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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Dauril Alden
Dauril Alden
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

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.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1965 , pp. 35 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1965

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References

1 Vetterli, W. A., “The History of Indigo,” Ciba Review, No. 85 (Apr. 1951), p. 3,066Google Scholar.

2 Luis Amaral virtually dismisses colonial indigo production with the remark that “O anil não conquistou um lugar entre nossas plantas cultivadas”; Amaral, , História geral da agricultura brasileira … (2d ed.; São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1958), II, 161Google Scholar. Simonsen, Roberto, História econômica do Brasil (1500/1820) (3d ed.; São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1957)Google Scholar, devotes one short paragraph to indigo (p. 373), while Júnior, Caio Prado, História econômica do Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1945)Google Scholar, gives a very brief account of the industry (p. 92). By far the best description is the well-informed and wide-ranging essay published in 1851 by the Visconde de Abrantes, “Qual a origem da cultura e commercio do anil entre nos e quaes as causas do seu progresso e da sua decadencia,” reprinted in Revista do Institute Historico e Geográfico Brasileiro (hereafter cited RIHGB), XV (2d ed.; Rio de Janeiro, 1888), 42–60.

3 During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Portuguese government and its colonial agents encouraged the development of various new fiber, grain, hardwood, and dyestuff industries in Brazil. See D. Alden, “Manoel Luis Vieira: An Entrepreneur in Rio de Janeiro during Brazil's Eighteenth-Century Agricultural Renaissance,” The Hispanic American Historical Review (hereafter cited HAHR), XXXIX (Nov. 1959), 521–37, and sources cited there.

4 I wish to thank Alex Georgiadis and Engel Sluiter, respectively graduate student and member of the History Department of the University of California (Berkeley), and Morris D. Morris of the Department of Economics of the University of Washington for calling my attention to several sources used in this essay that I might otherwise have missed. In addition, I am grateful to Dr. Sluiter for guidance in translating Dutch materials cited in this study, though I am naturally solely responsible for their interpretation.

5 Within the voluminous literature on indigo, see particularly Leggett, William F., Ancient and Medieval Dyes (Brooklyn: Chemical Publishing Co., 1944), pp. 17–31Google Scholar; Beckman, Johann, A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (Rev. tr.; London, 1846), II, 277–79Google Scholar; Vetterli, Ciba Review, No. 85, pp. 3066–71; and the long article by Watt, George in Watt, G. et al. , Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (London, 1890), IV, 383–469Google Scholar. More technical is Perkin, Arthur G. and Everest, Arthur E., The Natural Organic Colouring Matters (New York: Longmans, 1918), pp. 475–524Google Scholar. For some examples of dyemakers' recipes for the preparation of indigo dye, see the fascinating little volume by Mairet, Ethel M., A Book on Vegetable Dyes (Hammersmith, Engl.: D. Pepler, 1916), pp. 65–75Google Scholar.

6 The sources of indigo used in medieval commerce are discussed in Heyd, W., Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-âge (Leipzig, 1886), II, 626–29Google Scholar; see also the subject index.

7 Perhaps the most extensive account of woad is the somewhat romanticized work by Hurry, Jamieson B., The Woad Plant and Its Dye (London: Oxford, 1930)Google Scholar; see also Lauterbach, Fritz, Der Kampf des Waides mit dem Indigo (Leipzig, 1905), Part IGoogle Scholar. For the woad trade between the Mediterranean and England, see Ruddock, Alwyn A., Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270–1600 (Southampton: University College, 1951), pp. 81–82, 214Google Scholar.

8 There is a great deal of information concerning arrivals of indigo cargoes, prices, and shipments from Lisbon to Spain, the Low Countries, and France in J[osé] Gentil da Silva, ed., Marchandises et Finances, II: Lettres de Lisbonne, 1563–1578 (2 vols.; Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1959–1961), especially I, passim, which contains the correspondence of Antonio Gomes and his sons with their customers abroad.

9 See especially Lauterbach, pp. 63–81, and Hurry, ch. xvi.

10 Indigo was also used in Europe as a medicinal for curing diarrhea and nervous and menstrual disorders, but overuse produced nausea and purging. I[saac] Burkill, H., A Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula (London: Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1935), II, 1237Google Scholar.

11 Tiele, P. A., ed., The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies, II, Hakluyt Society, Ser. 1, LXXI (London, 1885), 91Google Scholar. The first edition was published in Holland in 1596, and by 1598 English and German translations had appeared.

12 Gray, Albert, ed., The Voyage of François Pyrard de Leval to the East Indies …, II, Part I, Hakluyt Society, Ser. 1, LXXVII (London, 1888), 246–47Google Scholar. While the English, Dutch, and French used the term indigo (derived from the Latin indicum), the Portuguese and Spanish preferred anil (añil) or, in the sixteenth century a˜ir (derived from the Arab al-nil and the earlier Sanskrit nila).

13 Krishna, Bal[a], Commercial Relations between India and England (1601–1757) (London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1924), pp. 94–96, 155–56, 303, 314–15Google Scholar; see also the index under indigo in Khan, Shafaat Ahmad, East India Trade in the XVIIth Century in its Political and Economic Aspects (London: H. Milford, 1923)Google Scholar.

14 Tapan Raychaudhuri, “Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605–1690,” Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Verhandelingen, Deel 38 (ʼS-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 162–64.

15 “Compendium der Suratse factura's van de versondene retournen en cargasoenen uyt gemelte directie, successive, soon voor ʼt Vaderlant als India, sedert den 3 October 1699 tot den 8 May 1702 incluys, bestaende en kostende als hieronder volgt,” in Pieter van Dam, Beschryvinge van der Oostindische Compagnie, Bk. II, Pt. III, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publication …, No. 83 (ʼS-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1939), 211–12. The Compendium indicates that during the stated thirty-one-month period the Company obtained 390,095-¾ Dutch pounds (Dutch pound = 1.09 English pounds) of indigo from Surat; of this amount, 334,751-¾ came from Agra, while 38,778 came from Chirchees, then considered to be the location of the best indigo. For sources on Javanese indigo, see n. 29 following.

16 For indigo shipments from the island and the mainland to Spain between 1581 and 1616, see Huguette, and Chaunu, Pierre, Séville et l'Atlantique (1504–1650) …, VI2 (Paris: A. Colin, 1956), 988–89Google Scholar.

17 See François Chevalier, “La Formación de los grandes latifundios en México (tierra y sociedad en los siglos xvi y xvii),” in Problemas agrícolas e industriales de México, VIII, No. 1 (Mexico, 1956), 62. Exports from Veracruz ran well over 300,000 pounds a year shortly after this date, but they also included reshipments from Honduras. Chaunu, VI2, 990.

18 N[icolass] W[illelmus] Posthumus, Inquiry into the History of Prices in Holland (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1946), p. 415, table 192Google Scholar.

19 Few areas of indigo production have been studied as carefully as the captaincy general of Guatemala. The three basic investigations are Manuel Rubio Sánchez, “El anil o xiquilite,” Andes de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, XXVI (Sept-Dec. 1952), 313–49Google Scholar; Smith, Robert S., “Indigo Production and Trade in Colonial Guatemala,” HAHR, XXXIX (May 1959), 181–211Google Scholar; and Floyd, Troy S., “Salvadorean Indigo and the Guatemalan Merchants: A Study in Central American Socio-Economic History, 1750–1800” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1959)Google Scholar. The first is based mainly upon Guatemalan archival sources, while the latter two rely chiefly upon Spanish archives.

20 For indigo planting in the Guianas, see Priestley, Herbert I., France Overseas through the Old Regime … (New York: Appleton-Century, 1939), pp. 99, 103Google Scholar; there is a detailed description of the methods of indigo cultivation and manufacture in the French Antilles, together with an excellent illustration, in Dutertre, Jean Baptiste, Histoire générale des Antilles habiteés pour les François (Paris, 1667), II, 107–14Google Scholar; between the 1680's and 1700, the number of indigoteries on Martinique declined from 16–20 to 5; thereafter exports were “infinitesimal,” according to Louis-Philippe May, Histoire économique de la Martinique (1635–1763) (Paris: M. Riviére, 1930). See p. 90 and appendix table 2Google Scholar.

21 Long, Edward, The History of Jamaica hellip; (London, 1774), I, 415–16Google Scholar; III, 675–81. See also Pitman, Frank Wesley, The Development of the British West Indies, 1700–1763 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1917), pp. 5, 16–17Google Scholar.

22 Long states (I, 415) that the “injudicious duty … ruined and extirpated the manufacture” of indigo; but as late as 1688/89, Jamaica exported 132,704 pounds of indigo as compared with 19,216 for Monserrat, 5,954 for Nevis, and 1,625 for other English Caribbean possessions. Gray, Lewis Cecil, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1933), I, 291Google Scholar.

