Brazilian coffee cycle
In Brazil's economic history, the coffee cycle was a period in which coffee was the main export product of the Brazilian economy. It began in the mid-19th century and ended in 1930. The coffee cycle succeeded the gold cycle, which had come to an end after the exhaustion of the mines a few decades earlier, and put an end to the economic crisis generated by this decadence.
Coffee had been brought to Brazil in 1727, but was never produced in large scale, being cultivated mostly for domestic consumption. Its production lagged far behind that of other products. Coffee's rise was only due to a favorable internal and external scenario that made its cultivation advantageous.
Coffee production developed rapidly throughout the 19th century, so that by the 1850s it was responsible for almost half of Brazil's exports. The Southeast region of the country was chosen for the plantations because it offered the most appropriate weather conditions and the most suitable soil, according to the needs of the coffee plant. The first large cultivated region was the Paraíba Valley, and the work in the plantations was done with slave labor. With the decline of production in this region, it shifted to the west of São Paulo, where it found its second great cultivation area. At this point free labor, especially that of European immigrants who were arriving in large numbers in Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had replaced slave labor.
The coffee cycle left deep marks in the country, and its consequences are still perceptible today. It was during the coffee cycle that the state of São Paulo achieved the political and economic primacy it has today. Coffee also gave a strong impulse to industrialization, railroad construction and urbanization.
Background
Mining decline and economic crisis
In the first two centuries of the colonial period, Brazil had an exclusively agricultural economy, and there was always one major product that was the center of the economy. This was the case during the cycle of brazilwood, sugar and cotton. This scenario only changed in the 18th century with the discovery of gold and diamonds, initiating the so-called gold cycle. From then on, agriculture lost the importance it had. Although it was not an agricultural product, the same pattern was evident – gold became the main product of the colonial economy, until its decline. This occurred in the second half of the 18th century, a period that became known as the "agricultural renaissance". The same products as before were planted again, except for coffee, which in the first two centuries did not even exist in Brazil. This return to agriculture occurred mainly for the following reasons:- The depletion of the gold deposits due to the quantity and speed at which gold was extracted;
- The rapid development of European society throughout the 18th century;
- The increase in economic activities and trade relations in the world in the same century, heralding the Industrial Revolution; and, later, the opening of Brazil's ports, which allowed it to trade with countries besides Portugal, encouraging an increase in agricultural production.
External scenario that propitiated the cultivation of coffee
Coffee had been cultivated in Brazil for some time, since it was brought to the country in 1727 by Francisco Palheta. Since then, the product had spread throughout the national territory, but it was not cultivated commercially; it was mainly for domestic consumption. The coffee culture was far behind that of sugar and cotton and, besides this, the product did not have great importance in world markets and was difficult to plant. Because the coffee tree is a delicate plant that needs a lot of care, it only lives well in certain temperatures, it needs regular rainfall and appropriate soil, besides taking four or five years to grow and produce the bean.However, there are a few reasons why it has become advantageous to grow coffee:
- In the early years of the 19th century, coffee became more in demand, and by the 18th century it had become the main luxury food in Western countries;
- England and Netherlands were already cultivating and selling the product, in abundance, in their colonies;
- The United States, which consumed a lot of coffee after gaining its independence, reduced its purchases of the product made in the English colonies and started to look for it elsewhere. Brazil was chosen because of its proximity, and because transportation was easier.
British influence
The cycle
Coffee propagation and cultivation
Coffee was originally brought to in Brazil in 1727, when it was introduced in Pará, before it really gained a grasp on the Brazilian economy. It continued to gain popularity in Northeastern Brazil in the 1700s, permeating through Amazonas. By 1770, it had reached Rio de Janeiro. Coffee began to be planted near the coast, in relatively small quantities when compared to the amount that would be produced later. The first plantations appeared in the valleys of the mountains surrounding the city of Rio de Janeiro. The coffee plantations followed the coast, going beyond the state of Rio and reaching São Paulo. At the beginning of the 19th century, this coastal strip was an important producing area.But the first great scenario of coffee farming was the Paraíba River Valley. Having started to be cultivated in 1825, by the middle of the 19th century, the "largest portion of Brazilian wealth" was gathered there. The plantations followed the pattern of the great American Plantations – vast monocultural estates using slave labor. Upstream, the coffee plantations reached São Paulo and the border region of Minas Gerais.
Coffee used to be grown in a non, most appropriate way:
Later, at the end of the cycle, what happened to other products in Brazil would happen again to coffee: coffee would go through a phase of intense prosperity, followed by another of stagnation and decadence. This decline is caused by the depletion of the natural resources due to an intensive and careless exploitation system. The same pattern could be observed with other products, such as gold, sugar, cotton, and, in early colonial history, brazilwood. Not only was the form of cultivation similar to that of previous cycles, but also the plantation had similarities with earlier models of rural property. Like the sugar mills, the farm had facilities that made it an almost self-sufficient unit.
The Paraíba Valley was responsible for the coffee advance until 1870, when the west of São Paulo overtook its production. After the soil was worn down, the coffee moved inland, crossing the Serra do Mar and Mantiqueira mountains, penetrating the west of São Paulo province, where it found the plateau of purple latosol resulting from the decomposition of basaltic rocks of volcanic origin – the best soil for coffee. Unlike the Paraíba river valley, there were large plateaus in São Paulo, over which huge cultivated areas were spread. A "sea of coffee" was formed. At the end of the 19th century, coffee also reached the far west of the province of São Paulo, in the west of São Paulo, investment was made in free labor, especially that of the immigrants who arrived.
Workforce
In the Paraíba Valley, slave labor was used. At the time, slaves were the exclusive source of the workforce. African slaves who had been brought across the Atlantic were being used for coffee production. With the prohibition of the African slave trade in 1850, it became increasingly difficult and expensive to acquire slave laborers. For some time, producers could rely on internal trafficking, diverting slaves from the impoverished regions of the north to the more prosperous south. But the constant increase in production required a growing labor force, and alternatives had to be found to solve the shortage of workers.The solution was to use free labor: first through the partnership regime, and later with mass immigration at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. By 1847, senator Nicolau Vergueiro had brought European settlers to his farms through the so-called "partnership", or "half" system. In this system, the owner provides the land and the sharecropper does the work, and the final product is divided between the two, half-and-half. The sharecropper, with his half, must still pay his expenses with clothing, food, etc., obtained from the landlord. In other words, he has very little left. This system was the cause of the Revolt of Ibicaba.
The system was adopted by other farmers, but was not successful. Later, from the 1870s on, with the great increase in farming and with the forecast of the end of slavery soon to come, there was more interest in the adoption of free labor, but this time in a wage contract system, and no longer in the partnership system. The Italian immigrants came mainly because they were less demanding than the Germans, Swiss and others.
These immigrants at the beginning of the Republic were now brought from their countries of origin with official aid, and found sufficient support for their definitive settlement. The form of payment was also different. The settlers generally received a fixed annual salary and a further share at harvest time, which was variable. In addition, they were entitled to cultivate small areas for personal use. While these kept coffee as one of Brazil's main exports for the rest of the 1800s and some of the 1900s, the production and export of coffee clearly suffered from the loss of slavery. The cycle wasn't nearly as sustainable without free labor and slavery, even with all the new immigrants.
As previously mentioned, coffee cultivation in the Paraíba Valley was based on rudimentary techniques. Slave labor was precisely what made production remain rudimentary, because this labor regime is not a stimulus to innovation. In western São Paulo, on the other hand, the barons had a greater entrepreneurial spirit. In this region: