How the Portuguese Influenced Brazil

I.What impact did the Portuguese have on Brazil’s language?

After further exploration, the Portuguese grew dissatisfied with the agreement when they realized how much more land Spain had been given. In June of 1494 the line was re-negotiated and the agreement was officially ratified during a meeting in the Spanish town of Tordesillas. The Treaty of Tordesillas re-established the line 370 leagues (1,770 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal was only given possession of Brazil. Portugal pushed over the next several hundred years to move the border of Brazil westward.

b. The Treaty of Tordesillas was agreed upon by the Spanish and the Portuguese to clear up confusion on newly claimed land in the New World. In order make trade more efficient, Portugal attempted to find a direct water route to the India and China. After Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, conflict over land claims by Spain and Portugal arose. The Portuguese also wanted to protect their monopoly on the trade route to Africa and felt threatened. On May 4, 1493 Pope Alexander VI issued a decree which established an imaginary line running north and south through the mid-Atlantic, 100 leagues (480 km) from the Cape Verde islands. Spain would have possession of any unclaimed territories to the west of the line and Portugal would have possession of any unclaimed territory to the east of the line.

a. Brazil was by far Portugal's largest colony by area and population. Brazil was reached by the Portuguese in 1500. Due to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Portugal was allowed to colonize Brazil. The Portuguese imported African slaves and forced them to grow sugar, tobacco, cotton, coffee, and other cash crops. The Portuguese also extracted brazilwood from the rainforest, which was used to dye European textiles. The Portuguese helped to explore and settle the vast interior of Brazil. In the 19th century, the royal court of Portugal lived in and governed both Portugal and Brazil from Rio de Janeiro. Brazil gained independence from Portugal in 1822.

How did the Portuguese come to influence Brazil and what did they do to influence Brazil?

Today, Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, and is spoken by more than 99% of the population. Language is one of the strongest elements of Brazil's national unity. Within Brazil, there is no major dialect variation of the Portuguese, but only moderate regional variation in accent, vocabulary, and use of personal nouns, pronouns, and verb conjugations.The only non-Portuguese speakers are members of Amerindian groups, and pockets of immigrants who maintain their heritage languages. The written language, which is uniform across Brazil, follows national rules of spelling and accentuation that are revised from time to time for simplification. They are slightly different than the rules in Portugal.

c. in 1500 navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in what is now Brazil and laid claim to it in the name of King Manuel I of Portugal. The Portuguese soon began taking brazilwood from the rainforest for its valuable wood and for the red dye that could be used from it. Between 1500 and 1530, very little Portuguese expeditions went to chart the new land and extract brazilwood. As time progressed, the Portuguese realized that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to Brazil to extract brazilwood. Worried about them taking away land and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and combat the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived to patrol the entire coast, ban the French, and to create the first colonial villages, like São Vicente, at the coast. At first, Brazil was set up as fifteen private, hereditary captaincies. Only two succeeded.

By Husai Lopez 4A

II.How did the Portuguese leave Brazil?

b. The Constitutional Revolution- Due to the Napoleonic wars, the king of Portugal moved to Rio de Janeiro and commanded from there. In 1820, portuguese liberal constitutionalists initiated the Constitutional Revolution. This lead to the Constituent Assembly’s (also known as the Cortes) to create the first constitution of the Kingdom and to demand the return of King Dom João VI from Brazil. He eventually did return to Portugal and his son took his place in Brazil. The Cortes however, held the power in Portugal and were hostile towards Brazil, even returning its status to that of a colony.

a. Avilez Rebellion- The Brazilians and the prince Dom Pedro did not agree with this. In the summer of 1821, Portuguese troops, known as the Legion took power in Rio under their commander General Jorge de Avilez. The Portuguese government ordered Pedro to return to Portugal, but the crown prince defied the command on what became known as the Dia do Fico, meaning, “I will remain.” In January of 1822, General de Avilez sent his troops to findPedro and send him to Portugal. Meanwhile, Pedro prepared a force of his own to fight the Avilez's troops. After a brief but tense standoff, de Avilez withdrew his men to their forts, with Pedro after them. Pedro gathered more supporters and surrounded the forts, demanding the Legion return to Portugal. Eventually, Avilez surrendered and left Brazil on Pedro's terms.

a. Independence from the Brazilian Empire- Pedro then concentrated on making a stable government. He was helped by the professor/poet, Dr. José Bonafácio de Andrada e Silva, Bonafácio, who rallied support from Freemasons for complete independence from Portugal. Meanwhile, Pedro traveled Brazil gathering supporters. He was met by a messenger who told him that the Portuguese government was against an independent Brazil and that troops would be sent to restore order. Furious, Pedro tore off the Portuguese insignia from his uniform and ordered his guards to do the same. He drew his sword and called for complete separation from Portugal in his Cry of Ipiranga, “by the blood that flows in my veins and upon my honour, I swear to God to free Brazil!”

d. The War for Independence- Brazil and Portugal fought from February 1822 to November 1823. In a newly created army and navy the Brazilians had forced enlistment including foreign immigrants. They also made use of slaves in militias as well as freeing slaves to enlist them in army and navy. The Portuguese could only neutralize militias in a few cities and most other main cities and countryside guerillas prevailed. Thomas Cochrane led the Brazilian navy. At first the navy was not a success due to sabotage from the high number of Portuguese in the crews, but in 1823 their navy was reformed. The Portuguese members, replaced by freed slaves, white men forced to enlist, and foreign mercenaries, rid the coast of Portuguese and isolated the ones on land. Eventually, the Portuguese surrendered and Brazil was finally recognized as an independent nation by Portugal in 1825.