23 Ragatz, Lowell J., The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean, 1763–1833 … (New York: The Century Co., 1928), pp. 40–41, 125Google Scholar.

24 Sometimes indigo served as the handmaiden of sugar. According to Long (III, 681) it was cultivated on fresh woodlands “to sterilize them and prepare them for sugar.” He adds that the crop was cut every six weeks—five or more times a year. By contrast, indigo grown in South Carolina could be cut only three times a season, and the third cutting was markedly inferior to the first two. L. C. Gray, I, 293.

25 For scattered export figures from 1753 to 1791, see Justin, M. Placide, Histoire politique et statistique de Vile dʼHayti, Saint-Domingue: … (Paris, 1826), p. 500Google Scholar.

26 The most helpful account of indigo production in Saint Domingue that I have seen is Debien, G., “Une indigotiere á Saint-Domingue á la fin du xviiie siécle,” Revue d'histoire des colonies, XXXIII (1940–1946), 1–49Google Scholar, especially 15–18; see also Edwards, Bryan, “An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St. Domingo: …” in his The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (3d ed., London, 1801), III, 143–144Google Scholar.

27 For a somewhat maudlin view of “The Death of a Great Industry,” see Hurry, ch. xviii. Woad production did not cease altogether until “well into the twentieth century,” the last two woad-mills in England being closed down in the 1930's. Holmyard, E. J., “Dyestuffs in the Nineteenth Century,” in Charles Singer et al., A History of Technology (London: Clarendon Press, 1958), V, 263Google Scholar.

28 As early as 1675, the East India Company advised its field agents that Lahore indigo was being undersold in London by its West Indian competitor. SirBirdwood, George, Report on the Old Records of the India Office; … (2d repr., London, 1891), pp. 223–24Google Scholar. Though this may have been only a temporary situation, by the second quarter of the eighteenth century the effects of New World competition were patent. “The complete-setback in this trade is indicated by the fact that while 200,000 lbs. were annually imported [by England] about … 1620, the quantity carried [there] … from 1741 to 1760 was only 36,215 lbs.l” Bal Krishna, p. 205; see also pp. 314–15 for a broken series of Indian indigo shipments from 1698 to 1760. According to Watt (IV, 393) the widespread practice of adulteration by native manufacturers, encouraged by premium prices formerly paid for their product, also contributed to the loss of European markets.

29 I have not been able to determine when Javanese indigo first entered European commerce or how large its volume bulked during the eighteenth century. It was quoted occasionally on the Amsterdam market as early as 1719 and regularly from 1734 on (Posthumus, table 193, pp. 418–20). Glamann reports a sale of 417 Dutch pounds of Javanese indigo as early as 1701; Glamann, Kristof, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 1620–1740 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1958), p. 278Google Scholar. As Smith has observed, the price of Javanese indigo was generally less than that paid for the Guatemalan product during the eighteenth century; HAHR, XXXIX (cited in n. 19), p. 205, n. 78. F. de Haan indicates that forced deliveries of indigo to Batavia at no time exceeded 77 pikols (bales averaging close to 125 English pounds) per annum during the eighteenth. century and were usually considerably less; Haan, De, “Staat der Producten, Gedurende de Jaren 1721–1810 Geleverd Dor de Onder Batavia Ressorteerende Landen en Regentschappen,” Pringan de Preanger-Regentschappen onder het Nederlandsch Besturr tot 1811 (Batavia: G. Kolft & Co., 1912), III, 920–22Google Scholar. Writing in the early nineteenth century, Raffles indicates that, while indigo cultivation on Java was extensive, the volume was not large and the methods of manufacture were quite primitive; Raffles, Thomas Stamford Sir, The History of Java (2d ed., London, 1830), II, 146–47Google Scholar.

30 L. C. Gray, I, 73–74.

31 Apparently this represented the accumulation of several years. See Hussey, Roland Dennis, The Caracas Company, 1728–1784 … (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), pp. 240–41, 270, 310–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Arcila-Farías, Eduardo, Económia colonial de Venezuela (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1946), pp. 177, 270, and 333Google Scholar. For a glowing contemporary account of the impact of indigo upon western and southwestern Venezuela, see Depons, François, Travels in South America, during the Years 1801 … [to] 1804 (London, 1807), I, 406–18Google Scholar.

