Candido and Motta regarding the sesmaria system show that there is still much research to be done on this subject. Little work has been done in terms of examining the conflicts between those who had legal ownership, sesmeiros, and those who were identified as posseiros. This more numerous group lived poorly and cultivated the land for its own subsistence (Motta 2013).
To counter England’s prohibiting the African slave traffic in 1831, São Paulo’s coffee plantation owners bought slaves from the impoverished sugarcane plantations in the northeast and/or bought them from illicit trade. Yet, England’s ban increased the price of slaves and hindered the replacement of enslaved workers. This threatened Brazilian agricultural exports. The solution at the time was to create an immigration policy that would populate the southern region of the country in order to protect the Portuguese Crown’s property.
This immigration policy, however, did not mesh with the country’s colonization goal to create a free labor market for coffee plantations owners. Therefore, the Brazilian Empire enacted the Law of Land (Lei das Terras) in 1850 (Law no. 601), which allowed land ownership through direct acquisition only. Now, the sesmaria system was forbidden. In this way, land became merchandise. Free workers and poor immigrants received wages in return for working on coffee plantations. Depending on how much they could save and the working conditions imposed by plantations owners, they could buy a plot of land after several years of very hard work (Martins 1973: 50–52).
This Law of Land (Lei das Terras) extended to the posseiros as well. Cultivating a plot of land and building a simple house to live in did not qualify for ownership; they had to pay the state for the land (Martins 1973: 82). Some people found jobs hauling merchandise by donkeys; others had no choice other than to work for those who legally owned land. Those who could choose the second option rented a plot of land for agricultural purposes. They were called foreiro or arrendatário. However, not all of them could pay rent. This resulted in increased numbers of people from mixed ancestry living in poverty without any land and the concentration of land in the hands of a few owners (Martins 1973: 87–88).
Colonization officers faced several problems: land bought by the government (land that had always belonged to the state) now needed to be located and measured, abandoned properties dealt with, and the status of earlier owners and foreiros in São Paulo state needed to be regulated (Martins 1973: 91).
Colonization in southern Brazil faced similar problems. Arriving immigrants found their plot of land was neither located nor measured, which caused many problems. This colonization created a large area populated by European immigrants and evicted Native Brazilians and Caboclos, people whose ancestors were Native Brazilian and white. The immigration policy considered European immigrants to be agents of civilization and progress. Other objectives of colonization were to create agriculture for consumption and to initiate industrial progress. This colonization was based on small familial property. The imperial government went to great expense to hire agents to bring immigrants from Europe and to subsidize them upon their arrival. As a republic (from 1889), Brazil invested more in foreign colonization companies, which were responsible for selecting and transporting immigrants, measuring plots of land and selling them (Seyferth 2004: 136–37).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the imperial government debated which European nations could provide the most adequate immigrants for developing “modern” agriculture. The emancipation of slaves was necessary to include Brazil among the civilized countries and attract European immigration, which represented free labor. Thus, Brazilian free workers and slaves were not considered for the colonization system. Blacks, natives, and people from mixed ancestry were seen as incapable of working free from outside control. The debate about possible Asian immigration, especially from China, exposed inherent racism. Chinese people were regarded as an inferior race. This discussion also created a hierarchy of immigrants and resulted in the establishment of homogenous colonies of Germans and Italians in southern Brazil. Blacks, natives, people from mixed ancestry, and Portuguese immigrants were eligible only for jobs in deforestation and were prevented from owning land. The Portuguese were considered best suited for shop keeping, not farming. In short, race determined a person’s ability to work autonomously and to accumulate wealth (Seyferth 1996: 45–48).
Between the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 and the outbreak of World War I, foreign scientists debated the hierarchy of race based on the superiority of the white race and pointed to miscegenation as the harbinger of a pessimistic future for the country. However, Brazilian scientists countered this criticism with their ideology of whitening (branqueamento), which they claimed would create a people with a “superior” blend of mixed ancestry. This last category was defined as predominantly being a civilized race and being a responsible individual. Thus, European immigrants would be assimilated into the Brazilian population, and the third generation would be white. Besides race, Brazilian intellectuals were concerned with Brazil’s status as a nation. It already had its own culture, language, and religion, so it was logical for the policy of immigration to favor immigrants of Latin origin, such as those from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. German immigrants threatened the consolidation of the Brazilian nation. The hierarchy of white European immigrants obeyed a different criterion: they should belong to the “Latin civilization” and be able to assimilate into the Brazilian population. Other intellectuals criticized Portuguese immigrants because of their trade vocations and their hatred of agriculture. However, this did not prompt them to exclude Portuguese from coming to Brazil. Brazilian workers were considered racially inferior in the Brazil Empire as well as the Brazilian Republic, both before and after the emancipation of slaves in 1888 (Seyferth 1996: 44–56).
Private immigration companies were criticized for funneling Japanese immigrants directly to São Paulo coffee plantations owners. The arrival of the first Japanese immigrants 1908 increased the debate on the dangers of Asian immigration. As previously stated, Brazilian nationalists abhorred non-white immigration and, as such, Chinese, Hindu, and Japanese people were seen as descending from decadent civilizations that would impede the historical goal of Brazilian whitening and superior racial formation (Seyferth 1996: 56–57).
German and Swiss immigrants who went to work for São Paulo coffee plantation owners faced such mistreatment that Prussia and other German states prohibited further immigration to São Paulo State in 1859 through the Restrito von der Heydt (Richter 1986: 15). Until this law was revoked in 1896 (Richter 1986: 20), Germans were only allowed to immigrate to the southern states not to São Paulo.
Italians encountered similar hardships, compelling the Italian government to prohibit subsidized immigration to São Paulo coffee plantations under the Decreto Prinetti in 1902. According to this decree, some ships were prevented from transporting Italian emigrants without payment in advance. But São Paulo coffee plantation owners adjusted to the new situation by no longer paying for families’ tickets (Alvim 1986: 53). The Italian government, due to regular non-compliance with the Decreto Prinetti, decided in 1905 that those who wanted to immigrate to Brazil would have to pay for their passage or have tickets already paid for and sent by family members. However, this political decision prevented few people from traveling to Italy in order to pay for the emigrants’ tickets (Alvim 1986: 59). This situation changed only when the United States replaced Brazil as the preferred destination of Italians at the turn of the century (Alvim 1986: 60).
Both the Brazilian imperial government in the nineteenth century and the republic in the twentieth century opposed Japanese immigration, considering it to be “the yellow danger.” Plantation owners, intellectuals, and the São Paulo state government, too, preferred immigrants to be white Europeans rather than Asians, in order to further whiten the Brazilian population through miscegenation. These groups envisioned a modern Brazil based on the white race and European civilization. In this racist ideology, Chinese, Hindu, and Japanese people represented decaying civilizations that would only hinder the “advancement” they saw as necessary in Brazil (Seyferth 1996: 56–57). However, the government made no effort to prevent the first Japanese immigrants from arriving in 1908, hired to replace African slave labor and replenish the dwindling supply of white European workers for São Paulo’s coffee plantations.
