Braço Forte, Mão Amiga
An Alternate History of Brazil
The Paraguayan War
The Paraguayan War profoundly altered the
course of Brazilian history. It began with Brazilian armed intervention in the
Uruguayan civil disorders provoked by the fighting between two political
factions: the ‘Colorados’, supported by
Brazil, and the
‘Blancos’, backed by the Paraguayan president, Francisco Solano López. The
Paraguayan intervention in behalf of the Blanco faction materialized in a
declaration of war against Brazil in March 1865.
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Francisco Solano López.
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The Paraguayans launched two offensives
against Brazil. The northern
expedition successfully occupied the main population centers of the Mato
Grosso: Coimbra, Alburquerque,
Corumbá, Miranda and Dorados fell in a matter of weeks.
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Paraguayan soldiers killed in the
battle of São Borja, 1865.
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The main offensive, however, was launched against the Brazilian field army in Rio
Grande do Sul. López, informed by Justo José de
Urquiza, governor of the Argentinean province of Corrientes, about the
Brazilian-Argentinean rapprochement, wisely decided to concentrate his forces
against Brazil, and used the
longer but safer route through Misiones and the Uruguay River to reach Rio
Grande do Sul.
On June 11, the Brazilian Navy succeeded
in engaging Paraguayan ships in the Battle of Riachuelo on the Paraná River. The
Paraguayan saw themselves trapped between Brazilian troops stationed in Rio
Grande and the Paraná River. After an unsuccessful
maneuver to link with the second column of the Paraguayan Army, the Paraguayan
forces in Rio Grande do Sul,
encircled and with supplies quickly diminishing, surrendered to the popular
Brazilian marshal -the Duke of Caxias- after six weeks of battle. Paraguay’s best troops
yielded for almost nothing.
After their defeat in São Borja, Paraguay adopted a
defensive strategy: abandoned Brazilian soil and defended during three years
the strategically placed fortress of Humaitá. During these years, which caused
enormous losses in men and material for the Imperial Brazilian Army, a number
of young Brazilian officers questioned their own loyalty to the Imperial
institution and its leaders' widespread corruption, inefficiency and nepotism.
The officers felt
that they were better prepared to rule the country than was the nobility: the
hellish campaign of Humaitá, which extended from November 1865 to September
1868, only served to increase sympathies for republicanism among the officers
corp.
Among the ideological currents which influenced these officers was the philosophy
of the French positivist Auguste Comte, who believed in an ideal government led
by an intellectual elite, not by hereditary nobility; and speculated about the
possibility of total secular power and the separation of church and state.
Comte's endorsement of universal education also appealed to military officers.
His ideas, which stressed order and progress, spread throughout Latin America; in Brazil, through the Escola Militar de Realengo,
they gave civil and military elites a rationale for advocating an end to
monarchy and the establishment of a strong republican system, which would speed
Brazil's development and enlarge its place in
the world.
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Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of
Caxias.
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In September 1, 1866, the Brazilian Field
Marshall, Luís Alves de Lima e Silva –the Duke of Caxias- was killed in the
course of an attack against the Paraguayan trenches at Curuzú. With Brazilian
troops still heavily engaged in the attack against the Paraguayan fortress of
Humaitá, the unfortunate death of the popular leader, and his replacement with
the inept Baron of Porto Alegre only radicalized the field officers, who
launched a campaign to undermine the support for the Empire among the troops.
The defeat of the demoralized Brazilian
forces at the hands of the machete-armed Paraguayans on September 22, 1866, near
Curupaití was the trigger for a mutiny of the Brazilian troops. Without great fear of reprisal, due to the
weak rule of the Emperor Dom Pedro II, several units retired to the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul, where loyal units engaged them in
battle. In November 20, 1866, the small rebel force was annihilated
near the town of São Borja, but the fratricide fight served to
enrage even more the Army’s leaders against the government.
In the home front, several factors combined to create an anti-monarchic
atmosphere. The traditional rivalry between the aristocratic Navy, favored by
the government, and an Army composed mainly of commoners and even slaves
provoked a rift in the Imperial command that separated the Army leadership from
the Imperial government, and served as an obstacle for the operations against Paraguay and worsening the already bad logistical
situation.
But it was the mobilization crisis of the war what really separated the
Army from the government, and almost cost Brazil the war. Popular resistance and
bureaucratic intransigence thwarted the limited conscription system: the Army
saw itself forced to rely on volunteers. Most of these were free men who signed
on to escape hunger, unemployment, homelessness and the penal system. But
paltry wages, spartan conditions, brutal treatment, and the terribly obvious
fact that the machete-armed Paraguayans were creating a whole generation of
amputees meant that the volunteers were few and their numbers were steadily
diminishing. By the third year of the war, the government had been forced to
‘liberate’ scores of convicts and manumit hundreds of slaves to fight in the
front.
Undoubtedly, the matter of the slaves was one of the most important factors
in the Army revolt against the monarchy. The active abolitionist movements
operating in Rio and São Paulo stimulated massive slave breakouts. With
increasing frequency, fresh troops, badly needed in the front, were used
instead to recapture thousands of fugitive slaves: the Army bitterly complained
about the use of his men as capitães do mato (forces dedicated to
control the plantations’ slaves). By the end of the war, the Army simply
ignored Rio’s request for more troops to deal with
the fugitives.
The increasing contact with slaves served to convert several Army
officers, not only to republicanism, but to abolitionism too: the ‘Ceará
Incident’, where Colonel Sena Madureira refused to transport the slaves
selected in the province of Ceará to be send to the front, was a clear
example of the radicalization of the Army. The fact that several officers,
including the popular general Deodoro da Fonseca, supported Colonel Sena
Madureira, was a sign of things to come.
Finally, an increasingly nationalist Brazil saw itself became saddled
with huge debts, amounting by the end of the war to over 300 million pounds
sterling, and with the possibility of having a French, the unpopular Count
D’Eu, as probable successor of Dom Pedro II in his condition of husband of the
Princess Isabel.
