The Wood-Beach at Recife: A Contribution to the Economic History of Brazil

1949 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 209-233
Author(s):  
Robert C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Red Dye

The cutting and shipment of wood is one of the oldest and most important aspects of Brazilian trade with Portugal. The rich red dye produced from the tree called pau brasil or Brazil wood was esteemed so highly that at first it outweighed in importance all other products of the colony. Most historians agree that the very name of Brazil is derived from this wood. Guarded as a royal monopoly throughout the colonial period, the wood trade ranked with the sugar, tobacco and gold of Brazil as one of the principal sources of revenue of the Portuguese crown. When woods for building were added to the exportation of pau brasil, the trade assumed a new importance, for these woods furnished the mother country with the sinews both of war and commerce, providing the hulls and masts of countless vessels that defended and brought together the distant domains of the Portuguese empire.

The Wood-Beach at Recife: A Contribution to the Economic History of Brazil

1949 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-233
Author(s):  
Robert C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Red Dye

The cutting and shipment of wood is one of the oldest and most important aspects of Brazilian trade with Portugal. The rich red dye produced from the tree called pau brasil or Brazil wood was esteemed so highly that at first it outweighed in importance all other products of the colony. Most historians agree that the very name of Brazil is derived from this wood. Guarded as a royal monopoly throughout the colonial period, the wood trade ranked with the sugar, tobacco and gold of Brazil as one of the principal sources of revenue of the Portuguese crown. When woods for building were added to the exportation of pau brasil, the trade assumed a new importance, for these woods furnished the mother country with the sinews both of war and commerce, providing the hulls and masts of countless vessels that defended and brought together the distant domains of the Portuguese empire.

More about the Wood-Beach at Recife

1954 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-78
Author(s):  
Robert C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Major Element ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Government ◽  
Tropical Woods ◽  
Storage Place

In the october, 1949, issue of THE AMERICAS the present writer published an article on the wood-beach at Recife in Brazil as it existed in late colonial days. To this the editor very kindly added the subtitle “A Contribution to the Economic History of Brazil.” Since the article appeared I have received a number of communications from historians in Brazil and in Portugal who commented with such interest upon the subject that I feel justified in soliciting more space in THE AMERICAS in order to present a discovery I have recently made. Since it concerns the authorship of the extraordinary watercolor around which the article was written, it is of vital importance to the subject.The old wood-beach in the harbor of Recife, the capital of the rich colonial captaincy of Pernambuco, was the storage place for the valuable shipments of tropical woods to Portugal and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, which constituted a major element in Brazilian eighteenth-century trading. In the Arquivo Militar of Rio de Janeiro there is a view of the area showing in great detail the warehouse, the government and other buildings that surrounded it, as well as men working on the shore and loading ships that lie at anchor in the harbor. This watercolor, which was published in THE AMERICAS, is signed by José de Oliveira Barbosa and dated 1788. The author gave as his only identification the phrase “of the Regiment of Olinda.” Since an examination of the records of this regiment in the year 1788, which are now at the Arquivo Histórico Colonial in Lisbon, failed to show Barbosa’s name among the officers, I reached the conclusion that at that time the man did not have the rank of officer and so stated in my article.

scholarly journals Federal Aspects of Preferential Trade in the British Empire

1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. D. Allin
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Commercial Policy ◽  
New Era ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The battle over the Corn Laws was fought out in Great Britain as a domestic issue. But it had nevertheless a great imperial significance. During the mercantilistic régime the colonies had been regarded as a commercial appanage of the mother country. The victory of the free traders opened up a new era in the economic history of the empire. The colonies were released from the irksome restrictions of the Navigation Laws. They acquired the right to frame their own tariffs with a view to their own particular interests. In short, they ceased to be dependent communities and became self-governing states.But the emancipation of the colonies was by no means complete. The home government still claimed the right to control their tariff policies. The colonies were privileged, indeed, to arrange their tariff schedules according to local needs; but it was expected that their tariff systems would conform to the fiscal policy of the mother land. The free traders, no less than the mercantilists, were determined to maintain the fiscal unity of the empire. There was still an imperial commercial policy; its motif only had been changed from protection to free trade. The colonies were still bound to the fiscal apron strings of the mother country; but the strings were no longer so short, nor the knots so tight as they had formerly been.

