A Short History of Brazil
Brazil was first inhabited around 10,000 BCE and the people survived as hunter-gatherers but started to farm around 1000 BCE using a slash and burn technique. The land, however, was exhausted very quickly, forcing the farmers to move on.
Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese explorer, discovered Brazil by accident in 1500 and a year later, more explorers returned but the Portuguese had little interest in the land. Trading posts were set up to sell wood. Interest by the French in the area forced the Portuguese to found a colony in Sao Vincente in 1530 to assert their claim to the land. Two years later, Brazil was divided into fifteen areas and the land given to Portuguese nobles on the grounds that they encourage settlers to move to Brazil. This didn’t work so the country was united in 1549 and Salvador was named the capital. Over the next two centuries, Brazil became one of the biggest producers of sugar.
The Portuguese claim to Brazil was tested by the Dutch and French and all attacks were successfully repulsed. As the nation moved into the 18th century, sugar waned but gold was discovered and this promoted settlement inland. By the time the gold waned, other staples like cotton and cocoa were on the rise. In 1763, Rio became the capital. In 1808, it would become the capital of the Portuguese empire when Napoleon invaded Portugal and the king fled to Brazil. The result was a construction and population boom in the capital and the king opened up Brazil’s economy to the world.
The king returned to Portugal in 1820 but left his son, Dom Pedro, in charge. A year later, he was recalled to Portugal but the Brazilians convinced him to stay. In 1822, he severed relations with Portugal and declared Brazil to be an independent country. In 1825, Portugal recognized the new nation.
Instability followed and Dom Pedro abdicated in favour of his son who was only five years old. The power vacuum that resulted saw a number of revolutions but Dom Pedro II was still crowned in 1840 at the age of 14 and was able to restore order and the country prospered as the coffee and rubber industries boomed.
Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay fought and won a major war with Paraguay from 1864-70 and in 1889, the army overthrew the Brazilian monarchy and the country became a republic. Over the following decades, an influx of immigrants from Europe and Japan arrived and the economy prospered. The Depression in Brazil, however, led to a revolution and Getulio Vargas was installed by the army as president in 1937.
Brazil joined the Second World war in 1942 and Brazilians fought in Italy. When the war ended, Vargas was forced to resign and elections took place. Vargas would win the second election in 1950 but by 1954, his policies were not helping an ailing economy and the army went looking for his resignation. Vargas shot himself instead.
In 1960, the Brazilian capital was moved to Brasilia and four years later, an ailing economy resulted in another coup
The army leadership was repressive but the economic prospered into the 1970s, although the wage gap left a poor poorer. In 1985, the army allowed an election for president hoping it would control the outcome but in the end, the new president, Tancredo Neves, declared Brazil a republic once again. Neves died shortly afterwards and a period of instability plagued the nation for another decade. However, in the new century, the Brazilian economy has surged to make it one of the strongest in the world with the production of coffee, sugar, beef, cars, aircraft as well as gold and precious stones. Today, Brazil is the world’s eighth largest economy and largest Portuguese speaking nation in the world (and the only one in South America). It has a population of two hundred million. In 2016, Rio is scheduled to host the summer Olympic Games but political instability and other issues have Brazilians calling for the impeachment of the current president and a recession may plague its success