Like the swing of the pendulum: The history of government-sponsored rural settlements in São Paulo, Brazil (1820s–1920s)

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the history of government-sponsored rural settlements in the province/state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a pendular movement, whose points of reversion depended on the interests of a landowning elite to obtain labour for newly expanding plantations from the 1820s to the 1920s. Faltering infrastructure and ill-defined property rights over public lands were persistent constraints to the development of such rural settlements. Part of this failure can be attributed to a lack of State capacity and part to the opposition of plantation owners to the settling of independent smallholdings. The paper complements this historical-institutional analysis with a quantitative description of such settlements in 1898–1920. These late government-sponsored rural settlements showed the potential to grow in demographic and economic terms and had an overall demographic and occupational composition well aligned with the goal of creating a family-based peasantry. However, there were enormous heterogeneities in ethno-linguistic composition, educational attainment, and economic prosperity between and within such rural settlements, which point to idiosyncratic features that should be taken into account in future research assessing the short- and long-run effects of immigration and settlement policies in Brazil.KEYWORDS: Rural settlement (Núcleo colonialColônia)plantationcoffeeimmigrationBrazil AcknowledgmentsI thank Stephan Klasen (in memoriam), Erika Anderson, Renato Colistete, André Lanza, José Meléndez, Miqueias Mügge, and William Summerhill for discussing various aspects of this paper. Maria Lúcia Lamounier gave me a much required intellectual incentive to keep working on it. I also benefited from comments received at the XVIII World Economic History Congress and the 3rd German Social and Economic History Congress. Comments by three anonymous referees and Editor Alfonso Herranz-Loncán greatly improved the original manuscript. The usual disclaimers apply and the author is solely responsible for the content of this paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.DisclaimerThe first draft of this paper was completed during a postdoctoral research period at the Institute for Economic & Social History at the University of Göttingen.Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.Notes1 European immigrants were generally the focus of such settlement policies, partly but not exclusively due to the racist intent of ‘whitening’ Brazil. Nonetheless, as early as the 1810s, Magistrate Antonio Rodrigues Velloso de Oliveira, born in São Paulo, envisaged resettling free Brazilians in sparsely populated regions (Velloso de Oliveira Citation1868 [Citation1810], 35–36, 74–75, 87–88; Citation1873 [Citation1814], 112–13). Plans to conquer and settle the indigenous population within the Brazilian territory were also frequent at the time, as discussed by Mügge (Citation2022), and prevalent in Velloso de Oliveira’s proposals, as well.2 The same proponent of reforms mentioned in footnote 1 was careful enough to argue against any change in property rights over royal land grants conceded during the colonial era. Settlement policies were to be based exclusively on land-rental reforms, not on changes in property (Velloso de Oliveira Citation1873 [Citation1814], 99–100).3 See, for instance, the heated contemporaneous debates about the successes and failures of the first German colony in Santo Amaro in Diário de S. Paulo (18 October 1865, 2) and Correio Paulistano (26 March 1866, 2).4 Studies about rural settlements and their impacts on Brazilian long-run development are part of a larger literature assessing the effects of mass immigration to the Americas. For Latin America, see the review by Sánchez-Alonso (Citation2019, 24–27).5 Carvalho Filho and Monasterio (Citation2012) also find positive correlations between historical settlements and current developmental indicators in the state of Rio Grande do Sul; although not denying the importance of human capital, that paper stresses the positive role of reduced inequalities in landownership.6 Online repository of the Brazilian National Library: www.bndigital.bn.gov.br (last accessed on 19 May 2022).7 Pérez Meléndez (Citation2023a) also adopts a nation-wide coverage and inserts the Brazilian case in a global context. Unfortunately, I learned about that forthcoming book only after completing the final review of this paper.8 An exhaustive review of these case studies goes beyond the scope of this paper. I nonetheless highlight