32 Pitman, p. 234.

33 Ibid., p. 336.

34 One of the pamphleteers was James Crokatt, a former Charles Town merchant who had removed his business to London. In 1746–47, Crokatt prepared two short pamphlets urging South Carolinians to produce indigo, assuring them that the government would reward their efforts by offering either a bounty or a duty on foreign indigo. In January 1747, he memorialized the Board of Trade to support the new industry, arguing that it would not only correct an unfavorable balance of trade between England and France but ultimately would “help to distress the French … by beating them” out of their Continental markets. See Haywood, C. Robert, “Mercantilism and South Carolina Agriculture, 1700–1763,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine, LX (Jan. 1959), 18–19 and sources cited thereGoogle Scholar.

35 L. C. Gray, I, 54, 290–97; II, 1024, table 38. See also Haywood, S. C. Hist. Mag., LX, 15–27.

36 Mauro, Frédéric, Le Portugal et l'Atlantique au xviie siécle, 1570–1670. Etude économique (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1960), pp. 373–74Google Scholar.

37 After being ruled by Spain since 1580, the Portuguese proclaimed their independence in 1640.

38 See de Almeida, Luis Ferrand, “Plantas do Oriente no Brasil em fins do século xvii” (Bahia: IV Colóquio Intemacional de Estudos Luso-Brasileiros, 1959), pp. 135–36Google Scholar; this is an incomplete abstract of a fascinating paper.

39 Provisão of April 24, 1642, José de Andrade e Silva, Justino, ed., Collec¸ão chronológica da legislação portuguesa (10 vols.; Lisbon, 1854–1859), V, 143Google Scholar.

40 For examples of early efforts to produce indigo in Rio de Janeiro and in the State of Maranhão (that is, in the northern part of Brazil between the “hump” and the Amazon) see Coarcy, Vivaldo, O Rio de Janeiro no século 17 (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1944), pp. 214–15Google Scholar; and Marques, Cezar Augusto, Diccionário histórico-geográphico da provincia do Maranhão ([São Luis do] Maranhão, 1870), p. 20Google Scholar.

41 “Auto de rematação das terras da chacara que occupa Manuel da [C]osta [C]ardozo … Francisco Xavier Lisbôa e … Andre Gunçalves Barros, e mais terras que se lhe anexarão rematadas todas a Manuel da [C]osta [C]ardozo por l:430$000 rs.,” Dec. 9, 1761, Filho, A. J. Mello Moraes, ed., Revista do Arquivo do Districto Federal, II (Jan. 1895), 216–17Google Scholar.

42 A cruzado was a unit of Portuguese currency worth 400 réis.

43 There is a brief account of the beginnings of indigo production in Rio de Janeiro in Baltasar da Silva Lisboa, Annaes do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1834), I, xix-xx; see also n. 65 following.

44 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, Nov. 20, 1772; private manuscript collection of Sr. Marcos Cameiro de Mendonça, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter cited CMCM), cód. 3, f. 248 (orig.).

45 Lavradio considered Cardozo “a man of honor, probity, secrecy, and fidelity.” Report to his successor, June 19, 1779 (hereafter cited Lavradio, Report), R1HGB (cited in n. 2), IV (2d ed., 1863), 445–46. Despite his varied economic interests in the captaincy, Cardozo retained his public office under Lavradio's successor.

46 Vieira de Abreu's own account of his role in the development of the indigo industry is contained in his petition to the Crown, dated Nov. 23, 1792; Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter cited BNRJ), II, 34, 24, 9, fols. 3r-4r. For some of his other activities, see Alden, HAHR, XXXIX (cited in n. 3), 530f.

47 Ibid., pp. 522–23 and sources cited there.

48 For details, see Alden, D., “The Undeclared War of 1773–1777: Climax of Luso-Spanish Platine Rivalry,” HAHR, XLI (Feb. 1961), 55–74Google Scholar.

49 In 1777, for example, Portugal imported 11,341 pounds of indigo, of which 9,309 (an increase of 2,659 over the previous year) came from Spain, 1,893 from Barbados, and 88 from Italy. “Balanga geral do commercio de Portugal com as naçoens estrangeiras no anno de 1777,” BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 6, passim.