III.What customs or values did the Portuguese leave behind?

b. Religion- Brazil has the world's largest Roman Catholic population, which was introduced among the Native Brazilians by Jesuits missionaries and also observed by all the Portuguese first settlers. During colonial times, there was no freedom of religion. All Portuguese settlers and Brazilians were bound to the Roman Catholic faith and forced to pay taxes to the church. After the Brazilian independence, the first constitution introduced freedom of religion in 1824, but Roman Catholicism was kept as the official religion. Because of slavery brought to Brazil, the African religions were also brought over, influencing other religions to form mixes.

a. Slavery in Brazil- Slavery in Brazil started with the indigenous population then later the African importation. This basically shaped the country's social structure and ethnic variety. Slavery was used in mining, cotton, and sugar cane production. Brazil obtained an estimated 35% of all enslaved Africans traded in the Atlantic slave trade. More than 3 million Africans were sent to Brazil to work mainly on sugar cane plantations from the 16th to the 19th century, far more than were imported into North America. Slavery was finally abolished in Brazil on 13 May 1888. It was the last nation in the Western world to do so.

c. Architecture- Brazilian architecture in the colonial period was heavily influenced by the Portuguese Manueline style. This style is a decorative style characterized by virtuoso complex ornamentation in portals, windows, columns and arcades.

Goa, a former Portuguese colony was ruled by the Portuguese till December 1961. The smallest state in India, also influenced Brazil's architecture.

Goan artisans were hired to build churches and other important monuments in Brazil and they left a big impact on the architecture.

The Juscelino Kubitschek bridge in Brasília, by Alexandre Chan and Mário Vila Verde

IV.Christopher Columbus and the New World (World History)

a. Columbus’s time in Portugal- Christopher Columbus shipwrecked in Portugal in 1476. Columbus courted Felipa Moniz Perestrello, whose father had been an Atlantic island colonizer before his death. When they married in 1478, Columbus moved up into a noble family with access to the Portuguese court. In 1480 he used his wife's deceased father's charts and documents describing the Atlantic voyages. With his brother Bartholomew, who had come to Lisbon, he began to produce and sell marine charts. During his time in Portugal, he learned open-ocean navigation, and to read the great oceanic wind system. In late 1483 or early 1484, he approached John II, the Portuguese king, for ships and men to undertake the Atlantic voyage, offering to find Cipangu and India. The king turned him down thinking the distance was greater than what Columbus predicted. With his wife's death in the early 1480's and the rejection of his proposal, he left his career in Portugal.

b. The spice trade in Asia- Spices were an important component of ancient commerce even before the 15th-century, but were monopolized for centuries by Middle Eastern and North African peoples who guarded the Asian provenance of their valuable goods and became very rich for it. Europe was without access to eastern sources and the power to contest the expensive prices. At one point in the 1300s, when taxes were at their highest, a pound of nutmeg in Europe cost seven fattened oxen and was a more valuable than gold. By the 1400s, when navigational equipment had improved to the point that long-haul sailing became possible, the kings and queens of Europe wanted to change the balance of world trade by funding spice-hunting missions of their own. Christopher Columbus who, in searching for a quicker route to India, bumped into the Americas instead.

V.Why did conquistadors feel the need to go to the New World? (World History)

VI.Why did the Portuguese begin to arrive in the New World? (World History)

In 1415, Portugal conquered Ceuta, its first overseas colony. Throughout the 15th century, Portuguese explorers sailed the coast of Africa, establishing trading posts for tradable goods such as firearms, spices, silver, gold, and slaves, in a round route to Japan, crossing Africa, India, China and Korea. In 1434 the first consignment of slaves was brought to Lisbon; slave trading was the most profitable branch of Portuguese commerce until India was reached. One important reason was the need for alternatives to the expensive eastern trade routes that followed the Silk Road. The gold brought home from Guinea stimulated the commercial energy of the Portuguese. Apart from their religious and scientific aspects, these voyages of discovery were highly profitable. They had benefited from Guinea's connections with surrounding Iberians and north African Muslim states. Because of these connections, mathematicians and experts in naval technology appeared in Portugal. Portuguese and foreign experts made several breakthroughs in the fields of mathematics, cartography and naval technology.

a. A route to Asia- The Portuguese, along with many other countries were in search of a shorter route to Asia due to the spice trade. When the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed by the Pope, the Portuguese argued that they had gotten a very small amount of land. The more land they could have, the higher the chance of finding a waterway to Asia.

b. Sugar production- The first sugarcane farms were made 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 (1530-1700) is known as the "Sugarcane Cycle" in Brazilian history.

c. Gold- After having fought Spain and the Netherlands in war, Portugal's economy was in need of help. The large portion of the Brazilian inland where gold was extracted became known as the Minas Gerais (General Mines). This became Brazil's main economic activity in the 18th century and a gold rush emerged, bringing people from many places to mine for gold. In Portugal, the gold was mainly used to pay for industrialized goods (textiles, weapons) obtained from countries like England and to build Baroque monuments like the Convent of Mafra.

Napoleon also played a small role when he invaded Portugal. In consequence, the Prince-Regent, Queen and the entire Royal Family boarded ships concentrated on the Tagus, along with many rich merchants, the administration, judges and servants, on fifteen ships and escorted by English ships. Approximately 10,000 people, including the entire governmental apparatus, joined the Royal Family as they moved to Brazil: a de facto colonial possession of Portugal, establishing the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Rio de Janeiro.

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