In May 24, 1866, after the bloody battles of Corrales and
Tuyutí, López offered the Brazilian government a pacific resolution of the
conflict in a secret meeting with the Baron of Porto Alegre. The offer was
rejected, but not before it became public: the already strong opposition to the
continuation of the war among the troops and the Brazilian public only grew,
leading to a widening of the gulf between the Army officers, the nation, and
the Emperor.
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Brazilian troops in Asunción, 1869.
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The war continued until Asunción, the Paraguayan capitol, was captured in June 2, 1869. The increasing discontent among the
Brazilian Army’s ranks forced the Brazilian government to offer terms to the
Paraguayans, who rapidly accepted them. The dreary and unpopular four-year
ordeal was finally over. A shattered Paraguay was forced to cede the territory between
the rivers Branco and Apa and the territory of Misiones Occidentales, and to pay a large indemnity in cattle,
mate and other agricultural products.
The last-hour cancellation of the Victory Parade in Rio was an ominous sign of the wide gulf
formed between Rio and the military.
The Republican Coup d’Etat and the Civil
War
But the victory wasn’t enough to quell the rebellious spirit of the
Army: the Republican Party, founded in 1867 and until then a minuscule
political force, become overnight a force with tens of thousands of supporters,
among them large numbers of war veterans and abolitionists. The Army, convinced
of the ineptitude of the Imperial government, decided to take control of the
country: several army officers, led by Marshall Deodoro da Fonseca, proclaimed Brazil a republic during a semi-clandestine
Assembly in the city of Uruguaiana, in the place which is known today as the
Praça da República. It was clear then that the tiny representation of
civilian republicans meant that the coup was to be lead entirely by the Army.
A good number of veterans joined the conspirators’ already large force,
which proceeded to constitute the seasoned Republican Army. The rebel forces
advanced towards Petrópolis, location of the Emperor’s summer palace, in a
failed attempt to put him under arrest. But the Cabinet, controlled by the
Count of Ouro Preto, had managed to create a small force of National Guards,
and foolishly used it in a vain attempt to stop the Republican Army. The battle
of Sorocaba, where the Republican Army annihilated
the forces loyal to the Emperor, was the beginning of the short and nebulous
conflict known as the Civil War.
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Dom Pedro II
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By August 1870 the republicans, counting with the support of most of the
military and the economic elite (who felt that they did not need the Empire to
protect their interests), captured the city of Bahía, the last bastion of the monarchy. The
Emperor, facing defeat, convinced the Council of State to accept the
resignation of the cabinet and accept the conformation of a new cabinet
constituted by republicans, convinced that a republican cabinet would stop
further bloodshed. This was the catalyst of the rift between the “Young
Republicans” and the “Old Republicans”: the former wanted a complete revolution
along positivist, republican and progressive ideas, while the latter, supported
by the powerful landlords, was conformed with the
transformation of Brazil into a conservative oligarchic republic.
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Young
Republicans’ artillery near Rio, 1872.
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The crisis generated by the division between the republicans only
deepened when an influent group among the Old Republicans were
convinced by the Count of Ouro Preto to change sides and supported the
pro-monarchical movement, the latter then waging their own conflict against the
Young Republicans’ troops. A Navy mutiny lead by the commanders Custódio de
Mello and Saldanha da Gama, who occupied the capitol with their forces only
worsened the situation. The death in battle of Marshall Deodoro da Fonseca,
leader of the Old Republicans, was a moral booster for the Young Republicans,
who chose Manoel da Fonseca Lisboa as their commander in chief.
The multisided conflict finalized in 1872, when the Young Republicans
recaptured Rio de Janeiro from the Navy’s hands, and forced the Old
Republicans and the monarchists to surrender by the end of that year:
the Emperor left the country in December 20
1872. In January 1873, the new government announced to the nation that the country
was now a federal republic, under the name of Federal Union of Brazil. The
first act of the new government was the promulgation of a Carta Republicana
(Republican Constitution), which abolished slavery, separated church and state,
transformed the former provinces into federal states, expropriated the Imperial
patrimonies and the Church’s properties and divided them among the former
slaves and dispossessed peasants. Other radical reforms were swiftly
decreed.
The Velha República
From 1872 to 1898 the Velha República (Old Republic) was completely dominated by the armed
forces. Marshal Manoel da Fonseca Lisboa headed the provisional government in
1872 and became the first president of Brazil in 1873. The first decade of military
rule was marked by political turbulence, including revolts and uprisings,
generally led by conservative elements opposed to the radical measures already
taken by the Army, specially the abolition of slavery. Instituted without
compensation for the slave owners, emancipation alienated the powerful landed
interests from the government, and large sections of the Roman Catholic clergy
were hostile to the government for the expropriations suffered by the Church.
Many leading people longed for the return of the monarchy.
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Italian immigrants arriving to São
Paulo, 1898.
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But those same
measures allowed the population and economy to expand at unprecedented rates.
National production increased by more than 900 percent. A network of railroads
was constructed and thousands of European migrated to Brazil in these
years. In the realm of foreign affairs the military government was actively
following the British lead, while at the same time it was hostile to
neighboring regimes which tried to encroach territory claimed by Brazil.
The revolts were frequent these years.
From veterans who couldn’t readapt to civilian life, to angry conservatives, to
Indian uprisings, the military found plenty to do besides ruling the country.
The bloody rebellion of the warlike M’Bayá tribe; and principally, the
Quebra-Quilos revolt discredited the Army. The Quebra-Quilos
(Kilo-Breaking) revolt started in the sleepy town of Iguaraçu, Pernambuco,
where once prosperous smallholders were now squeezed by the fall in cotton prices
after the U.S. Civil War: the frustrated smallholders commenced a jacquerie
that swept the interior of Paraiba and
Pernambuco. Even when the property destroyed was not much (the rioters broke
newly adapted standard metric scales in markets in rural towns, thus the name
of the revolt), the cruel repression of the rioters, justified as “an exemplary
punishment” badly discredited the Army.
