labor. This did not work, because of the harsh conditions, the indigenous populations quickly disappeared into the woods and were not able to be found by settlers. This meant that the Portuguese had a very similar problem in Brazil that they had in the Canaries and Azores island: how to get laborers for the sugar plantations. The solution that the Portuguese arrived at was the introduction of African slaves in 1530 CE. In 1550 CE, sugar was introduced to Brazil. Sugar revolutionized the Brazilian economy. Brazil was almost a perfect site to produce sugar, with significant rainfall, tropical heat, and fertile soils in the northeastern corner of Brazil. The production of sugar skyrocket and so too did the need for labor. This meant that the Brazilian economy soared and sugar was a central tenant of the Portuguese integration of the Brazilians. While sugar was the big economic product, so too was gold that was found further south in Mateo Grosso. Throughout the 15th into the 17th centuries the centers of the Brazilian economy was gold, sugar, and coffee.
Attributions
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Capitanias.jpg
Boundless World History
https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-worldhistory/the-age-of-discovery/
Work based around the ideas of Patricia Seed: Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640