The Brazilian Gold Rush was a
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
that started in the 1690s, in the then Portuguese
colony of Brazil
Colonial Brazil ( pt, Brasil Colonial) comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Dur ...
in the
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the l ...
. The gold rush opened up the major gold-producing area of
Ouro Preto
Ouro Preto (, ''Black Gold''), formerly Vila Rica (, ''Rich Village''), is a city in and former capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, a former colonial mining town located in the Serra do Espinhaço mountains and designated a World Herita ...
(
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
for ''black gold''), then known as Vila Rica. Eventually, the Brazilian Gold Rush created the world's longest gold rush period and the largest gold mines in South America.
The rush began when
bandeirantes
The ''Bandeirantes'' (), literally "flag-carriers", were slavers, explorers, adventurers, and fortune hunters in early Colonial Brazil. They are largely responsible for Brazil's great expansion westward, far beyond the Tordesillas Line of 1494 ...
discovered large gold deposits in the mountains of
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...
. The bandeirantes were adventurers who organized themselves into small groups to explore the interior of Brazil. Many bandeirantes were of mixed indigenous and European background who adopted the ways of the natives, which permitted them to survive in the interior. While the bandeirantes searched for indigenous captives, they also searched for mineral wealth, which led to the gold being discovered.
More than 400,000 Portuguese and 500,000 African slaves came to the gold region to mine. Many people abandoned the
sugar plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s and towns in the northeast coast to go to the gold region. By 1725, half the population of Brazil was living in southeastern Brazil.
Officially, 800 metric tons of gold were sent to Portugal in the 18th century. Other gold circulated illegally, and still other gold remained in the colony to adorn churches and for other uses.
The municipality of Ouro Preto became the most populous city of Latin America, counting on about 40 thousand people in 1730 and, decades after, 80 thousand. At that time, the population of New York was less than half of that number of inhabitants and the population of São Paulo did not surpass 8 thousand.
Minas Gerais was the gold mining center of Brazil. Slave labor was generally used for the workforce. The discovery of gold in the area caused a huge influx of European immigrants and the government decided to bring in bureaucrats from Portugal to control operations. They set up numerous bureaucracies, often with conflicting duties and jurisdictions. The officials generally proved unequal to the task of controlling this highly lucrative industry. In 1830, the
St. John d'el Rey Mining Company
The Saint John d'El Rey Mining Company was a British mining company that operated in Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries. The company employed skilled miners from Cornwall and elsewhere in Britain in its gold mines in the state of Minas Gerais, ...
, controlled by the British, opened the largest gold mine in Latin America. The British brought in modern management techniques and engineering expertise. Located in Nova Lima, the mine produced ore for 125 years.
Cuiabá gold rush
In 1718 or 1719 gold was found on the
Cuiabá River
The Cuiabá River (Portuguese: ''Rio Cuiabá'') is a Brazilian river in the western state of Mato Grosso that flows in the Río de la Plata Basin. It is a tributary of the São Lourenço River.
Course
In its upper reaches the Cuiabá River flows ...
. This was about 1400 km northwest of São Paulo and Ouro Preto across mostly uncolonized country. The lasting effect of the gold rush was to extend a finger of Portuguese settlement northwest from São Paulo to the current Bolivian border.
The discoverers were
Pascoal Moreira Cabral Leme and Antonio Pires de Campos. Miguel Sutil found half an
arroba
''Arroba'' is a Portuguese and Spanish custom unit of weight, mass or volume. Its symbol is @.
History
The word ''arroba'' has its origin in Arabic ''ar-rubʿ'' (الربع) or "quarter," specifically the fourth part (of a quintal), which de ...
of gold in one day near the present town of
Cuiabá
Cuiabá () is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. It is located near the geographical centre of South America. Also, it forms the metropolitan area of Mato Grosso, along with the neighbouring town of Várzea Grande. The city' ...
. The area soon had a population of 7000 including 2600 slaves and was producing 400 arrobas of gold a month. Bom Jusus de Cuiabá was founded 1727. Prices were enormous due to the long distance. In 1728, when chests of Cuiabá gold were opened In Lisbon they were found to contain lead. The culprits were never found. The deposits soon played out and by 1737 there were only 7 white men and a few slaves in Cuiabá town.