A religious dispute between the government
and the Vatican, and the
controversial Recruitment Law of 1874, instituting the draft, only worsened the
situation.
In November 1898 a revolt under the
leadership of the influent Catholic priest João Carvalho forced the military to
call elections, signaling the end of the Velha República.
The Nova República
The Nova República (New Republic) was
characterized for its political turbulence, due essentially to the lack of
national democratic traditions and experience.
The first years of the New Republic were marked by
the stagnation, and even retrogression of the political conditions in Brazil. The new
Constitution guaranteed the exclusion of the majority of the Brazilian people.
The adoption of the precept that the illiterate has no right to vote
marginalized most of the population, specially the slaves recently liberated,
amounting to one and a half million in a total population of ten millions. The
new government stimulated electoral fraud due to the fact that the vote wasn’t
secret and the government itself counted the votes. In a few years, elections
and farce became synonymous: a card game where the outcome was knew beforehand.
Rapidly the real power was exerted by the
interior landlords, who controlled their electoral districts with an iron hand.
Peasant revolts become frequent, and the country saw itself in the abysm’s edge.
Meanwhile, the appalling conditions of the growing urban proletariat facilitated
the apparition of socialist and Marxist movements among it. Some historian
argue that fear to Communism was the reason which impulse the Army to
precipitate a war with Bolivia.
War with Bolivia
During the Old Republic, the
government also conducted a military reorganization. The Army's poor
performance in the Paraguayan War led officers and politicians to legislate
reforms. Their principal concerns included the lack of adequate training and
the need for a more modern reserve system to facilitate rapid mobilization.
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Warship
“15 de Novembro”, 1898.
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General Hermes Rodrigues
da Fonseca, Commander in Chief of the Army after the death of Marshal da Fonseca Lisboa, and noted Germanophile,
made sure that the Army training and troop readiness were improved and its
weaponry modernized along German lines. The focus on training and field
exercises began to make a perceptible difference in army discipline and
performance. Army desertion and crime rates began to decline slightly.
Improving conditions and shorter service contracts attracted more volunteers.
If Brazil hoped –the
Army strategist reasoned- to mobilize an army capable of warding off potential
European aggressors (or its increasingly powerful regional rival Argentina), it had to
have a modern army, with a manpool as large as possible. Since most poor
Brazilians did not attend public schools, the draft became a way of socializing
a larger proportion of the lower classes and providing them with a primary
education. In this way is how the Army became a ladder for social advancement.
Besides, the consensus among the military
that conscription would help resolve a variety of threats to national strength
and unity: the Army promoted itself as a masculine eugenic motor for improving
the health, hygiene, intelligence, discipline, and sense of national identity
among a broader cross-section of Brazil's racially and
ethnically diverse population.
Brazil and Bolivia had maintained
a border dispute since the days of the recognition of Bolivian independence in
1831. Brazil claimed the
eastern half of the Acre territory;
while Bolivia and Paraguay were still
disputing the sovereignty over the territory of El
Chaco. These disputes’ intensity ranged
from civilized discussions in diplomatic meetings to bloody border battles.
By 1908, the Acre territory had
become an important source of rubber production in addition to its riches in
wood and mate. Despite the fact beyond a doubt that Acre belonged to Bolivia, it already
had a numerous Brazilian population. The Army incited the Brazilians living in Acre to declare
independence. A heavy-handed Bolivian attempt to control the region
administratively failed when the Brazilian Army declared its duty to defend the
Brazilians living there. While Rio and La
Paz were initiating a negotiation process
that envisaged the option to purchase Acre, the Brazilian
Army occupied the disputed territory, expelling first the Bolivian troops and
later the few Bolivian citizens living there. With no option but to face the
Brazilian Army, Bolivia declared war
on Brazil in November
1908.
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Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Armistice Day, 1909
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The war was mercifully brief: nine moths
of terrible battles in the jungles and the Chaco arid terrain.
The Amazonian riverine fleet, created in 1898, rapidly transported the
Brazilian troops to Acre, from where
the Brazilian moved southwards after securing the territory, and proclaiming
the annexation of Acre to Brazil. The terrible
crossing of the Mato Grosso eventually allowed Brazil to occupy the Bolivian
city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where they waited the forces coming from the
south: Paraguay had chosen this moment to declare war on Bolivia, and advanced
trough El Chaco towards Santa Cruz. All the Bolivian offensives aimed to avoid
the union of the two invading armies were unsuccessful.
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Bolivian prisoners of war,
1909.
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With the eastern
half of its territory occupied and with the combined forces of Brazil and Paraguay preparing an
offensive against Sucre, aimed to
divide the country in two, Bolivia contacted the
Brazilian government through its embassy in Buenos
Aires, asking for an armistice. Britain, who
was seeing with preoccupation the Brazilian advances into Bolivia, and having
heavy investment in the Bolivian mines, pressured Brazil and Paraguay to
moderate their original demands, which included the Bolivian cession of the
eastern half of the country. Negotiations between La Paz and Rio de Janeiro
were resumed and finally, in November of 1910, the Treaty of Petrópolis was
signed: Bolivia ceded the disputed territories of Acre (north of the Madre de
Dios river) and El Chaco to Brazil and Paraguay respectively; Bolivia was
guaranteed an indemnification of two million pounds sterling as a compensation
for these territories; and Brazil and Paraguay renounced to make any other
claim over Bolivian territory.
The war had several effects on South America and Brazil: a system of
alliances appeared, with Argentina and Uruguay formed a
defensive coalition aimed against Brazil, which exerted
a sort of informal protectorate over Paraguay. Chile and Brazil enjoyed close
relations due to their common hostility against Argentina, while fears
of Brazilian hegemony provoked a rapprochement between Perú and Argentina. Brazilian belligerence
had isolated the country, and forced the post war government to look after
better relation with its neighbors, and such policy conducted to closer
relations with Venezuela and Ecuador, and support
to these countries in their border disputes with Perú and Colombia, respectively.