Lucian as Social Satirist

1961 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 199-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Dio Chrysostom ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Actual Participation

This paper owes its inspiration to a remark made by Professor M. Rostovtzeff; in a note in his Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire on the widespread social unrest of the first two centuries A.D., having cited other literary authorities such as Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, etc., he writes: ‘The social problem as such, the cleavage between the poor and the rich, occupies a prominent place in the dialogues of Lucian; he was fully aware of the importance of the problem.’ No one, as far as I know, has attempted to collect and discuss the main passages in Lucian on this topic, and the latest writer on this aspect of Lucian reaches a conclusion quite opposed to Rostovtzeff and one which I believe to be wholly misleading. The aim of this paper is to collect and discuss the main references in Lucian to the social problem interpreting them in the light of Lucian's life and background, and the social and economic conditions of his age. In particular I shall stress the importance of the Cynic tradition as it bears on Lucian's attitude, but shall endeavour to show that this tradition is firmly rooted in practical politics and actual participation in social revolutionary movements and goes far beyond the repetition of mere ethical cliches generally ascribed to it.

The “Orient” in the “New World”: The Carreira da Índia and the Flows between Asia and Portuguese America

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 32-50
Author(s):  
Jorge Lúzio
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
Asian People ◽  
Brazilian Ports

The history of Brazil in its colonial period is characterized by the movement of Asian people, goods, and merchandise radiating from Brazilian ports that received ships via the Carreira da Índia, the main sea route integrating the Portuguese Empire both commercially and politically. Asian memory and imagination were present in the urban centres of the Portuguese American colonies in the form of cultural material before the actual presence of Asians, which began to occur through cycles of immigration into Brazilian lands during the nineteenth century. This article traces the circulation of ivory carvings from Asia into Portuguese America as a way of illustrating the presence of Asian material cultures in the New World, as well as the relevance of the Carreira da Índia to these cultural connections.

An Economic History of Tropical Africa: Vol. 2, The Colonial Period

1978 ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Peter Kilby ◽  
Z. A. Konczacki ◽  
J. M. Konczacki
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
History Of

The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Comparative Economic History

1965 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dauril Alden
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Global History ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Limited Experience ◽  
Modern Chemical ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Brazil ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Indigo Production

Not long ago an authority on dyeing observed that “in the history of the dyeing industry indigo holds a unique place by reason of its irresistible rise to supremacy among dyestuffs and its equally rapid dethronement by the modern chemical colors. …” Among the sources of this once flourishing industry, one that has never been studied adequately is that of colonial Brazil. Commercial indigo production began there in the early 1760's, but after an impressive start the industry disappeared within less than two generations. Its beginnings occurred at a time when Portugal, like other imperial powers of that era, was seeking to diversify the agriculture of her colonies so as to make them more lucrative to the mother country. A study of the industry's brief tenure in Portugal's most important colony reveals some of the problems that confronted its planters, merchants, and royal officials as they attempted, with limited experience and inadequate supporting capital, to develop new sources of income during a period of keen international economic rivalry. The factors involved in the rise and decline of the Brazilian indigo industry can best be appreciated when it is examined as part of the global history of indigo production and trade between the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Rostovtzeff's “Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World”

1943 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-81
Author(s):  
Jacob Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
State Control ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The People ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
Fixed Prices ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Masses

Systems resembling modern étatisme can be traced to antiquity. So can other measures: planned economy in various fields, monopolies with their fixed prices and other burdens, forms of state control which benefited the state or particular individuals, but which compromised the best interests of the people. On the other hand, paying salaries to the poor, unemployed citizens to avert the outbreak of social revolutions, “soaking the rich” by excessive and even ruinous taxation were among the economic measures known to the ancient world also. So were other present-day phenomena: the presence of “haves and have-nots,” inflation, strikes, and the low purchasing power of the masses.

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