The 3500-km route to the gold fields ran 155 km overland from São Paulo to
Porto Feliz
Porto Feliz ( pt, Happy Haven) is a municipality in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Sorocaba. The population is 53,402 (2020 est.) in an area of 556.69 km2. The elevation is 523 m. The largest factor ...
, down the
Tietê River
The Tietê River (Portuguese, Rio Tietê, ) is a Brazilian river in the state of São Paulo.
The name Tietê was registered for the first time on a map published in 1748 by d’Anville. The name signifies "The truthful river", or "truthful wa ...
and
Paraná River
The Paraná River ( es, Río Paraná, links=no , pt, Rio Paraná, gn, Ysyry Parana) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Br ...
, up the
Rio Pardo
Rio Pardo is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with ove ...
, 13-km portage at
Camapuã
Camapuã is a municipality located in the Brazilian state
The federative units of Brazil ( pt, unidades federativas do Brasil) are subnational entities with a certain degree of autonomy (self-government, self-regulation and self-collection) and ...
, down the Coxim and
Taquari River
The Taquari River ( pt, Rio Taquari) is a river in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil. It is a left tributary of the Paraguay River. The town of Coxim is situated on the Taquari.
The Taquari River is considered the most de ...
through the
Pantanal
The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but it extends into Mato Grosso and p ...
swamps, and up the Paraguay and Cuiabá. There were around 100 rapids. The route was just north of the ‘vacaria’ of cow country. The outbound journey, loaded with passengers and freight, started during high water from March to June and took from five to seven months. The return journey, loaded with gold, took a few months. The 1726 convoy had 305 canoes and over 3000 people. These convoys were called ‘monsoons’ (
:pt:Monções (expedições fluviais)).
In addition to rapids and mosquitoes, there were also Indians. The 1720 convoy was wiped out by unknown persons. In 1725 the
Payaguá
The Payaguá people, also called Evueví and Evebe, were an ethnic group of the Guaycuru peoples in the Northern Chaco of Paraguay. The Payaguá were a river tribe, living, hunting, fishing, and raiding on the Paraguay River. The name ''Pay ...
(a canoe people on the Paraguay) annihilated a convoy with only two escaping. In 1728 they attacked some Bandeirantes and liberated their
Paraesi captives. In 1730 they killed 400 people and captured 60 arrobas of gold. They did not understand its value. One Spaniard traded a tin plate for six pounds of gold. Some survivors of the 1730 raid walked overland to Camapuã. A 1733 convoy had only four survivors. Punitive expeditions failed until 1734 when an 842-man force destroyed a Payagua town.
[Hemming, p408, has 600 killed and 240 enslaved. Boxer has around 1000 killed or captured .] In 1735 they killed all but four of a convoy. Attacks declined as the gold ran out and because the Payagua quarreled with their Guayacuru or
Mbayá
The Mbayá or ''Mbyá'' are an indigenous people of South America which formerly ranged on both sides of the Paraguay River, on the north and northwestern Paraguay frontier, eastern Bolivia, and in the adjacent province of Mato Grosso do Sul, B ...
neighbors, a horse people on both sides of the Paraguay.
External links
Erário Mineral, author Luís Gomes Ferreira
See also
*
Brazilian Gold
Gold mining in Brazil has taken place continually in the Amazon, beginning in the 1690s, and has profoundly transformed the economy of Brazil and other surrounding countries. In the late 17th century, amid the search for indigenous people to use ...
*
Estrada Real
Estrada Real (, ''Royal Road'') was an epithet applied to the roads built and maintained by the Portuguese Crown both in Portugal itself and in the Portuguese overseas territories.
Presently it is used to designate a set of colonial-era to ...
*
*
Chilean silver rush
Between 1830 and 1850 Chilean silver mining grew at an unprecedented pace which transformed mining into one of the country's principal sources of wealth. The rush caused rapid demographic, infrastructural, and economic expansion in the semi-arid ...
*
Tierra del Fuego Gold Rush
Between 1883 and 1906 Tierra del Fuego experienced a gold rush attracting many Chileans, Argentines and Europeans to the archipelago, including many Dalmatians. The gold rush led to the formation of the first towns in the archipelago and fuele ...
References
{{Economy of Brazil
Gold rushes
History of mining in Brazil
History of Minas Gerais
1700s in Brazil
1710s in Brazil
1720s in Brazil
1730s in Brazil
Economic history of Portugal
18th century in Brazil
Gold mining in Brazil
1690s in Brazil
19th century in Brazil