The successful, short war also created the
political conditions adequate for an Army takeover in Rio: this time,
however, the Army decided to act behind the umbrella of the Partido Nacional
Brasileiro (Brazilian National Party, lead by the retired General Ferdinando
Moreira Umanzor), in order to exert its power through a more legitimate way.
Finally, the war increased the interest of Washington in South
American events, and eventually Washington’s stand
towards Brazil, in the
commercial and political fields, became tougher. From then on, the debate on
the pros and cons of aligned relations with the United
States would swell in
the Brazilian diplomatic and political milieu.
The Great War
During the years 1909 and 1910, the
arbitrary policies and methods of the Conservative Party’s president São-Tiago
Ferrando aroused strong congressional opposition, especially from the Partido
Nacional Brasileiro and the incipient but rapidly growing Partido Socialista
Brasileiro. In November Ferrando dissolved the Congress and assumed dictatorial
powers. An immediate military revolt forced him to resign in favor of Vice
President Prudente José de Moraes Barros.
Order was gradually restored in the
country during the administration of Moraes, and the ascent to the Presidency
of Moraes Barros in 1914 marked the nation's ascent to international
recognition: after the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, rising demand in
foreign markets for Brazilian coffee, rubber, and sugar considerably relieved
the economic difficulties of the country.
When in July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war
on Serbia, starting the
Great War, all Brazilian political and military factions prepared to sit out
the war, because nobody at the time could be sure who would win. Preoccupied
for its necessity to pull ever more ships to Europe, the British
admiralty tried to convince the Foreign Office to ask Brazil for help. But
the opposition of the United States, added to the
pressure imposed over the Brazilian government by the Army, which bitterly
opposed intervention in the European war, convinced Rio and London that the
Brazilian domestic situation was not the best for Brazil to participate
directly in the war.
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Brazilian troops arriving
to the port of Santos, 1917.
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In 1917 Britain, preoccupied by the menace of the U-boats and the moral crisis
developing among the ranks of the French Army, asked Brazil to participate directly in the war in Europe. This time, the
Navy and the civilian government wanted -for different reasons- to intervene in
the war: the government wanted to strengthen its domestic position, shaky as a
consequence of German attacks on Brazilian shipping (the ships Paraná, Lapa,
Tijuca, Macau and Acarí), while the Navy wanted to learn
more from operational combat against modern foes, and from working together
with the British.
Brazil severed
diplomatic relations with Germany in June 1917,
and in August Brazil entered the
war on the side of the Allies. With Austria-Hungary, as she had only minimal
interests in South America, Brazil sought to maintain peaceful relations as
long as possible. The same can be said about the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.
The Brazilian Army, 1914:
Standing force of 250.000 men:
19 infantry divisions,
4 cavalry brigades,
3 field artillery brigades,
6 heavy artillery regiments and a
signals brigade
Fully mobilized: 1.5 million men
The Brazilian Navy, 1914:
2 dreadnought
battleships,
2 fast battle cruisers,
14 pre-dreadnought
battleships 13 cruisers ,
13 light cruisers,
7 old cruisers,
9 gunboats, 50
destroyers,
31 torpedo boats,
13 submarines.
460,000 tons.
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The Brazilian Navy organized a squadron
and send it to reinforce the Russian Fleet in the Baltic, and also sent to the
Mediterranean one old light cruiser and 8 new destroyers with which acquired
practice in modern anti-submarine warfare. Brazil deployed two
armored cruisers and 12 new destroyers to Malta in September,
1917.
However, the Allies, specially France,
were not enthusiastic at all about an eventual participation of its Brazilian
ally in the land battles of the Western Front. The French held the Brazilian
army in the utmost contempt –despite its good performance in the Bolivian War-
and considered the American power an absolutely worthless ally. But the carnage
on the Western Front convinced the Allied command that the Brazilians could be
of some use in the Turkish front. After the declaration of war again the rest
of the Central Empires in October 9,
1917, the Brazilian government pledged to send an army to
fight against the Ottoman Empire, numbering
45.000 infantrymen under an autonomous command named the Brazilian Expeditionary
Corp (BEC). Despite the difficulties found in the field, where the Brazilian
soldiers complained about the British rations and suffered from the hot and dry
weather (in what is today southern Lebanon) to which they weren't used at all,
the BEC performance was good.
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Brazilian
troops near the Turkish front, 1917.
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Even when Brazil joined the
Allies in 1917, actually its indirect participation began early in the war,
when most of the European industries were committed to the war. Since 1914 the
Allies were willing to purchase nearly anything Brazilian agriculture and
industry could produce. In addition, they had difficulty filling Brazilian
orders for capital goods. In both cases, Brazilian industries found themselves
faced with inexhaustible demand abroad and at home. Until then the most
successful industries had been labor-intensive, low-technology and low-capital
ones like agro-industry, specially coffee.
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Brazilian officers in
Europe, 1918.
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The situation had deteriorated since 1917
when Germany began an
offensive that obstructed the transportation of coffee in Europe. At the same
time, the war provoked a decrease in the imports, into Brazil, of European
manufactured goods. Besides stimulating industrial activities, the global
conflict offered an opportunity to diversify Brazilian exports. Sales of
cereals, frozen meat and animal fat grew. Sales of rubber also gained
relevance, absorbed in huge amounts by the North American market due to the
growth of the automobile industry. The war orders allowed Brazil to earn
valuable foreign exchange which was needed to pay for capital goods which Brazil could not
produce, and the government's new policies during the war were designed to
force the growth of high-technology industries which would demand more capital
and technology and a work force with better skills.
In this context, the Brazilian trade
balance was profitable throughout the entire war period. This was due to the
reduction of imports and to the diversification of Brazilian exports. In 1920,
49,6% of the industrial facilities had been created between 1915-1919,
confirming the positive impact of the Great War on domestic manufacturing
activity.
The Moreira Period
The election of
Ferdinando Moreira Umanzor as new president in 1918 coincided with the end of
the war in Europe. The German
offensives in the first months of 1918 forced the Allies to accept a truce with
a Germany barely able to
continue the war.
The two Peace
Conferences in the Hague resolved, if
not all, at least the major issues in the effort to achieve an honorable peace.
In the final peace settlement, signed in New
York in January 1919, Brazil was authorized
to keep German ships captured during the war as compensation for its sunken
ships, and recovered bank deposits, retained since 1914 in Germany, relative to
coffee and other products sales.
The end of the war boom was met with
energetic measures to boost the national economy and numerous reforms were
adopted: national finances were strengthened, coffee and rubber production was
displaced by industrial goods production as the main economic activity,
protecting the nation’s finances in a time when falling coffee prices on the
world market menaced to severely disrupt the national economy; and the
stimulation of internal consumption with the colonization of the Brazilian
interior.
It was in this period when a deeply
indebted France sold its Guyanese colony to a Brazil desirous of securing the
mouth of the Amazon river, and who saw the French presence there as a menace,
now that the peace treaty placed France in a precarious position vis-à-vis
Germany.
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‘Donha
Joaninha’, one of the locomotives built in the industrial complex of
Araraquará near Cachoeira, 1920.
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However, in spite of these measures, the
country was badly affected by the drop of the price of Brazilian rubber began
to drop toward the close of Moreira’s first period. Industrial retrenchment and
sharp curtailment of governmental expenditures were necessitated by the onset
of an economic crisis in 1922. In July 1924 a period of unrest culminated in a
large-scale revolt, especially serious in São
Paulo and Rio
Grande do Sul. Most of the army remained loyal
to President Moreira, who had retaken office earlier that year, and, after more
than three months of fighting, the rebels were defeated. Moreira ruled by
martial law for the remainder of his second term.
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Paperboys, 1928.
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In 1928, accusations of fraud against the
Conservative candidate João de Souza Andrade served as an excuse for the army
to brought Moreira again to power. In an attempt to ease the economic distress
of the country, Moreira reduced coffee production and purchased and destroyed
surplus stocks of the commodity. Large numbers of peasants from the
drough-striken northeastern states were relocated in the vast wetlands of
northern Amapá and Inini (former French Guyana), and the government commenced
to send large penal colonies on Brazil's extreme
frontiers.
In 1932 the Moreira regime allayed much of
the political unrest in Brazil by convening a
Constituent Assembly: among the features of the new constitution adopted were
sections curtailing states' rights and providing for woman suffrage, greater
social security for plantation and industrial workers and the election of
future presidents by the congress.
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Brazilian
troops garrisoning Rio, 1934.
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However, these measures weren’t
enough to diminish the considerable opposition from the radical wing of the
Brazilian labor movement. Abortive Communist-led revolts occurred in Pernambuco
and Rio de Janeiro in November
1934, and a formidable rebellion in São
Paulo was only quelled after nearly three
months of large-scale warfare against the well organized rioters, who counted
with the support of left-leaning junior Army officers. Martial law was
declared, and Moreira was authorized by the congress to rule by decree. Mass
arrests of radicals and other opponents of the government followed. Strikes
were outlawed by the government in April 1935, and stringent measures against
communism were adopted.
In spite of the atmosphere of political
turmoil, it was in these years when Brazil abandoned the
French aesthetic standards, until then supreme in the Brazilian arts. A new
national culture appeared abruptly in A Semana da Arte Moderna (the
Modern Art’s Week) in February 1935. This event marked the Brazilian cultural
an aesthetic independence, and the Brazilian topics gained from this moment on
a dominant preference.
The Mascaranhas Governments
The improvement of the economic situation
by 1937 allowed the apparition of manifestations of dissatisfaction with the
Moreira regimen. Defiant action in February 1938 by a group of influential
publishers forced the government to relax censorship of the press. On February
28 it was announced that congressional and presidential elections would be held
later in the year. Gradually, all major restrictions against political activity
were removed. Amnesty for all political prisoners, including Communists, was
decreed in April.
João Mascaranhas de Moraes was elected as
new president in August 1938. Mascaranhas, former chief justice of the supreme
court, asked the newly elected congress to draft a new constitution, which was
adopted the following September: the new constitution and subsequent laws
sought to balance the national budget and develop a program to reduce living
costs, increase wages, and extend social reforms. A wave of nationalizations
began, culminating with the nationalization of petroleum resources in September
1939.
Mascaranhas also conducted a military
reform. In the early 1930s, the army began to undergo a generational change.
The generals of the 1930s had been junior officers in the Great War and had
witnessed the military-backed Moreira regimen. Their worldview was shaped and
influenced by the conservatism and anticommunism of that time. These generals
were being replaced by colonels who had entered the army in the early 1920s and
whose view of the world had been shaped less by ideology and more by pragmatism
and nationalism. These officers were the responsible for the lack of Army
support to Moreira and his bloodless ousting. Mascaranhas established the Comando-Maior
do Exército (the Army High Command, CME) in a significant political
development: before that time, a clique of generals residing in Rio
de Janeiro controlled major decisions of the
army. The new CME replaced this clique with the seven regional commanders, the
chief of staff, and the new post of minister of army, until then a position
enjoyed exclusively by the president.
Brazil’s relations with its neighbors was
regularized with the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1941) drafted by the
South American Conference for Security: the provisions of the treaty stipulated
united defense by the signatories –Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela and Ecuador-
against armed aggression directed at any member nation of the Treaty.
Despite the scandal provoked by the murder
of an army officer in the attempted assassination of an anti-Mascaranhas
newspaper editor, Mascaranhas was reelected in 1942. With the support of the
army and the leftist parties, Mascaranhas announced an ambitious five-year
economic development plan known as SALTE: supported by a U.S. loan totaling more
than $250 millions, the plan, despite some minor setbacks, managed to produce a
fast pace of industrial development; and its success allowed Mascaranhas to
press strongly for legislative approval of a program of basic reforms,
including low-rent controls, nationalizing petroleum refineries, expropriating
unused lands, and limiting export of profits.