the works of Zenha (Citation1950) and Siriani (Citation2003) for the first German colonies, as well as Langenbuch (Citation1971) for colonies founded around the city of São Paulo in the 1870s.9 Free translation for Annuario Estatístico do Estado de São Paulo.10 On the archives of Langsdorff, see Bennigsen (Citation1954) and Schnaiderman (Citation1966).11 See also opinions published in O Farol Paulistano (26 March 1828, 2–4).12 The historiography on German immigration to Southern Brazil is amongst the most vast and comprehensive of any migratory wave to the country. An excellent summary is Dreher (Citation2013). Attempts at exhaustive bibliographical reviews about German-speakers in Brazil, more broadly, are Seyferth (Citation2002) and Kupfer (Citation2021).13 Estrada was also wrongly spelled Entrada. Rio Negro is located in the current state of Paraná, emancipated as an independent province from São Paulo in 1853.14 Report of the president of the province published in Correio Paulistano (20 February 1855, 1).15 Migratory inflows in this period were very small. In 1827–39, São Paulo accounted for only 11.11% of gross inflows to Brazil, which, in turn, corresponded to 1.76% of gross immigration to the US. The point of this paper is therefore related not to the size of the migratory inflows but to the relevance of this period in consolidating policies that led to mass immigration. I thank an anonymous referee for discussions on this issue. TableDownload CSVDisplay Table16 For an early critique see O Farol Paulistano (26 March 1828, 2–4; 22 November 1828, 1; 25 July 1829, 3). In the edition of 15 November 1828 (1–2) there is a critique by Vergueiro himself.17 It is worth noting the number of individuals involved in the policymaking of immigration to Brazil at the time who had studied at the University of Göttingen, in Germany. These included Mello Franco, Langsdorff, Schaeffer, and Luiz Vergueiro, son of Nicolau Vergueiro (see below). While I am not suggesting that they built a common network as students – as Langsdorff ([1825/26] 1997, 14) clearly mentioned that he was going to meet Dr Mello Franco for the first time in São Paulo – their recruitment of immigrants in the German States and the connections they might have had in Bremen and Hamburg were likely linked to their youth spent in the northern German States. See, in that regard, Begliomini (Citationn.d.), Bennigsen Citation1954, Castro (Citationn.d., 25), Karastojanov (Citation1998, footnote 388), Schnaiderman (Citation1966), and Sommer (Citation1950a, Citation1950b). For a history of ideas on settlement colonies in Brazil and their interconnections to German cameralism and the University of Göttingen, see Pérez Meléndez (Citation2023b).18 Aldeamentos were settlements founded by religious orders since the sixteenth century to convert and control indigenous populations. The policy of forced settlements continued deep into the nineteenth century, i.e. long after the ban on Jesuits and the confiscation of their property by the Portuguese Crown in 1759.19 Namely, Itapecerica, M’boy or Carapicuíba.20 Summerhill (Citation2010) finds a positive correlation between historical aldeamentos in São Paulo and income per capita at the end of the twentieth century; he argues that these aldeamentos were not purely extractive institutions, but could allow for permanent settlements conducive to development. Legally set property rights in aldeamentos could be a complementary explanation.21 See also the biographical sketch by Luz and Gouvêa (Citation2021) and references therein.22 Quoted also by Luz and Gouvêa (Citation2021, 130).23 The edition of 12 July 1828 of O Farol Paulistano (3–4) has an almost caricatural discussion about the German colony, which shows how high the feelings were running about the new settlement. An article authored under the pseudonym ‘A Patriot’ first traced parallels between the mutiny in Rio de Janeiro and the fact that some Germans in Santo Amaro had allegedly received guns and training as security forces for the colony, before he proceeded to strongly criticize the colonization plans and costs. In a reply to similar rumors, the ‘Director of the Colony’ then remarked that three old Germans had gone to the city of São Paulo armed with guns only for their self-protection while receiving payments, and that the alleged military drums heard at the colony were nothing but an ‘old drum’ used for mundane signals, such as starting and ending the working day.24 This probably explains the German families living in the villages of Itanhaém and Cubatão in the late 1820s.25 Namely, to the counties of Constituição (currently Piracicaba), Itú, and Porto Feliz.26 Besides his active