The Kingdom of Excess: The Coffee Economy of the Paraiba Valley, 1822-1888
Background & History.
Today Brazil produces 30% of the world’s coffee: it is the largest coffee producer and exporter. It produces both the Arabica and Robusta varieties. Since the early 19thcentury, coffee has played a fundamental economic, social and political role in Brazil. During most of the 19th century, the bulk of the production came from the hills of the Valley of the Paraiba River in the Baixada Fluminense. It is in this region that the so-called “Coffee Cycle” began and took impetus. During the heyday of the coffee boom (1831-1880), Imperial Brazil supplied half of all the coffee drunk in the world.
The coffee plantations of the Rio Paraiba were the economic and political backbone of the Brazilian Empire. The slave-dependent coffee society developed a lifestyle not unlike that portrayed by Margaret Mitchell in “Gone with the Wind” in the Southern states of the USA.
Fazenda do Secretario, Vassouras. RJ.
After pau-brasil, sugar, gold and diamonds, it was the last economic cycle which depended fully on slave labor. However, soil degradation, unviable agricultural practices compounded with the abolition of slavery (1888) and the subsequent demise of the Empire (1889) put an end to the coffee wealth in the Paraiba region. Actually, the beginning of the end of the coffee boom had started as early as 1885 when many plantations went into bankruptcy and were mortgaged to the banks. From Rio, coffee migrated to other regions of Brazil, notably São Paulo where it was easier to grow.
However, one has to highlight the resilience, economic and social realism of many Brazilian coffee growers. They were instrumental in stimulating and modernizing the agricultural economy of the country. After the abolition of slavery, coffee gave rise to a new civilization. Slaves were replaced by better-educated and -paid workers, mainly immigrants from Europe and subsequently from Japan.
Like elsewhere in South America, Portuguese colonial development was highly predatory: indigenous people and the environment were its main victims. The Atlantic rain forest, the Mata Atlantica of the Serra do Mar, was deliberately destroyed to give way to new agricultural ventures. From the 18th century onwards, coffee became the main crop, frequently supplanting sugar cane.
Coffee beans (Caffea Arabica) come originally from Ethiopia. During the 16th century, French, English and Dutch colonialists and traders promoted its cultivation in the Caribbean islands. It didn’t arrive in Brazil until 1724. Actually it was smuggled into the region of Pará by a Portuguese officer named Francisco de Mello Palheta. Legend has it that he was given seeds hidden in a flower bouquet by Madame d’Orvilliers, the wife of the French governor of Guiana, as a gift for services which were not recorded. Rascal or Don Juan, Palheta may have been both. Coffee spread easily in the northern regions of Brazil and finally arrived in the Rio region in 1760. The rain forest above Rio, the Serra da Tijuca in particular, gave way to coffee plantations. In 1796 some 100 tonnes of coffee were exported to Portugal.
There are two main varieties of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta. The states of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Parana, Bahia and Espíritu Santo are Arabica coffee producers. Arabica coffee does well in altitudes of between 900 and 1200 m, depending on the regions’ latitude. The Robusta variety, which was discovered later in central Africa, grows mainly in Espito Santo and Rondonia.
Six decades of coffee boom in the Paraiba valley.
Coffee was planted near the Resende settlement in the south Paraiba valley as early as 1744. Coffee and sugar cane were planted next to each others in small plots. In 1825 larger scale coffee plantations started operation in the Paraiba Valley to supply the American and European (mainly French) markets. Brazilian producers had jumped into the vacuum created by the political crisis between France and coffee producer Haiti. With large expanses of available land, unlimited slave labor and ever-increasing demand for coffee, the region embarked on a boom which lasted until1880.
Industrious fazendeiros cultivated large estates, purchased hundreds of African slaves, built opulent mansions, formed clans by inter-marrying and developed close links to the Imperial court and to the state bureaucracy. The Emperor Pedro II lavished privileges and nobility titles on the so called “coffee barons”. The freshly minted aristocracy of the Paraiba valley compares with today’s nouveau riche in its tastes and lifestyle. The mansions we will visit will give an idea of their profligate routine. The coffee gentry, which was often well traveled and well read, brought furniture from Europe, and hired artists to illustrate its magnificence.
  Fazenda São Fernand, Vassouras.
During the coffee boom, Mangaratiba was the port city from where the sacks of coffee were exported, and where the slaves landed. The busy city had several mansions, churches, and even a theatre where operas were featured. A good road linked the port to the coffee growing region. Mangaratiba was the fiefdom of the self-anointed coffee king Joaquim José de Sousa Breves. His land stretched from Mangaratiba all the way to the border with the state de Minas Gerais. He was the proud owner of 6000 slaves. In less than ten years, the boom became a bust. Nowadays, Mangaratiba has only ruins to show for this wealthy period.
The dark side and the bitter taste of coffee.
Obviously not every coffee grower could afford 6000 slaves like Sousa Breves did. It has now been documented that Brazil imported more slaves during the heyday of the coffee economy in the Paraiba than during the whole of the rest of its history. It is somehow ironical that such a slave surge could fly in the face of the authorities who had either banned the trade or severely restricted it. It became a national sport to circumvent the law or flout it, and some people wondered whether it was really a crime since it was practiced by everybody! The abolitionist José do Patrocínio even claimed that the whole white population was delinquent! The lax local attempts to restrict the slave trade, which was also policed by the British Royal Navy, gave rise to the expression - still used today - "para ingles ver", meaning just for the sake of appearances.