50 Despite the Crown's efforts to enlarge textile manufacture at the two principal Portuguese centers, Portalegre and Covilhâ, in the years after 1772, the British Board of Trade estimated in 1784 that nine-tenths of the cloth consumed in Lisbon was still of foreign origin. Shillington, Violet M. and Chapman, A. B. Wallis, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal (London: G. Routledge & Sons, [1907]), p. 277Google Scholar. For an appraisal of the state of textile manufacture in Portugal at this time, see de Macedo, Jorge, A situaçāo económica no tempo de Pombal: alguns aspectos (Oporto: Livraria Portugália, 1951), pp. 208–35Google Scholar.

51 As a result of a series of reforms introduced in the 1760's, each of Brazil's nine captaincies general was fiscally administered by a treasury board (junta da fazenda) headed by the senior administrative officer of that district (the Viceroy in the case of Rio de Janeiro). Each junta was responsible to the inspector general of the Royal Treasury in Lisbon, and among its other functions was charged with the collection and disbursement of all royal revenues and the remission of surpluses (if any) to the Crown. D. Alden, “The Structure of Portuguese Government in Colonial Brazil” (forthcoming).

52 The recommended classification of Brazilian indigo was allegedly based upon laboratory analysis of samples received from Rio de Janeiro but was probably inspired by the three grades of Guatemalan indigo, flor, sobresaliente, and corte.

53 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, Aug. 14, 1773, CMCM, cód. 13, 45/46.

54 Portaria (order) of Lavradio, Nov. 15, 1773, appended to Vieira de Abreu's memorial (see n. 46). Vieira de Abreu also prepared a manual for indigo growers entitled “Brevissima instrução para uso dos fabricantes de anil,” probably written in the 1780's. BNRJ, 1–3, 1, 5.

55 According to the register kept in the royal laboratory in Lisbon, 419 pounds of indigo out of a total of 713 received from various parts of Brazil in 1774 came from Rio de Janeiro. “Livro da entrada e sahida do anil que se purificou neste real laboratorio desde o anno de 1772 athé o prezente anno de 1782”, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Papeis Avulsos, Reino, maço 2 (Bancroft Library Microfilm Collection, University of California).

56 For examples, see Alden, , HAHR, XXXIX, 526–27Google Scholar.

57 Lavradio to Melo e Castro, Feb. 25, 1774, in d'Almeida, D. José, Vice-reinado de D. Luiz d'Almeida Portugal, 2.0 Marquez de Lavradio … (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1942), pp. 181–86Google Scholar.

58 After a small shipment of indigo reached Lisbon from Maranhão in 1761, the Crown dispatched two dyers from the royal factory at Covilhâ to the captaincy general to ascertain the quality of indigo growing there. Though they reported that it was much inferior to that cultivated in Guatemala, the Crown promised potential growers a ten-year exemption from all customs duties upon future shipments. Marques, p. 20; Alvará of July 9, 1764, Antonio Delgado da Silva, comp., Collecção da legislação portuguesa [1750–1820] (Lisbon, 1826), II, 122–23Google Scholar. As noted below, Pará became a minor indigo exporter during the late eighteenth century, but Maranhão did not.

59 As Haywood has observed, “… it was inconceivable that an independent, unprotected colony could survive in the cut-throat competition for empire … during the eighteenth century, so it was unthinkable that any trade could prosper … without the guiding hand of a powerful protecting government.” S. C. Hist. Mag., LX, 19.

60 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, Nov. 24, 1774, CMCM, cód. 13, n. 36 (orig.).

61 Lavradio to Pedro Antonio da Gama e Freitas (governor of Santa Catarina), Apr. 26, 1776, CMCM, cód. 4, fols. 86v–87v; idem, Report, p. 468.

62 Idem to Captain M[igu]el Pimenta de Sampayo, Oct. 7, 1776, CMCM, cód. 25, fol. 144v.

63 Idem to Martim Lobo Lopes de Saldanha, Aug. 30, 1776, Documentos interessantes para a história e costumes de São Paulo, XVII (São Paulo, 1895), 128; Saldanha to Lavradio, Sept. 21, 1776, Ibid., XLII (1903), 164–65 (noting enclosure of seeds from a plant called cauvú); idem to Melo e Castro, Nov. 9, 1776, and Apr. 22, 1778, Ibid., XXVIII (1898), 228–29, 367. The Paulista governor contended that cauvú was the best source of indigo found in Brazil, but despite persistent efforts, the Paulistas were never able to develop a significant dyestuff industry. See Manoel Eufrázio de Azevedo Marques, Apontamentos históricos, geográphicos, biográphicos, estatísticos, e noticiosos … de S. Paulo … (Rio de Janeiro, 1879), p. 15.

