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The Impact Of American Flour Imports On Brazilian Wheat Production: 1808-1822
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In 1808 the Portuguese Crown ended centuries of imperial practice by opening Brazilian ports to the direct trade of friendly nations. This new royal policy caused considerable consternation among conservative Portuguese merchants and manufacturers who feared that a flood of foreign imports would drain precious metals out of the empire, and that economically stronger foreign merchants would monopolize Brazilian trade, thus ruining manufacturing in Brazil. Many Brazilian landowners, on the other hand, supported freer trade because they believed it would stimulate production and export of agricultural commodities. Ironically, one Brazilian product that did suffer dramatic decline resulting from the introduction of foreign competition was not a manufactured good, but an agricultural one, wheat.
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References
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30 It has proven impossible to find specific data on United States grain exports to Brazil. Only partial figures representing Philadelphia’s contribution could be collected. Most of the customs house records for Baltimore were lost in a fire early in this century. The Treasury Department only began publishing export data by country and commodity in 1821. These data are available in the New American State Papers—Commerce and Navigation series.
31 Hill to Madison, November 1808, National Archives Microfilm T-432. The difference in quality between flour milled from Rio Grande wheat, and American flour, especially that coming from Baltimore, was primarily a function of moisture content. American farmers grew their wheat in a relatively drier climate. American millers used technology that further reduced the moisture content of the flour they produced. As a result American flour kept much longer in tropical climates than did the domestic Brazilian product. Rio Grande had a damper climate and Brazilian milling was much less efficient. As a result the flour it produced spoiled very quickly. See Sharrer, G. Terry, “Flour Milling in the Growth of Baltimore, 1750–1830,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 71:3 (Fall 1976), 323.Google Scholar
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56 Governor Diogo de Souza to the Conde de Linhares, Pôrto Alegre, July 9, 1811, AHRGS, cod. 4, fol. 304v.
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