Brazil is one of my favorite destinations. To start this forum off, I thought I would share a bit of history with you.
Oz
Brazil - Land Of Mystery
Brazil, South America’s largest economy, has a rich history steeped in mystery, dating back more than 8,000 years when the first Native American’s chose to settle on its warm shores.
Where exactly these Native American’s came from is a subject of debate by archaeologists. Many feel they were migrant hunters who came into the Americas from Siberia, across the Bering Strait. Others believe they arrived much earlier and argue that archaeological evidence suggests they were genetically distinct from the Asian hunters. Instead, they argue, they were African and Australian natives, who were later killed by displaced or absorbed by the Siberians.
Most modern historians agree that by the 15th Century most of the country was inhabited by nomadic tribes that lived on hunting and fishing, from the nation’s rich bounty.
No one agrees on when Brazil was discovered by Europeans. Some claims state that the nation was first explored as early as the 1300s, but the official history of Brazil claims that it was really first claimed by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500.
What is known is that there were no Portuguese settlements until 1532 when Sao Vincente was incorporated south of the Tropic of Capricorn. During the 1600s, the Dutch tried to stake a claim on the country in Recife in the northeast corner of the country, but were quickly driven out.
In the mid 1500s the Pope helped negotiate the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided South America into Spanish and Portuguese territories – in an attempt to prevent war over the land of the New World.
The French at one point tried to violate the treaty and annex Rio de Janeiro as part of the French Empire, but they were soon ousted and the city was returned to Portuguese rule.
To date, Portuguese is still the official language of Brazil, making the country something of an anomaly in South America.
The Portuguese were interested in the country because of the plentiful supply of Brazilwood and sugarcane – both immensely popular on the European trading routes.
For most of the 1500s the Colonial governors ran Brazil under a feudal system that rewarded their friends with large blocks of land in which to grow sugar and Brazilwood.
At first these feudal lords tried to enslave the native population to become their farmhands. The natives proved difficult to domesticate, however, so in short order they decided to bring slaves over from Africa – who proved to be far easier to manage.
During the 16th and 18th centuries most of the native population was killed or bred out of existence, while hordes of African slaves were brought in for manual labor. It is the mix of African and Portuguese blood that gives Brazilians their unique and beautiful skin tones.
It was on Sept. 7 of 1822 that the country declared its independence from its Colonial masters and set itself up as a constitutional monarchy. This system of government was not destined to last and in 1889 a coup d’etat established the first Republican government.
In the 19th Century, coffee started to gradually replace sugarcane as the nation’s chief export. To this day Brazil is known for growing some of the best coffee beans in the world.
It was also at this time that word of the beautiful beaches and mountains of Brazil started reaching normal Europeans. This resulted in a huge influx of immigrants from both Germany and Italy.
The German and Italian influence is still very strong to this day.
Brazil is also known for rarely extraditing criminals back to First World Countries –so the nation has become a haven for various exiles from around the world.
The nation is also known as the birthplace of the thong bikini – and this is perhaps why women, who have their pubic region waxed, refer to the procedure as “A Brazilian.” After all, if one is going to wear a thong, one must make sure that you first remove any unsightly hair.
The nation has alternated between democracy and dictatorship ever since. The last dictator was overthrown in 1985 and there has been some form of elected – though sometimes contested – government to this day.
The darkest part of Brazil’s history began in 1964 and ran until 1985. Concerned about the spread of Worldwide Communism, the CIA helped establish a right wing Pro-America government in Brazil in 1964. This government was known for torturing, killing and imprisoning large sections of the population.
Blanket censorship laws were also put into place that led to many artists fleeing the country to avoid prison and/or death squads.
It is widely accepted that for most of its history the real rulers of Brazil have been oligarchs – for the most part rich farmers who have been able to use their money to influence nearly all parts of life in this enormous nation.
While this has crated some sense of stability, it has also meant that there is a small wealthy ruling class and then a much larger group of very impoverished people, with almost no middle class.
Brazil has a divide between the rich and poor that is almost unknown in the rest of the world. This h as benefited the wealthy farmers, who have had a nearly limitless supply of cheap labor, but been a cancer on the poor, who live in a country that lacks basic infrastructure, social protections and long term economic hope.
For most of its history, Brazil has been plagued by runaway inflation that has discouraged even basic savings practices. The government tried to fix this in 1994 by introducing a new currency, the Real. This measure worked for a brief period of time, until the currency was devastated by the Asian financial crisis of 1999.
The Real was then devalued and the nation sunk deeper into poverty, despite a $41.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
This led to union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva being elected president in 2003 by promising to reform the system. Alas, his government has been plagued by a series of corruption scandals. The good news is that the court system, for the first time in its history, seems to be taking the scandals seriously and there is some promise of reform in the coming years.
This may be small comfort to the millions of poor people who live in Brazil – the fifth most populous country in the world.
Today more than one in four people in Brazil live on less than one dollar a day. The minimum wage of Brazil is still less than $125 a month – leaving many people unable to ever get ahead.
Of course this is great for the farmers, who are able to grow and export coffee cheaply, because their labor costs are next to nothing.
Under Lula, many social investment programs have been devastated in an effort to pay off some of the country’s massive debt obligations. He has cut retirement benefits and changed the tax code. That said, Lulu did create the Zero Hunger program, which promises every Brazilian three meals a day.
Still, the poor here have always been exploited – the sugar fields and gold mines of the Colonial Era were so dangerous and deadly that the Portuguese had to continually import new slaves – who generally died before they could reproduce and naturally augment their population.
When the slaves tried to revolt and create their own colonies several hundred years ago, they were quickly destroyed by merciless artillery.
What the future holds for Brazil is a mystery. Still, it is a welcome place for tourists, who love to lounge on its beautiful beaches and explore its mountains and vistas – while paying less than they would in almost any part of the First World.