participation in the political debates described, Nicolau Vergueiro also coordinated a project of roadway construction in Cubatão, which was approved by his own son-in-law (O Paulista Official, 27 October 1838, 1–2; 2 January 1839, 1–4). In 1839, his son José Vergueiro probably commanded the police force that suppressed a strike of German labourers employed in roadway construction in that region (Grandi Citation2021; Sommer Citation1950b).27 See also Kupfer et al. (Citation2016). Major Bloem followed the practice of hiring compatriots to the Royal Ironworks in the same way as its first director, the Swede Carl Gustav Hedberg, had recruited Swedish workers for the instalment of the plant (Vergueiro Citation1822, 14–17).28 Daily remunerations included (1) a fixed value of 0.500 mil-réis; (2) a varying parcel of 0.160 mil-réis when specialized crafts were demanded; and (3) food rations between 0.135 and 0.160 mil-réis. Notice that Major Bloem negotiated the varying parcel (2) with immigrants in Europe, but had no official mandate for that (A Phenix 2 January 1839, 1–4; 21 August 1839, 1–2; 27 April 1839, 2–3).29 References to that strike are innumerous and include both contemporary commentators and academic work. Particularly important are the accounts of Davatz himself ([Citation1858] Citation1941) and of the Swiss plenipotentiary minister Johann Jakob von Tschudi ([Citation1866] Citation1953). Heflinger Jr. (Citation2007, Citation2009, Citation2012) re-sparked studies about the strike by combining archival research in Brazil, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland.30 In the year preceding the strike, Davatz ([Citation1858] Citation1941, 156–58, 212) even envisaged the creation of a rural settlement in São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul. He also happily mentioned that few strikers had become landowners in the official settlement of Mucuri, in the province of Minas Gerais, completely unaware about the living conditions there. Similarly, in 1862 a group of Swiss families facing difficulties in other plantations was transferred to a new settlement founded in the county of Cananeia (Heflinger Jr. Citation2012, 26–27).31 Quoted also by Andrews (Citation1988, 494).32 For a thorough historiographical review and new historical evidence on landownership among immigrant communities in São Paulo, see Lanza (Citation2021a).33 In the wake of conflicts that culminated in the Paraguayan War, the Brazilian government also founded military colonies in 1858 in the villages of Avanhandava and Itapura, almost 500 and 700 km, respectively, from the city of São Paulo. These were rural colonies created primordially for military purposes. The majority of settlers were black navy men and their families, as well as slaves, some brought in from the Royal Ironworks of St. John, Ipanema. The Brazilian Empire founded 27 military colonies in 1840–82 (Freitas and Silva Citation2018). For a discussion of the military purposes of rural settlements – even of the first German colonies – see Mügge (Citation2022).34 Further, the Geographical Review published contemporary accounts on the human geography of Brazilian agriculture. James (Citation1932) and Platt (Citation1935) comment on the physical structure of farms and plantations in São Paulo, comparing estates in new agricultural frontiers to regions of old settlement from the mid-nineteenth century. See also James (Citation1940) and Waibel (Citation1950) for the role of immigration in the colonies of Southern Brazil.35 By the early 1900s, São Paulo’s Department of Agriculture paid a bonus of 10,000 mil-réis for each group of 50 families that landowners settled in private colonies (Holloway Citation1980, 127). It is remarkable that Velloso de Oliveira (Citation1873 [Citation1814], 106–07) had made a very similar proposal almost a century earlier, i.e. to concede monetary prizes and nobiliarchic titles for landowners promoting settlements within their estates.36 The founding decree of Nova Odessa colony in 1905 (Secretaria da Agricultura, Commercio e Obras Publicas Citation1905.) explicitly authorized immigrants to look for employment in plots maintained by the government in that settlement and as coffee pickers in nearby plantations during their first year in the colony. The settlement’s director was responsible to arrange the latter and immigrants were granted free railroad transportation for that purpose (article 18). This twentieth-century mixture of smallholding with public works and employment on plantations in São Paulo is remarkably similar to the findings of Ferreira (Citation2019, 183–86) for nineteenth-century settlers in the province of Santa Catarina.37 These