1840-1889 1914-1918







The First Republic, Pt.I : 1889-1914



The Revolution : In 1889, the Brazilian military staged a coup d'etat, dethroning Pedro II. and ending the monarchy. Brazil was proclaimed a republic, and the institution of slavery was abolished, the separation of church and state proclaimed. The new republic was referred to as trhe United States of Brazil; provinces had become states.

Political Groupings : At the time of the revolution there were two major political forces in Brazil, the Liberals and the Positivists. The Escola Militar (Military Academy) was identified as the origin of positivist thought; positivists believed in a strong central authority; it had been military officers inspired by positivism which had implemented the revolution, the very liberal principles of emancipation of the slaves and of separation of church and state. The Brazilian army was dominated by men from the southernmost Brazilian state, Rio Grande do Sul. The Liberals or Federalists had been associated with the now defunct Empire; the attempts of Presidents Deodoro de Fonseca and Floriano Peixoto to establish a strong central authority failed, the Federalists or Republicans, among whom the Paulistas formed the most influential group, prevailed.
Brazilian political parties developed on state level; here interest groups managed to control politics, the so-called oligarchies, coffee growers being the main lobby in Sao Paulo, mining and the dairy industry in Minas Gerais, cattle and mining in Rio Grande do Sul, the three economically and politically most important states of the federation. Presidents Prudente de Moraes Barros (1894-1898), Manuel Ferraz de Campos Sales (1898-1902) and Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves (1902-1906) were all Paulista Republicans; from then onward Republicans from Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais alternated in office.
Deodoro de Fonseca, a career military officer, had ruled in authoritarian style. Facing an ever-growing opposition, the refusal of parts of the army to obey orders and a potential coup, he resigned in 1891. His opponent and successor Floriano Peixoto ruled in dictatorial style. Rio Grande do Sul experienced a civil war (1892-1893), facing Floriano's supporters and enemies against each other; in 1893 the navy decided to impose a blockade on Rio de Janeiro in order to force Floriano to resign; international forces prevented the blockade to be imposed. The naval officers involved in the blockade, in search for asylum, entered Portuguese vessels and were transported to Argentina.
Floriano was succeeded in 1894 by an elected successor, Prudente de Moraes Barrios. He had to deal with the Canudo Rebellion in the impoverished state of Bahia - bandits gathering around a mystical figure. With Prudente began a series of democratically elected presidents; the coups ceased, rebellions in the provinces became less frequent; Brazil entered an era of political stability, or so it seemed. Only a small elite controlled political power, in the states as well as on federal level. Corruption was notorious. The election of Hermes de Fonseca in 1910 brought political stability to an end; anti-Fonseca coups in several provinces of the north, political unrest in Ceara and the Contestado conflict in area disputed by Parana and Santa Catarina followed.

The Economy : Immediate after the revolution of 1889, the central authority made use of her privilege to print money; during the 1890es, Brazil had an oversupply of capital. The country's leading export product was Coffee, mainly grown in the states of the south, most of all in Sao Paulo. Coffee exports accounted for more than 60 % of Brazil's exports. Decreasing coffee prices in 1897 resulted in a crisis; Brazil was unable to pay her international debts and had to come to an arrangement with her creditor banks. The state government of Sao Paulo undertook steps to raise the coffee price.
Brazil's textile industry grew; the cultivation of cotton was extended.
The export of rubber, tapped from wild trees growing in the Amazon jungle, continued to boom. The city of Manaus, located on the middle Amazon, founded in 1669, suddenly became wealthy. The rubber boom ended suddenly during the Hermes presidency, as cheaper rubber from the Malayan plantations replaced Brazil's rubber on world markets.

Foreign Policy : The revolution meant a shift in Brazil's foreign policy, which hitherto had focussed on Great Britain, and now turned to the United States as her major partner. Relations with Argentina remained sensitive.
The economic importance of rubber lead to intensified conflicts over rain forest territory. The border to Bolivia had been fixed in a treaty of 1867. In 1899, a political adventurer had declared Bolivia's northern rain forest region of ACRE an independent free state and annexed adjacent Peruvian territory. In 1903, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia signed the Treaty of Petropolis, according to which most of Acre was allocated to Brazil, which paid a financial compensation to Bolivia. Similarily, the borders to French Guiana (1897), Colombia (1904/07), Venezuela (1905) were fixed by treaty.

Society : In 1897 the city of Belo Horizonte was founded. Cities such as Rio de Janeiro (688,000 inhabitants in 1900) and Sao Paulo (239,000 inh. in 1900) experienced rapid growth. Brazil saw continuing immigration - 2,724,000 immigrants between 1887 and 1914 - and clearly was the most populated country in South America. The largest groups of immigrants were Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards; late in the 19th century, they were joined by Poles, Russians, then Syrians and Lebanese. Japanese immigrants began to arrive in 1908. More than half of these immigrants settled in the state of Sao Paulo.
In the years 1903 to 1906 campaigns against yellow fever and smallpox were undertaken, drastically reducing the mortality figures attributed to these diseases.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		History of Brazil, from Wikipedia (Engl., Port.)
DOCUMENTS Pierre Denis: from The Coffee Fazenda of Brazil, 1911, from the Modern History Sourcebook
H.M. Tomlinson, The Sea and the Jungle, 1912, a narrative of a Journey from Swansea to Braxil, then up the Amazon, posted by mediaone.net, 594 K
Article Brazil, from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907 edition
Article Brazil, from EB 1911, incomplete
Rebellion in Brazil, in "The Great Round World and What is Gouing on in it", Vol.1 No.22, April 1897, posted by Gutenberg Library Online
REFERENCE Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, Cambridge Concise Histories, 1999
Donald E. Worcester, Brazil, from Colony to World Power, NY : Scribner 1973
Mitsuru Shimpo, Indentured Migrants from Japan, pp.48-50 in : Robin Cohen, The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge : UP 1995, KMLA Lib.Sign. 304.809 C678c
Article : Brazil, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1913 pp.1071-1074 [G]
Article : Brazil, in : Statesman's Year Book 1895 pp.399-409, 1898 pp.399-410, 1901 pp.459-470, 1905 pp.498-510 [G]
Article : Brazil, in : International Year Book 1898 pp.124-129 [G]
Article : Brazil, in : Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events 1894 pp.78-84 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on October 18th 2007

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