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Rio Grande do sul in the Portuguese Empire: The Formative Years, 1777-1808

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Rudy Bauss
Rudy Bauss*
Affiliation:
Urca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Extract

This analysis and survey of economic activities in Rio Grande do Sul aim to shed new light on the crucial importance of the southernmost captaincy to overall Brazilian development at the close of the colonial period. Rio Grande do Sul was unique in economic growth, compared to the Center-South, Northeast and North, because the extreme South produced for a variety of markets: the internal Brazilian, the internal Portuguese, the Portuguese reexport to Europe and the Rio de Janeiro reexport to Angola. This market diversification made Rio Grande do Sul less dependent on the commercial vagaries of any particular geographical area. The focus of this article is the importance of economic growth in Rio Grande do Sul prior to 1808.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , April 1983 , pp. 519 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1983 

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References

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20 Seventy-six percent came from Lisbon, twenty-two percent from Madeira and the Azores Islands and two percent from Oporto. José Pereira de Brito to the Crown, de Janeiro, Rio, January 12, 1782, AN/SH, “Correspondência dos vice-reis,” codice 68, Vol. 5, fols. 286–287.Google Scholar

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29 de Azevedo, Thales, Povoamento da cidade do Salvador (Salvador, 1969), p. 239.Google Scholar

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31 The population of Salvador and the Recóncavo totaled approximately 160,000 people in 1780. Allowing for a one percent growth rate in population per year, the population in these areas would have been about 192,000 people in 1800. Dividing the total number of imported arrobas of meat by 192,000 yields the per capita consumption of imported dried meat. “Mapa da enumeração da gentee povo desta capitania da Bahia,…” Salvador, December 5, 1780, ABNRJ, XXXII (1914), 480.

32 Ellis, Myriam, O monopôlio do sal no estado do Brasil, 1631–1801 (São Paulo, 1951), p. 178.Google Scholar

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35 “Dados estatísticos sobre a capitanía de Santa Catharina, …,” Jode Miranda Ribeiro, ão Alberto, Desterro (present day Florianópolis), November 17, 1797, BN/SM, 11–35, 30, 3, doc. 17.Google Scholar

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37 Relação de fazendas e gêneros que se despacharam pelas mesas da abertura e balança desta cidade do de Janeiro, Rio, AN/ SH, “Correspondencia dos vice-reis,” codice 68, Vol. 15, fols. 258-v-259 and Vol. 18, fol. 160v.Google Scholar

38 The quantities of exports from Rio Grande do Sul are available for the period from 1805 to 1822. The monetary value of these products is only given from 1816 to 1822. Chaves, , “Memórias econômico-políticas,” RIHGRGS, 2 (1922), 92–140.Google Scholar

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60 Taking the export average of 1,123,000,000 réis (320,000 pounds sterling) for the period 1804-1807 and dividing by a population figure of 44,500 yields an annual per capita export value of approximately 25,250 réis (about 7 pounds sterling). In 1805 imports totaled approximately 1,060,000,000 réis (300,000 pounds sterling). Dividing by the population of 44,500 produces an annual per capita import value of around 23,800 réis (6.8 pounds sterling). Since exports and imports were large and the population of Rio Grande do Sul so small in comparison to other areas, no other Brazilian captaincy could approach the annual per capital figures. Magalhães, , “Almanak,” RIHGB, 30 (1867), 73 Google Scholar; “Balanço da importação e exportação da capitania do Rio Grande do Sul no ano de 1805,” IHGB, lata 8, doc. 29.