disparities in variables collected by the source are particularly prominent when comparing the 1898–1900 to the 1911–20 issues of the Yearbooks.38 See also Figure A1, in the online appendix.39 See Figure A2, in the online appendix.40 The decrees founding Nova Veneza (Assemblea Legislativa do Estado de Sao Paolo Citation1910) and Nova Europa (Secretaria da Agricultura, Commercio o Obras Publicas Citation1907) inform that these settlements were open to ‘colonists of any nationality’; for practical purposes, they distinguished ‘colonists recently arrived’ from those ‘already residing in Brazil’. Implicitly, this implies that plots of land were reserved for foreigners, but the law is ambiguous enough to allow for the settlement of Brazilians as well.41 See also Figure A4, in the online appendix, which plots the series by nationalities averaged over settlements.42 The large number of Russian and, to some extent, Polish immigrants can be explained by specific migratory waves, such as that of the Nova Odessa colony, officially founded to settle ‘exclusively Russian immigrants’ of a particular type: ‘family-based farmers’ (free translation for ‘[…] immigrantes russos, agricultores e constituidos em familias’ [sic]).43 I averaged Leeuwen and Leeuwen-Li’s (Citation2004) data over 1890–1920; for Lee and Lee (Citation2016), I used the data set in www.barrolee.com (last accessed 22 September 2022), which measures school attainment of people aged 15–64, thus lowering the figures due to higher illiteracy among older cohorts.44 See also Figures A5 and A6, in the online appendix.45 Bandeirantes colony behaves similarly to Monção. However, two observations show a very low and a very high share of non-Catholics, both associated with high literacy rates (which, curiously, are nonetheless above and below the regression line, respectively), giving it a suggestive quadratic shape.46 Notwithstanding, while Nova Europa outperformed the expected literacy rate for its comparatively low share of non-Catholics, Nova Odessa is slightly below the fitted line.47 From the rich literature on the history of primary education in Brazil, see Kreutz (Citation2007) for the role played by immigrants. For an approach in economic history and an exhaustive review of local initiatives for the provision of primary schooling, not limited to immigrants, see Colistete (Citation2016, chapter 4).48 The maximum share of 99.38% craftsmen is due to Bom Sucesso colony in 1898, where all workers were listed as Brazilian craftsmen, except for one official employee. The second highest share of craftsmen is 17.31% (Gavião Peixoto & Seção Nova Pauliceia, 1911).49 Results are nonetheless similar to those of Rocha, Ferraz, and Soares (Citation2017, 115), who estimate a per capita value of total production (agricultural, animal, and extractive), averaged over 1915–20, of 225 mil-réis.50 There are no disaggregated demographic data for Bom Sucesso, Piagui, Sabaúna, and São Bernardo colonies to compute the working age population, but they do have data on total population for the computation of per capita figures (available upon request). Because these colonies had all been emancipated by 1901 at the latest, they do not influence the conclusions that follow.51 Medians were at 179.940 mil-réis and 185.969 mil-réis in nominal and real terms, respectively.52 (232.940/1.196) mil-réis. Wage data from Zamberlan Pereira (Citation2020, table A4).53 Figure A7, in the online appendix, suggests three patterns across settlements: (1) generally sustained growth in agricultural productivity, even if at different rates (Conde de Parnaíba, Monção, Nova Europa, Nova Odessa, Nova Veneza, and Visconde de Indaiatuba); (2) positive growth that nonetheless approached stagnation (Bandeirantes and Pariquerá-Açú); and (3) high volatility intermingling substantial growth with phases of substantial decline in productivity (Gavião Peixoto & Seção Nova Pauliceia, Jorge Tibiriçá, and Martinho Padro Jr.)54 I therefore disagree on this particular point with Holloway’s (Citation1980, 138) conclusion that work under colonato in a plantation was ‘often preferable’ to low-productivity agriculture in settlement colonies.55 In 1918, official rural settlements corresponded to less than 1% of the total private land and ca. 1.4% of the cultivated land of the state of São Paulo (Holloway Citation1980, 137).Additional informationFundingThis paper is based on Chapter 1 of my PhD thesis, written under auspices of the Research Training Group 1723 - “Globalization & Development”, funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). Further research has been funded by the DAAD-PRIME Fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst).