Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/275

Rh marriages had taken place beween the Indians of the district and the colonists, A hardy and enterprising race of men had sprung from this mixture, who, iirst searching whether their new country were rich in metals, soon began adventurous raids into the interior, making excursions also against the remote Indian tribes with a view to obtaining slaves, and from the year 1629 onwards repeatedly attacked the Indian reductions of the Jesuits in Paraguay, although both provinces were then nominally subject to the crown of Spain. Other bands penetrated into Minas and still farther north and westward, discovering mines there and in Goyaz and Cuyaba. New colonies were thus formed round those districts in which gold had been found, and in the beginning of the 18th century five principal settlements in Minas Geraes had been elevated by royal charter to the privileges of towns. In 1720 this district was separated from Sao Paulo, to which it had previously been dependent. As early as 1618 a code of laws for the regulation of the mining industry had been drawn up by Philip III., the executive and judicial functions in the mining districts being vested in a jwovedor, and the fiscal in a treasurer, who re ceived the royal fifths and superintended the weighing of all the gold, rendering a yearly account of all discoveries and produce. For many years, however, these laws were little more than a dead letter. The same infatuated passion for mining speculation which had characterized the Spanish settlers in South America now began to actuate the Portuguese; labourers and capital were drained off to the mining districts, and Brazil, which had hitherto in great measure supplied Europe with sugar, sank before the competition of the English and French. A new source of wealth was now opened up ; some adventurers from Villa do Principe in Minas, going north to the Seria Friiy, made the discovery of diamonds about the year 1710, but it was not till 1730 that the discovery was for the first time announced to the Government, which immediately declared them regalia. While the population of Brazil continued to increase, the moral and intellectual culture of its inhabitants was left in great measure to chance ; they grew up with those robust and healthy sentiments which are engendered by the absence of false teachers, but with a repugnance to legal ordinances, and. encouraged in their ascendency over the Indians to habits of violence and oppression. The Jesuits from the first moment of their landing in Brazil had constituted themselves the protectors of the natives, and though strenuously opposed by the colonists and ordinary clergy, had gathered the Indians together in many aldeas, over which officials of their order exercised spiritual and temporal authority. A more efficacious stop, however, was put to the persecution of the Indians by the importation of large numbers of negroes from the Portuguese possessions in Africa, these being found more active and serviceable than the native tribes. The Portuguese Government, under the administration of Carvalho, afterwards marquis of Pombal, attempted to extend to Brazil the bold spirit of innovation which directed all his efforts. The proud minister had been resisted in his plans of reform at home by the Jesuits, and, determin ing to attack the power of the order, first deprived them of all temporal power in the state of Maranh&o and Para. These ordinances soon spread to the whole of Brazil, and a pretext being found in the suspicion of Jesuit influence in some partial revolts of the Indian troops on the Rio Negro, the order was expelled from Brazil under circum stances of great severity in 1760. The Brazilian Company founded by Vieyra, which so materially contributed to pre serve its South American possessions to Portugal, had been abolished in 1721 by Jofio V.; but such an instrument being well suited to the bold spirit of Pombal, he established a chartered company again in 1755, to trade exclusively with Maranhao and Para ; and in 1759, in spite of the remonstrance of the British Factory at Lisbon, formed another company for Paraiba and Pernambuco. Pombal s arrangements extended also to the interior of the country, where he extinguished at once the now indefinite and oppressive claims of the original donatories of the cap taincies, and strengthened and enforced the regulations of the mining districts. The policy of many of Pombal s measures is more than questionable ; but his admission of all races to equal rights in the eye of the law, his abolition of feudal privileges, and the firmer organization of the powers of the land which he introduced, power fully co-operated towards the development of the capabilities of Brazil. Yet on the death of his king and patron in 1777, when court intrigue forced him from his high station, he who had done so much for his country s institutions was reviled on all hands. The most important feature in the history of Brazil during the first thirty years following the retirement of Pombal was the conspiracy of Minas in 1789. The suc cessful issue of the recent revolution of the English colonies in North America had filled the minds of some of the more educated youth of that province ; and in imitation, a pro ject to throw off the Portuguese yoke was formed, a cavalry officer, Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tira-dentes (tooth- drawer), being the chief conspirator. But the plot being discovered during their inactivity, the conspirators were banished to Africa, and Tira-dentes, the leader, was hanged. Thenceforward affairs went on prosperously ; the mining districts continued to be enlarged ; the trading companies of the littoral provinces were abolished, but the impulse they had given to agriculture remained. Removed from all communication with the rest of the world except through the mother country, Brazil remained unaffected by the first years of the great revolutionary war in Europe. Indirectly, however, the fate of this isolated country was decided by the consequences of the French Revolution. Brazil is the only instance of a colony becoming the seat of the Government of its own mother country, and this was the work of Napoleon. When he resolved upon the invasion and conquest of Portugal, the Prince Regent, afterwards Dom Joao VI., having no means of resistance, deckled to take refuge in Brazil. He created a regency in Lisbon, and departed for Brazil on the 29th November 1807, accompanied by the Queen Donna Maria I,, the royal family, all the great officers of state, a large part of the nobility, and numerous retainers. They arrived at Bahia on the 21st January 1808, and were received with enthusiasm. The regent was requested to establish there the seat of his government, but a more secure asylum presented itself in Rio de Janeiro, where the royal fugitives arrived on the 7th of March. Before leaving Bahia Don John took the first step to emancipate Brazil, opening its ports to foreign commerce, and permitting the export of all Brazilian produce under any flag, the royal monopolies of diamonds and Brazil-wood excepted. Once established in Rio de Janeiro, the government of the regent was directed to the creation of an administrative machinery for the dominions that remained to him as they existed in Portugal. Besides the ministry which had come with the regent, the council of state, and the departments of the four ministries of home, finances, war, and marine then existing, there were created in the course of one year a supreme court of justice, a board of patronage and administration of the property of the church and military orders, an inferior court of appeal, the court of exchequer and royal treasury, the royal mint, bank of Brazil, royal printing- office, powder-mills on a large scale, and a supreme military court. The maintenance of the court, and the salaries of so large a number of high officials, entailed the 