64 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, Oct. 8, 1776, BNRJ, 1–31, 31, 1, n. 36.

65 Petition of Manoel da Costa Cardozo, June 8, 1776, BNRJ, 1–2, 4, 7 h. 89.

66 Junta da fazenda of Rio de Janeiro to Crown [June, 1776], Ibid., n. 90.

67 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, May 8, 1777, Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter cited ANRJ), Col. 67, Liv. III-A, fol. 29 (orig.).

68 Lavradio, Report, p. 470.

69 Melo e Castro to Lavradio, Nov. 4, 1778, BNRJ, 1–2, 4, 7, n. 111.

70 Lavradio, Report, pp. 468–70.

71 João Hopman to Lavradio, May 4, 1780, CMCM, folder marked “Diversos 1775, 1777, 1780” (orig.).

72 Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, report to successor, 1789, RIHGB, XXIII (1860), 189Google Scholar.

73 Idem to Melo e Castro, July 15, 1781, Ibid., XLI:2 (1888), 183–94; repr. in Ibid., CCLVI (July-Sept. 1962), 200–209.

74 Cochineal, an animal red dye made from the bodies of small cactus-feeding insects, was also promoted in Rio de Janeiro and its dependencies by Viceroys Lavradio and Vasconcelos but with scant success.

75 Melo e Castro to Vasconcelos, Nov. 1, 1781, ANRJ, Col. 60, Liv. 45, f o k 100v–101v.

76 Idem to idem, Aug. 11, 1784, BNRJ, 1–4, 4, 1, n. 27, in which the Secretary alluded to the Viceroy's dispatches of Aug. 5, 1782, and July 14, 1783, concerning the indigo problem.

77 Vasconcelos to Melo e Castro, May 22, 1786, RIHGB, CCLVI (June-Sept. 1962), 320–21.

78 Idem to idem, July 31, 1788, BNRJ, 1–4, 1, 6, n. 69.

79 Idem, Report to successor, pp. 188–90.

80 “Mappa particular das qualidades e quantidades de generos, q. passerão do Bio de Janeiro para o reino e ilhas, desde … 17 de Abril até o último de Dezembro … de 1779,” and “Mappa dos effeitos q. dentro de um anno completo se transportárão para Lisboa, Porto, Vianna, e ilhas, pelo qual se regulāo todos os mais annos,” RIHGB, XLVII: 1, 46–51. It is evident that by this time the Crown was purchasing only a fraction of the indigo offered in Brazil. The previously cited “Livro da entrada e sahida do anil” (see n. 55) indicates that between January 1773 and March 1782, only 26,896.8 pounds of indigo entered the royal laboratory from all Brazilian sources.

81 The “Mappa dos effeitos que se transportárão desta cidade do Rio de Janeiro … de 1796,” RIHGB, XLVI:1 (1883), 197–204Google Scholar, gives a slightly lower figure for Rio de Janeiro's exports to Portugal but is calculated on the basis of the calendar year when the shipments left port, whereas the “Balança geral do commercio do reyno de Portugal com os seus dominios em o anno de 1796,” BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 8, passim, covers the year's actual arrivals in Lisbon.

82 “Mappa dos effeitos que se exportam desta capitania do Rio de Janeiro … de 1798,” RIHGB, CCLVI (July-Sept. 1962), 367. (Quantities of the year's exports are not indicated.)

83 Balançes gerais for 1800, 1812, and 1818, BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 20; 1–6, 4, 27; and 1–6, 4, 32, passim.

84 “Balança geral do commercio do reyno de Portugal com as nações estrangeiras em o anno de 1787,” BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 7, passim

85 Ibid. “… de 1796,” BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 9, passim.

86 Generale Lijst der Goedern op net Inkoomen Aangegeeven van ʼt Collegie ter Admiraliteit van Amsterdam,” in van Nierop, Leonie, “Uit de Bakermat der Amsterdamsche Handelsstatistiek,” III, Vijftiende Jaarboek van het Genoetschap Amstelodamum, XV (Amsterdam, 1917), following p. 42Google Scholar.

87 “Balança geral … de 1818,” BNRJ, 1–6, 4, 32, passim.