War with Argentina
In the final days of the Empire, Brazil reached equilibrium
with its neighbors in La Plata Basin. The difficult
relations inherited from the colonial period had, apparently, been overcome.
Nevertheless, the imperial government left the Republic a legacy of delicate
delimitation negotiations with its South American neighbors –undecided ever
since the treaties concluded by the Portuguese and Spanish crowns. The
political climate created by the war with Bolivia first and
later with the advent of the apparently weak Mascaranhas government would favor
an Argentinean manu militari attempt to decide these issues.
Little by little Brazil-Argentina
relations began to be affected by issues and episodes that would re-ignite the
old rivalries to the point of war. For example, the tariff restrictions applied
in Argentina to Brazilian
exports of sugar, mate, coffee, tobacco, fruits and some industrial products
generated as many problems as the restrictions imposed by Brazil to the
Argentinean sales of wheat, corn, alfalfa and wine. Moreover, the competition
to attract European immigrants would motivate reciprocal jealousy. Also worthy
of mention were the sanitary controls in the port of Buenos
Aires that imposed quarantine on ships
sailing in from Brazilian ports; and the seldom concerted perceptions and
opinions on international politics of both powers, specially in the Brazilian
policy of alliances with Paraguay, Venezuela and Ecuador. Finally,
inevitable tensions were generated by policies of military equipment
acquisition, as when Brazil proceeded to
modernize its Navy in 1940.
The trigger of the crisis that ended in
war was the issues concerning the San Carlos region, which
involved Argentinean territory, and the Mirim Lagoon and Jaguarão River, with Uruguay. To Argentina, the new
Brazilian regime was most welcome as it’s apparently weakness renewed
expectations as to the progress of the delimitation negotiations. Initially,
the Brazilian government took part in these negotiations motivated by the
desire to maintain a good relationship with that neighboring country, and left
aside positions it previously defended.
These positions were based on the delimitation
agreement signed by both countries in 1857 and did not contemplate any
territorial concession by Brazil. This
agreement, however, was in the end not ratified by the Argentinean Congress due
to internal political turbulence. The Argentinean president, Juan José Núñez
Amador, informed Mascaranhas of his decision to repude previous agreements and
proposed a new treaty. As per this treaty, the San Carlos district (bordering,
on the south, the Argentinean province of Corrientes, on the north, the Brazilian
state of Missões), would be divided in equal parts between Brazil and
Argentina, a proposal unsatisfactory to the Brazilian side.
The problem only worsened Brazil-Argentina
relations: the litigation coincided with the turbulence caused in Argentina by a navy
revolt and by a Communist-inspired series of strikes. Both conflicts had caused
apprehension in Argentina with regard to
the supposed Brazilian government’s connivance with the rebel forces.
The Mascaranhas admininstration revealed
special interest in building up friendship and confidence among both countries:
in September 1943 the Brazilian foreign minister launched the proposal of a
Cordial Political Understanding and Arbitration Treaty between Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, which
eventually failed.
The crisis reached its climax in January
1944 in the context of the VII Pan-American Conference. At that time,
diplomatic efforts to reach a common position on the disarmament issue were
frustrated with the entry of Argentinean troops into Uruguayan territory, under
the pretext of joint maneuvers. The Brazilian minister in Montevideo, Luiz Palmar
Sarratea, protested the entry of these troops in Uruguay as “harmful to
Brazilian interests". This provoked a violent reaction on the part of Argentina. President
Núñez sent notes that were more than impolite to José Soares de Souza,
Brazilian minister in Buenos Aires. The exchange
of notes between Núñez and Palmar, in violent terms, resulted in the Brazilian
representative expulsed as persona non grata.
Relations between Brazil and Argentina, from this
moment on, took an irreparable turn for the worse. In the midst of increasing
tensions, with Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay mobilizing
their respective armies, in Rio de
Janeiro the Argentinean minister Guido Blanco
made an enormous effort to arrive at an understanding with Brazil, but it was
clear that it was mere skullduggery when Argentina launched a
violent attack against Rio Grande do Sul in April 2 1945.
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Brazilian cavalry in Rio Grande do Sul,
1945.
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The Argentinean strategy was based in the
fact that the Brazilian Third Army, based in Rio Grande, was the strongest of
the Brazilian army with close to two-thirds of the Brazilian armed forces,
while somewhat fewer than one-third were in the First Army garrisoning Rio de
Janeiro. If the Argentinean Second and Third Armies were successful in
destroying the Brazilian Third Army before the mobilization of Brazilian
reserves, Argentina would be able
to dictate terms to a vanquished Brazil.
Argentinean
Armed Forces, 1945:
Argentinean Army:
Eight
divisions of regular infantry,
Three
regiment of mountain infantry,
Six
cavalry brigades,
Six
engineers battalions,
Two battalions
of border guards,
Four
field artillery regiments,
One
heavy artillery group,
Three
fortress artillery companies,
One
anti-air battalion
One
regiment of railway troops,
One
regiment of heavy bridge engineers,
Two
mixed detachments,
Argentinean Navy:
Four line vessels,
Two coastal defense
armored ships,
Three light cruisers,
Sixteen destroyers,
Three submarines
A coastal artillery
corps.
Three aviation groups
forming integral parts of either the army or navy.
Total: 147,467 men under
arms.
|
In the eve of the war, Argentina fielded the
largest and most powerful armed forces in South America: an efficient
conscription system and a large reserve system allowed the country an armed
force numbering 147,467 personnel.
Meanwhile, their Brazilian counterparts
numbered 132.486 men. Even when the Brazilian Army was outnumbered by Argentina’s, it counted
with more modern equipment, much of it German leftovers from the 1935 war with Russia. The Brazilian
Navy was superior to Argentina’s, and this
advantage was decisive for the outcome of the war.
On January 22, 1980, Argentinean attacked Brazil's air bases at
Santana and Uruguayana, as well as Tacuarembó, Bagé, Pelotas, Melo, Posadas, and
Cachoeira. Their aim was to destroy the Brazilian air force on the ground -a
lesson learned from the German-Russian War. They succeeded in destroying
runways and fuel and ammunition depots, but much of Brazil's aircraft
inventory was left intact. Brazilian defenses were caught by surprise, but the Argentinean
raids failed because Brazilian craft were adequately dispersed and because the
bombs used to destroy runways did not totally incapacitate Brazil's very large
airfields. Within hours, Brazilian aircraft took off from the same bases,
successfully attacked strategically important targets close to major Uruguayan
and Argentinean cities, and returned home with very few losses.
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Brazilian artillery near Passo Fundo, 1945.
|
Simultaneously, six Argentinean army
divisions entered Brazil on three
fronts in an initially successful surprise attack, where they drove as far as
eight kilometers inland and occupied 1,000 square kilometers of Brazilian
territory. As a diversionary move on the Paraguayan front, an Argentinean
infantry division overwhelmed the Paraguayan garrison at Formosa, a town near
the border with Argentina, and occupied territory thirty kilometers eastward to
the Paraguayan fortress at Humaitá. This area was strategically significant
because the main Asunción-Buenos Aires railway traversed it.
On the eastern section of the front,
Argentinean forces captured Santana de Livramento, on the eastern plain of Rio
Grande do Sul, and pushed eastward to Uruguayana. Santana occupied an important
position on the major east-west road, close to the border on the Brazilian
side.
Brazilian Armed Forces, 1945:
Brazilian Army:
Ten
divisions of regular infantry,
Three
regiment of jungle infantry,
Seven
cavalry brigades,
Several
independent and service detachments, including artillery.
One
air corp.
Brazilian Navy:
Two
outdated battleships,
Two outdated cruisers,
Eight large destroyers,
Nine submarines,
Eight coastal defense ships,
A surveying ship,
A submarine depot ship,
Twenty river gunboats,
Five seagoing gunboat,
Eighteen coastguard patrol vessels,
Two oil tankers,
Miscellaneous training and auxiliary
vessels.
A brigade of Naval Infantry.
Total: 132,486 men under arms.
|
The main thrust of the attack was in the
west, where five divisions with heavy artillery support pushed towards the city
of Porto Alegre on two axes, one crossing over the Mirim Lagoon, which led to
the siege and eventual occupation of the city of Rio Grande, and the second
heading for Cachoeira, which had the major military base in Rio Grande do Sul,
as its objective. Argentinean units easily occupied several other towns in the
main routes to the state of Santa Catarina to prevent reinforcement from the
First and Second Armies in Rio de
Janeiro and São
Paulo. By mid-February, a full Argentinean
division -supported by heavy artillery fire- advanced through central Rio
Grande do Sul headed for Santa
Maria and Porto
Alegre and its strategic port facilities. Other
division headed toward Cruz Alta, site of an air base.
But with the increased use of the
Brazilian air force, and the defeat of the Argentinean Navy outside Montevideo
and subsequent blockade of this port, the Argentinean progress was somewhat
curtailed. The last major Argentinean territorial gain took place in early
November 1945. On November 3, Argentinean forces reached Porto
Alegre but were repulsed by a Naval Infantry
unit. Even though they surrounded Porto Alegre on three sides
and occupied a portion of the city, the Argentineans could not overcome the
stiff resistance; sections of the city still under Brazilian control were
resupplied by boat at night. On November 10, Argentina captured Pelotas after a bloody
house-to-house fight. The price of this victory was high for both sides,
approximately 6,000 casualties for Argentina and even more
for Brazil.
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Brazilian
field artillery, 1945.
|
Argentina's successful
assaults against scattered and demoralized Brazilian forces led many observers
to think that Buenos Aires would win the
war within a matter of weeks. Indeed, Argentinean troops did capture the southern
half of Rio Grande do Sul; but Brazil prevented a
quick Argentinean victory by a rapid mobilization of volunteers and quick
deployment of the First and Second Armies’ forces to the front. Besides, in the
first weeks the Army was able to recruit at least 150,000 volunteers, while
500.000 more had to wait to be trained and sent to the front. Approximately
200,000 soldiers were sent to the front by the end of November 1945. They were
well trained troops that fought bravely despite inadequate artillery support.
For example, on November 7 Naval Infantry units played a significant role in an
assault on Argentinean oil import terminal at Mar
del Plata. Brazil hoped to
diminish Argentina's mobility by
reducing its oil import.
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Men drafted in the northern Argentinean
city of San Miguel de Tucumán, 1946.
|
Brazil's resistance
at the outset of the Argentinean invasion was unexpectedly strong, but it was
neither well organized nor equally successful on all fronts. Argentina easily
advanced in the eastern and western sections and crushed the Third Army's
scattered resistance there. Argentinean troops, however, faced untiring
resistance in Paraguay. President
Núñez may have thought that the impoverished Paraguay would not
offer a strong resistance. Instead, more and more Argentineans troops had to be
sent to the Paraguayan front to avoid a Paraguayan breakthrough into Corrientes.
Soon after capturing Santa
Maria, the Argentinean troops lost their
initiative and began to dig in along their line of advance. Rio
de Janeiro rejected a settlement offer and
held the line against the militarily superior Argentinean force. It refused to
accept defeat, and slowly began a series of counteroffensives in January 1946. Brazil's first major
counterattack failed, however, for political and military reasons. President
Mascaranhas was engaged in a power struggle with key military figures and eager
to diminish the political influence of the armed forces: the subsequent
confusion cost Brazil many of its
preciously few armored vehicles, which were destroyed or had to be abandoned. Fortunately
for Brazil, however, the
Argentinean forces failed to follow up with another attack.
Brazil gained its first major victory,
when, as a result of Congress Chairman Hernando Rucavado's initiative, the
Presidency and the Army suppressed their rivalry and cooperated to force Buenos
Aires to lift its long siege of Porto Alegre in September 1946. The Argentinean
armed forces were hampered by their unwillingness to sustain a high casualty
rate and therefore refused to initiate a new offensive.
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Italian
self-propelled artillery bought by Brazil, 1946.
|
The blockade of Argentina and the hasty acquisition
of German, British and Italian military materiel allowed Brazil to amass
considerable air and armored forces: the Brazilian new armored brigades were
decisive in the lifting of Porto Alegre’s siege marked
a major turning point, as Brazil penetrated Argentina's
"impenetrable" lines, split Argentina’s forces, and
forced the Argentineans to retreat. Within a week, they succeeded in destroying
a large part of three Argentinean divisions. This operation was a turning point
in the war because the strategic initiative shifted from Argentina to Brazil.
In May 1946, Brazilian units finally
regained Santa Maria, but with high
casualties. In April, the Cachoeira sector witnessed fierce fighting, as
repeated Argentinean attacks were stopped by Brazilian mechanized and infantry
divisions. Casualties were very high, and by the end of June 1946, an estimated
25,000 Argentineans and 22,000 Brazilians had been killed. Despite these
losses, in June Brazil held a distinct advantage in the attempt to wage and
eventually to win the war of attrition.
In July Brazilian and Paraguayan forces
launched an offensive on Argentinean territory, successfully occupying the city
of Corrientes. After this
victory, the Brazilians maintained the pressure on the remaining Argentinean forces,
and President Núñez stated –in September 1946- his willingness to negotiate a
settlement of the war and to withdraw its forces from Brazil.
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Brazilian armored vehicle
in the outskirts of Pelotas, 1946.
|
But Brazil did not accept
this withdrawal as the end of the conflict, and continued the war into Argentina and Uruguay, mostly due to
domestic pressure to “punish” Argentina for their unprovoked
attack against Brazil. Six major
battles were fought from September to December 1946, in which the Brazilians
routed or defeated the Argentineans, and recaptured most of the territory until
then occupied by Argentina and Uruguay. For the first
time, Brazilian armored and mechanized forces penetrated deep into Uruguay, defeating the
defenders’ forces and capturing huge amounts of artillery and light weapons.
The Brazilian government chose this moment to present Buenos
Aires and Montevideo with a peace
proposal in January 1947, which both eagerly accepted.
The war lasted exactly two years, from
January of 1945 until January of 1947. Casualty figures are highly uncertain,
though estimates suggest more than half a million war and war-related
casualties, many more were wounded, and tens of thousands –mostly Brazilians-
were made refugees.
The end of the Mascaranhas period
The peace treaty, signed in June 1948 in Lima, was redacted
with the Brazilian aim to secure its southern territory. For this purpose, Argentina was to be
weakened as to make her revival as a menace to Brazil’s security
impossible for all time. Despite the Brazilian military’s demands for
Argentinean cession of the provinces of Corrientes and Entre Ríos, and the
annexation of Uruguay, Mascaranhas successfully pressed to change all
territorial concessions (excepting the San Carlos district, ceded to Brazil)
for a war indemnity, to be paid in installments, high enough to prevent
Argentina from spending any considerable sums on armaments in the next 15-20
years.
Furthermore, a commercial treaty was
imposed on Uruguay which made it
economically dependent on Brazil, secured the
Uruguayan market for Brazilian exports and made possible to exclude Argentinean
commerce from Uruguay. The treaty
also forced Uruguay to cede a
frontier strip along the Mirim Lagoon and the Jaguarão River, and to allow
the occupation of Montevideo and to place
its coast at Brazil’s disposal in
military respects. These conditions turned Uruguay into a de
facto Brazilian territory, with all the advantages of annexation without
its inescapable domestic and international political disadvantages.
Finally, the treaty saw the formation of a
South American economic association through common customs treaties, including Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay, under
Brazilian leadership.
After the signing of the peace treaty,
Mascaranhas decided to retire his candidacy, and in the 1948 elections, Emilio
da Costa Figueiredo was elected new president. The new regimen adopted moderate
versions of many reforms commenced by Mascaranhas and fought the inflation
provoked by the war with wage controls, tightened tax collections, and other
measures.
As the
government encouraged economic growth and development of the vast interior
regions, the economy was plagued by high energy costs, runaway inflation, the
cost of demobilization, and a large balance-of-payments deficit. The measures
to deal with these problems included the imposition of an austerity
program, the introduction of a new unit of currency and the creation of
favorable conditions for foreign investors. The successful end of the war and
the Army recognition of civilian primacy over political matters vastly reduced
the fear of renewed militarism and proved that the country's political and governmental
structures were stable.
By 1950 two domestic policy issues were
keeping the Brazilian public entertained: the construction of the new national
capitol, Brasilia, in the
eastern bank of the Tocantins river; and the
announcement of the governmental plans for the development of nuclear weapons
in the near future.
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South America, 1950
|
União Federativa do Brasil
Population:
|
65,149,655 (1950 census)
|
Urban:
|
40%
|
Constitutive States and Federal Dependencies:
|
Federal District (Río), Acre, Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Bahía, Ceará,
Espíritu Santo, Goiás, Inini, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Missões,
Pará, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Río de Janeiro, Río Grande do
Norte, Río Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, São Paulo, Sergipe,
Rondônia, Tocantins.
|
Languages:
|
Portuguese, (Official), Spanish, Guaraní.
|
Religions:
|
Catholicism, Protestantism, Autoctonous Religions.
|
Capital:
|
Brasilia
(under construction)
|
Main Cities:
|
Saõ Paulo
(3,758,396),
Río de Janeiro
(2,887,455),
Belo Horizonte
(1,457,213),
Fortaleza
(778,312),
Salvador
(678,793),
Recife
(584,773),
Porto Alegre
(479,774),
Vitoria
(354,266),
Florianópolis (342,836),
Caienna (199,457)
|
Government:
|
Federal Presidencialist Republic
|
Main political parties:
|
National Party
Conservative Party
Progress Party
Communist Party
Unionist Party
|
Monetary unit:
|
Cruzeiro
|
Literacy:
|
65%
|