In England, the slave trade had been abolished in 1807. In 1810, João VI had reluctantly
signed an agreement with England to gradually stop the trade in Brazil. Again in1815, at the Congress of Vienna, Portugal was compelled to sign another treaty to stop trade between Brazil and Africa north of the Equator. In 1830 the slave trade was officially banned in Brazil, but it kept increasing, boosted by an unstoppable demand and higher per head price. Between 1845 and 1851, a staggering 243,496 slaves arrived in Brazil. In 1850, 70% of the population of the small city of Valença was composed of slaves (28,400). At the time, Rio had 266,000 inhabitants, including 110,000 slaves. Finally after 1850 a new law put an end to both trafficking and smuggling.
In 1871 the lei do ventre libre or “free womb law” was enacted, under which children born from slaves were free. Until the enactment of this law, slave labor was regarded as expendable. In 1888, when Princess Isabel signed the Golden law to free all slaves, some 1.3 million of them lived in Brazil.
. Fazenda Aliança,Valença
If many coffee growers missed the winds of change, some slave traders were quick to convert their business into modern industrial and infrastructure ventures. Such a visionary industrialist was the self-made man and railway pioneer Visconde de Mauá, who was the Warren Buffett of the period.
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The coffee growing practices had been unsustainable for decades and led to irreversible soil erosion. Consequently production became too expensive to compete with that of other regions of Brazil. By the end of the 19th century, the coffee economy had migrated to other states: the coffee plantations, most of which had become bank property, were abandoned and soon ruined. The environmental destruction is still visible today, when many eroded hills have yet to be reforested and land slides are all too frequent. In the Paraiba valley, extensive cattle grazing pastures have gradually replaced the coffee fields.
Fazenda Vista Alegre.
The city of Vassouras: of brooms and coffee barons.
Vassouras means “broom” in Portuguese; the region was known for its broom production. The raw material is a plant, more accurately a weed called “tupeiçava” by the local Indians. It is still abundant in the countryside. In 1782 the hamlet of Vassouras was already on the map so to speak, and thanks to the coffee boom it became a town in 1857. As early as 1843 one visiting European noted that the fazenda do Secretario had 200 slaves solely employed in coffee cultivation and processing.
The Lonely Planet guide to Brazil (2002 edition) describes the city in these terms: “Vassouras, a quiet resort 118 km north of Rio, was the most important city in the Paraiba valley in the first half of the 19th century. Surrounded by the huge fazendas of the coffee barons of the time, the town still wears the money they poured into it. They actually were barons for 18 of them were given titles of nobility by the Brazilian crown. With the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the resulting decline in coffee production, the importance of Vassouras diminished, and this preserved the town.”
Effectively the city has been kept in a time wrap for decades; time passed nonetheless and many of the grand mansions built by the barons went into decay. The majority of their houses are located around the church square. Most of them have been converted into government and administrative buildings. According to their social and business agendas in the heyday of the coffee boom, the barons moved back and forth from their farms to their urban mansions. Life in Vassouras was never dull; theatres were commonly featuring European plays and operas. The royal family often visited the region.
Vassouras - like Valença, the nearby city that the INC group visited in May - had its own “grand dame” of free spirit. In Valença, Mrs. Lea Pentagna lived in a lovely house, nicely furnished and full of intimate memories. Vassouras had an even worldlier lady, heiress Eufrásia Teixeira Leite (1850-1930). She was born rich and thanks to her business savvy she became even richer. She was strikingly beautiful and loved her freedom: she never married. At 23 she moved to Paris where she lived in aristocratic circles for thirty years: she involved herself in successful stock trading, an unusual activity for a well endowed lady. It has been reported that she was the first woman to be authorized to attend the Paris stock market sessions. Her former home the Chácara da Hera is now a museum and we shall visit it. Vassouras has 31,451 inhabitants and an altitude of 434 m.
Casa da Hera, Vassouras.
Heritage conservation and tourism.
This state of abandon lasted for nearly a century. The economic and social values of the coffee baron society were in disrepute, too scandalous to be protected.
Finally in the early 90s, timid revitalization efforts began, and the Historic Coffee Valley project started. New plantation owners took into their own hands the restoration of the large mansions and surrendering parkland. Instrumental in this revival was the foundation in 1994 of the NGO Instituto Preservale. Currently 25 coffee farms are affiliated toPreservale to create awareness, promote preservation and lobby the authorities for support. Tourism is now providing substantial income in the region. It also benefits the lovely towns of Vassouras, Conservatoria and Valença, around which the coffee plantations are clustered. There are many other coffee farms in the region, some of which are being expended into leisure resorts, with mixed artistic results.
Famous quotes on coffee.
“I never drink coffee at lunch I find it keeps me awake in the afternoon”. Ronald Reagan.
The most famous quote comes from a 19th century coffee loving French Minister, Prince de Talleyrand: “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love”.
Beatrice Labonne, November 28, 2008.
www.preservale.com.br
www.fazendasdobrasil.com.br
www.valedocafe.com.br
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