88 [Domingos] B[orges de Barros], “Noções sobre a cultura e fabrica do anil, e analize desta materia colorante, e do pastel, …” O Patriota, No. 2 (Rio de Janeiro, Feb., 1813), pp. 15–43; also de Magalhães, Manoel Antonio, “Reflexões políticas e interesantes sobre o estado actual da capitania do Rio Grande de S. Pedro … [1808]” RIHGB, XXX:1 (1867), 44–74Google Scholar.

89 [Anon.] “Memoria historica da cidade de Cabo-Frio, e de todo o seu districto … anno de 1797,” Ibid., XLVI:1 (1883), 219.

90 According to R. Haller, “Like other dyestuffs indigo was often adulterated. Sometimes ashes, sand, slate dust, brick dust, rubber and other vegetable substances were added in the manufacturing country. European trading firms adulterated it by adding starch, Prussian blue, soot, resin, and blue cotton and woolen waste cut into minute particles; moreover, it was often stored in damp places purposely so as to make it gain in weight.” Haller, “The Production of Indigo,” Ciba Review, No. 85 (Apr. 1951), 3074.

91 Abrantes, RIHJB, XV, 58–59.

92 See “Bilan du commerce extérieur du Portugal avec les nations étrangères depuis 1795 jusqu' en 1820,” in Balbi's, Essat statistique sur le royaume de Portugal, et d'Algarve … (Paris, 1822), I, 441, 431–40Google Scholar, and Godinho, Vitorino Magalhães, Prix et monnaies au Portugal, 1750–1850 (Paris: A. Colin, 1955), pp. 276ffGoogle Scholar.

93 Between 1764 and 1800, British imports of raw cotton increased from 3.8 million to 56 million pounds by weight; during the same years the export of cotton manufactured goods rose from £200,000 to £5,400,000. Baines, Edward, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain: … (London [1835]), pp. 215, 349–50Google Scholar; compare Schumpeter, Elizabeth Boody, English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697–1808 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), table 11, pp. 31–34Google Scholar. Technical aspects of the textile revolution are described in Singer et al., A History of Technology, IV, chs. x-xi.

94 In the 1780's, Britain is said to have been importing 1,500,000 pounds of indigo a year, “… of which,” Bryan Edwards noted bitterly, “five parts in seven are purchased with ready money of strangers and rivalsl” British West Indies (cited in n. 26), II, 335–36.

95 There were fifteen of these firms in Calcutta by c. 1790, most of them founded by ex-Company men who naturally preserved close contacts with their former employers. The agencies specialized in banking, insurance, government contracts, commissions for London correspondents, and “the country trade.” Tripathi, Amales, Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency, 1793–1833 (Calcutta: Orient Longmans, 1956), pp. 11et passimGoogle Scholar

96 Ibid., p. 226.

97 The two preceding paragraphs are based especially on Tripathi's study which in large measure supersedes older accounts by Watt (as cited in n. 5), IV, 393–95, and Dutt, Romesh, India under Early British Rule … 1757 to … 1837 (3d ed.; London: Paul, 1908), pp. 266–67, 278–80Google Scholar; but in the latter, see the table on p. 295 for indigo exports after 1800. On the beginnings of indigo in Bengal and the Company's interest in promoting it, see also Furber, Holden, John Company at Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 290–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

As Vera Anstey has pointed out, the organization of the revived indigo industry differed significantly from that of tea, coffee, and rubber in the Far East, for while the latter crops were grown on plantations owned and supervised by Europeans, few Europeans were actually planters of indigo or proprietors of the land where indigo was cultivated; rather, they limited their activities to making advances to agriculturists and overseeing the resultant plantings; Anstey, , The Economic Development of India (2d ed.; London: Longmans, 1931), pp. 115–16Google Scholar. For an excellent discussion of the methods of cultivation and manufacture of indigo in nineteenth-century India, see Rawson, Christopher, “The Cultivation and Manufacture of Indigo in Bengal,” Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, XV (July 1899), 166–74Google Scholar. More technical is the same author's pamphlet prepared for the Indigo Defence Association, “Report on the Cultivation and Manufacture of Indigo in Bengal” (London, 1899)Google Scholar.

98 L. C. Gray (as cited in n. 22), I, 74.

99 Ibid., II, 594, 611.

100 Smith, HAHR (as cited in n. 19), p. 209.

101 Rubio Sánchez, Anales de la Sociedad … (as cited in n. 19), pp. 326, 328, and 344.