Journal Of A Voyage To Brazil Part 1

Journal of a Voyage to Brazil.

by Maria Graham.

PREFACE.

Although the Journal of a voyage to Brazil, and of a residence of many months in that country, was not written without a view to publication at some time; yet many unforeseen circ.u.mstances forced the writer to pause before she committed it to press, and to cancel many pages recording both public and private occurrences.

Perhaps there is even yet too much of a personal nature, but what is said is at least honest; and if the writer should suffer personally by candour, the suffering will be cheerfully borne.

As to public events, all that can be new in the Journal is the bringing together facts which have reached Europe one by one, and recording the impression produced on the spot by those occurrences which might be viewed in a very different light elsewhere. Some have, no doubt, been distorted by the interested channels through which they have reached the public; some by the ignorance of the reporters; and most by the party spirit which has viewed either with enthusiasm or malignity the acquisition of freedom in any quarter of the globe.

The writer does not pretend to perfect impartiality, for in some cases impartiality is no virtue; but knowing that no human good can be attained without a mixture of evil, she trusts that a fair picture of both has been given, although it has cost some pain in the writing.

Of the natives of the country, or of those engaged in its service, what is said, whether of those still employed or of those no longer in the empire, was written under the impression of the moment; and the writer's confidence in the good sense and justice of the Brazilian government and people is such, that she leaves the pa.s.sages as they stood at the moment of writing.

The events of the last three years in Brazil have been so important, that it was thought best not to interrupt the account of them, by continuing what may be called the writer's personal narrative after she reached Chile; therefore the two visits to Brazil are printed together, along with an Introduction containing a sketch of the history of the country previous to the first visit, and a notice of the public events of the year of her absence, to connect it with the second.

The Journal of a visit to Chile will form the subject of a separate volume.

It was thought essential that the narratives concerning Spanish and Portuguese America should be kept quite separate; the countries themselves being as different in climate and productions, as the inhabitants are in manners, society, inst.i.tutions, and government.

Nothing can be more interesting than the actual situation of the whole of South America. While Europe was engaged in the great revolutionary war, that country was silently advancing towards the point at which longer subjection to a foreign dominion became impossible.

Circ.u.mstances, not laws, had opened the ports of the South Atlantic and the Pacific. Individuals, not nations, had lent their aid to the patriots of the New World: and more warlike instruments and ammunition had gone silently from the warehouses of the merchant to arm the natives against their foreign tyrants, than had ever issued from the a.r.s.enals of the greatest nations. But, for a period, Brazil did not openly join in the struggle for independence. The Royal Family of Portugal took refuge there; and converted it, by that step, from a colony into the seat of government, from a state of slavery to one of sovereignty. Therefore, while the court continued to reside at Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilians had no inducement to break with the mother country. But it was very different when the King returned to Lisbon, and the Cortes, forgetting the change of men's minds produced by circ.u.mstances, endeavoured to force Brazil back to the abject state from which she had arisen. Then arose the struggle, some part of which it was the fortune of the writer to witness; and concerning which she was able to collect some facts which may serve as materials for future history. She trusts that if the _whole truth_ is not to be found in her pages, that there will be _nothing but the truth_.

It is with no small anxiety that the Journal is sent into the world, in the hope that it may tend to excite interest for the country by making it better known. Perhaps the writer has over-rated her powers, in attempting to record the progress of so important an event as the emanc.i.p.ation of such an empire from the thraldrom of the mother country.

The lighter part of her task, namely, the description of the country, its inhabitants, and the manners of the different cla.s.ses, both of natives and foreigners, should have been fuller; but that want of health, and sometimes want of spirits, prevented her from making use of all the means that might have been within her reach of acquiring knowledge. She trusts, however, that there is no misrepresentation of importance; and that the Journal, the writing of which has to her beguiled many a lonely and many a sorrowful hour, will not give a moment's pain to any human creature.

INTRODUCTION.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF BRAZIL.

I judged it necessary to prefix the following sketch of the history of Brazil to the journal of my voyage thither, in order that the political events to which I was an eye-witness might be the better understood.

The early part of the history is almost entirely taken from Mr. Southey.

It would have been easy for me to have referred to the Portuguese authors, as I have read nearly all that are to be found in print of Mr.

Southey's authorities, and some that he does not mention; but Mr.

Southey had been so faithful as well as judicious in the use he has made of his authors, that it would have been absurd, if not impertinent, to have neglected his guidance. From the time of the King's arrival in Brazil, or rather of his leaving Lisbon, I am answerable for all I have stated: it is little, but I hope that little is correct.

The circ.u.mstances of Spanish and Portuguese America were very different in every stage. In Mexico, in Peru, in Chili, the conquerors encountered a people civilised and humane; acquainted with many of the arts of polished life; agriculturists and mechanics; knowing in the things belonging to the altar and the throne, and waging war for conquest and for glory. But the savages of Brazil were hunters and cannibals; they wandered, and they made war for food: few of the tribes knew even the cultivation of the mandioc, and fewer still had adopted any kind of covering, save paint and feathers for ornament. The Spanish conquests were more quickly made, and appeared more easily settled, because in states so far advanced in civilisation the defeat of an army decides the fate of a kingdom, and the land already cultivated, and the mines already known and worked, were entered upon at once by the conquerors.

In Brazil the land that was granted by leagues was _to be won by inches_ from the hordes of savages who succeeded each other in incalculable mult.i.tudes, and whose migratory habits rendered it a matter of course for one tribe immediately to occupy the ground from which its predecessors had been driven. Hence the history of the early settlers in Brazil presents none of those splendid and chivalresque pictures that the chronicles of the Corteses, and Pizarros, and Almagros furnish. They are plain, and often pathetic scenes of human life, full of patience, and enterprise, and endurance; but the wickedness that stains even the best of them, is the more disgusting as it is more sordid.

But the very circ.u.mstances that facilitated the settling of the Spanish colonies were also likely to accelerate their liberation. A sense and a remembrance of national honour and freedom, remained among the polished Mexicans and Peruvians. Their numbers indeed had been thinned by the cruelties of the conquerors, but enough were left to perpetuate the memory of their fathers, to hand down the prophecies uttered in the phrenzy of their dying patriots; and the Peruvian, when he visited Lima, looked round the chamber of the viceroys, as he saw niche after niche filled up with their pictures, till the fated number should be accomplished, with no common emotion[1]; and many a dreamer on the Peruvian coast, when he saw the Admiral of the Chilian squadron, was ready to hail him as the golden-haired son of light who was to restore the kingdom of the Incas.[2]

[Note 1: The hall with the pictures of the viceroys was filled: there would be no room in it for Lacerna.]

[Note 2: This prophecy was recorded by Garcelaco de la Vega; and it is said, that the copies of his Incas were bought up, and an edition printed, omitting the prophecy.]

But in Brazil, what was once gained was not likely to be lost by the efforts of the natives, or at least by any recollection of their's, pointing to a better or more glorious time. They have been either exterminated, or wholly subdued. The slave hunting, which had been systematic on the first occupation of the land, and more especially after the discovery of the mines, had diminished the wretched Indians, so that the introduction of the hardier Africans was deemed necessary: _they_ now people the Brazilian fields; and if here and there an Indian aldea is to be found, the people are wretched, with less than Negro comforts, and much less than Negro spirit or industry. Hence, while the original Mexicans and Peruvians form a real and respectable part of the a.s.sertors of the independance of their country, along with the Creole Spaniards, the Indians are nothing in Brazil; even as a mixed race, they have less part among the different casts than in the Spanish colonies; and therefore jealousies among the Portuguese themselves could alone at this period have brought affairs to their present crisis. These jealousies have taken place, and though they did not arise princ.i.p.ally out of the causes of the emigration and return of the Royal family, they were at least quickened and accelerated by them.

In 1499, Brazil was discovered by Vicente Yanez Pincon, a native of Palos, and one of the companions of Columbus. He and his brothers were in search of new countries, and after touching at the Cape de Verd Islands, he steered to the south-west, till he came to the coast of Brazil, near Cape St. Augustine, and coasted along as far as the river Maranham, and thence to the mouth of the Oronoco. He carried home some valuable drugs, precious stones, and Brazil wood; but had lost two of his three ships on the voyage. He made no settlement, but had claimed the country for Spain.

Meantime Pedro Alvarez Cabral was appointed by Emanuel, King of Portugal, to the command of a large fleet, destined to follow the course of Vasco de Gama in the east. Adverse winds, however, drove the expedition so far to the westward, that it fell in with the coast of Brazil, and the ships anch.o.r.ed in Porto Seguro on Good-Friday of the year 1500. On Easter-day the first Christian altar was raised in the new continent under a large tree, and ma.s.s was performed, at which the innocent natives a.s.sisted with pleased attention: the country was taken possession of for the crown of Portugal by the name of the land of the Holy Cross, and a stone cross was erected to commemorate the event.

Cabral dispatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery, and then, without making any settlement, proceeded to India.

On the arrival of the news in Europe, the King of Portugal invited Amerigo Vespucci from Seville, and sent him with three ships to explore the country. After a long and distressing voyage they arrived, and very early in their intercourse with the natives they discovered that they were cannibals, but nevertheless they established a friendly intercourse with some of the tribes; and after coasting along South America as far as lat. 52, finding neither port nor inhabitants, and suffering from intolerable cold, they returned to Lisbon in 1502.

Early in the next year Amerigo sailed again with six ships; but having stood too near the coast of Africa, after pa.s.sing the Cape de Verds by the orders of the commander, four of the vessels were lost, but Amerigo with the other two reached a port which they called All Saints.[3] There they remained five months, in friendship with the natives, with whom some of the party travelled forty leagues into the interior. They erected a small fort, and left twelve men with guns and provisions, and having loaded their two ships with Brazil wood, monkeys, and parrots, they returned to Lisbon early in 1504.

[Note 3: This cannot be Bahia; for they say, that after coasting 260 leagues they were in 18S.; now Bahia is in 12 40', or nearly; the difference being 120 leagues; it must therefore be a port to the northward.]

But as Brazil, as it now began to be called, did not promise that ample supply of gold which the Spaniards had discovered in their new countries, and which the Portuguese gained with less hazard from Africa, and from the East, the country ceased for a time to excite the attention of government, and the first actual settlements were made by private adventurers, who, on account of their trade, were desirous of having some kind of agents among the people. The first persons employed for this purpose were criminals, a sort of settlers that may do well in an unpeopled country, where there is nothing to do but to reclaim the land, but that must do ill where there are many and savage natives, because they either become degraded to the savage level themselves, if they continue friends, or, if not, they are apt to practise such cruelties and injustice as disgust the natives, render colonisation difficult, and if they teach any thing, it is all the worst part of the life of civilised nations.

But in 1508, Amerigo Vespucci having returned to the service of Spain, the King resolved to take possession of the new land which had been discovered; and founding his claims on the grant of Alexander VI., he sent Vincent Yanez Pincon and Juan Diaz de Solis to a.s.sert them. They made Cape St Augustine's, which Pincon had discovered, and coasted along to lat. 40 south, erecting crosses as they went; but some disputes having arisen between them, they returned to Spain: and it appears that the remonstrances of Portugal against the voyage, as an interference with her discoveries, had some weight, for it was not until 1515 that Solis was dispatched on a second voyage, and then it was with the avowed purpose of seeking a pa.s.sage to the Great Pacific Sea, which had been sought and seen by Balboa in 1513.

That extraordinary but unfortunate man was the first European whose eyes rested on the broad Pacific. He had heard from the Indians of its existence, and resolutely set out to discover it, well aware of the dangers and difficulties he had to encounter. After twenty-five days of suffering and fatigue, he saw the South Sea; he heard of Peru, its mines, and its llamas, its cities and its aqueducts, and he received pearls[4] from the islands that lay in front of St. Miguel's bay, where he walked sword in hand up to his middle into the water and took possession for the King of Spain. No one in Europe now doubted that the western way to the East Indies was discovered.

[Note 4: Pearl islands, in the bay of Panama. The sand of the beach of those islands is iron, and is as easily attracted by the loadstone as steel filings.]

Great hopes were therefore entertained from the expedition of Solis.

That able navigator made the coast of Brazil far to the southward of Cape St. Augustine, where he had been with Pincon; and on the 1st of January 1516 he discovered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro; thence he sailed still to the southward, and entered what he hoped at first would be a sea, or strait, by which he might communicate with the ocean; but it was the river La Plata, where Solis and several of his followers were murdered and devoured by the natives. The ships then put back to St.

Augustines, loaded with Brazil wood, and returned to Spain.

But the King Don Emanuel claimed these cargoes, and again remonstrated against the interference of Spain so effectually, that three years afterwards, when Magalhaens touched at Rio de Janeiro, he purchased nothing but provisions.

Meantime several French adventurers had come to Brazil, and had taken in their cargoes of Brazil wood, monkies and parrots, and sometimes plundered some of the weaker Portuguese traders. In 1616, two of these adventurers entered the bay of All Saints, and had begun to trade with the Indians, when the Portuguese commander, Cristovam Jaques, sailing into the port, and examining all its coves, discovered them, and sunk the ships, crews, and cargoes. About the same time, a young Portuguese n.o.bleman, who had been wrecked on the shoal off the entrance of the harbour[5], and who had seen half his companions drowned, and half eaten by the Indians, had contrived to conciliate the natives. He had saved a musket and some powder from the wreck, and having taken an opportunity of shooting a bird in the presence of the inhabitants, they called him Caramuru, or the man of fire; and, as he accompanied them on an expedition against their enemies the Tapuyas, he became a favourite, married at least one Indian wife, and fixed his residence at the spot now called Villa Velha, near an excellent spring, and not far from the entrance to the bay.

[Note 5: I suppose that off St. Antonio da Barre.]

Caramuru, however, felt some natural longing to see his native land, and accordingly seized the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a French vessel, and taking his favourite wife, he went with her to France, where they were well received by the court, the king and queen standing sponsors at the baptism of the Brazilian lady, whose marriage was now celebrated according to the Christian form. Caramuru, however, was not permitted to go to Portugal; but by means of a young Portuguese student at Paris[6], he communicated his situation to the King Joam III., and pressed him to send an expedition to the bay of All Saints. Shortly afterwards, Caramuru returned to Bahia, having agreed to freight two ships with Brazil wood as the price of his pa.s.sage, of the artillery of the ships, and of the articles necessary for trading with the natives.

Still, however, as Brazil furnished neither gold, nor that rich commerce which the Portuguese derived from their Indian trade, it was pretty much left to itself for the first thirty years after its discovery; and then the regulations adopted by the court were not, perhaps, the most advantageous for the country. The coast was divided by Joam III. into captaincies, many of which extended fifty leagues, and each captaincy was made hereditary, and granted to any one who was willing to embark with sufficient means in the adventure; and to these captains an unlimited jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, was granted.

The first person who took possession of one of these captaincies was Martim Affonso de Souza, in 1531, who sometimes claims the discovery of Rio de Janeiro as his, although it had been named by Solis fifteen years before. Souza was probably deterred from fixing on the sh.o.r.es of that beautiful bay, by the number and fierceness of the Indian tribes that occupied them. He therefore coasted towards the south, naming Ilha Grande dos Magos on twelfth-day, when

"Three kings, or what is more, three wise men went Westward to seek the world's true orient."

[Note 6: Pedro Fernandez Sardinha, the first bishop of Brazil.]

St. Sebastian's on the 20th, and St. Vincent's on the 22d; but having proceeded as far south as the La Plata, he returned to the neighbourhood of San Vincente, where he ultimately founded his colony, and whence he named the whole captaincy.

Martim Affonso de Souza was no ordinary man: his cares for his colony did not relax even after he had been recalled, and sent as governor-general to India, where he had before highly distinguished himself. He introduced the sugar-cane from Madeira into his colony, and in it also the first cattle were bred. Thence they have spread all over the continent of South America, and have proved of more real value to it than its mines.

Pero Lopes de Souza, the brother of Martim Affonso, had his fifty leagues of coast in two allotments; one part, St. Amaro, was immediately to the north of San Vincente, and the other was Tamaraca, between Pernambuco and Paraiba.