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{{Short description|Armed conflict in Portuguese America}} |
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{{unreferenced|date=October 2010}} |
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{{DISPLAYTITLE:War of the ''Mascates''}} |
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'''Mascate War''', '''The War of the Peddlers''' or ] (Portuguese) was a conflict fought between rival groups of commerce in ] and ], ], ] from ] to ]. |
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The '''War of the ''Mascates''''' might be more accurately called an ]; the main events occurred in and around ], Pernambuco during 1710 and 1711.<ref name="Boxer"/> Some consider the underlying causes lasted for two centuries.<ref>E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 79</ref> The two sides were the landed elites, often referred to as ''senhores de engenho'', and the merchants of Recife. |
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==Intro== |
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Conflicts between the landowners and mills from the state were concentrated in Olinda and Recife Portuguese traders, called pejoratively of peddlers. When there was sedition among the peddlers of Recife and the European gentry of Olinda, the sectarians of the hawkers was nicknamed ], vines and ], and the ] and their ], shaved legs - because when they would take arms, they went barefoot, with less embarrassment for the manning, and so were known as skilful in them, and very valuable, so in the ], the moniker is synonymous with shaved legs nobility. |
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The twentieth century historian ], in describing the coeval accounts of the War of the Mascates commented: "So much hard lying is involved in this conflict of evidence that the exact truth is probably unascertainable..."<ref>C. R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil: 1695-1750, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1962. p. 115</ref> |
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The War of the Mascates evidences the tensions between the landed elites in colonial Brazil and the ''mascates'' (merchants) of Recife. The "war" (there was considerable shooting but little loss of life) has elements of ]. Moreover, although Recife and ] were far from the goldfields, to an arguable extent the War of the Mascates can be seen as a parallel to the ] between people born in Brazilian and newcomers. To the extent that is true, it shows effects of the gold rush were felt in Pernambuco, many miles from the goldfields.<ref name="Boxer">C. R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil: 1695-1750, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1962. Ch. V</ref> |
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== Background == |
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After the expulsion of the Dutch, Olinda, then the capital of Pernambuco and the civic and religious center, was left in shambles. Yet Olinda was the municipality of the planters, the local aristocracy. Recife, the port facility for Olinda, had formerly consisted of a few modest dwellings, warehouses, and businesses catering to ships and seamen. It had been developed by the Dutch into a thriving center of commerce populated by wealthy, mostly recently arrived merchants. The investment required to build, operate, and maintain an ''engenho'' had always been high and the discovery of gold and the subsequent demand for slaves had driven up the cost of slaves significantly, which further indebted the planters to the merchants.<ref name=Boxer/> |
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In ], a ] crisis led to Portugal forming a personal union with ] under the ] ] ]. The unification of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the ], lasted until ], although the institutions of both kingdoms remained separate. The ] (the Seventeen Provinces) obtained independence from Spain in ], leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with ] ships, including in Brazil. |
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==The events== |
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Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering the coast: they sacked ] in ], from which they removed large amounts of gold and silver before a joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. |
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The governor, Sebastião de Castro e Caldas, was appointed by the crown. The local municipal offices were controlled by the planters. The wealthy merchants resented the political controls exercised by the planters, and the planters resented being indebted to the merchants. The governors frequently favored wealthy merchants.<ref name=Boxer /> |
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In 1710, after many denied requests, the crown granted Recife municipal status. The governor, anticipating resistance from the planters, decided on a secret and clumsy strategy to implement the new municipality. The planters seized upon his secrecy to contend that the new status for Recife had not been authorized by the king. The planters reacted, the governor reacted, the governor was shot at and decamped to Bahia. The planters attacked Recife, although serious violence was averted by clerical intercession. The planters and their allies regrouped in Olinda where, in a precursor to the declaration of an independent republic in the nineteenth century, there was at least a minimally credible suggestion that Pernambuco be declared an independent republic.<ref name=Boxer /> |
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From ] to ], the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda, and with the capture of ] in ], the Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to ] (]), without, however, penetrating the interior. The large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went. Ironically, the result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was a higher price of sugar in ]. During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of the ] in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence of the ] ] as governor (]–]) in Recife. Nassau invited scientific commissions to research the local flora and fauna, resulting in added knowledge of the territory. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Remnants survive to this day. |
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For several months the situation was subdued, but then the merchants and their allies rebelled. After some minimal violence, the planters and their adherents laid siege to Recife, and additionally to some other areas adhering to the ''mascates'', such as the fortress of Tamandaré. The siege succeeded in isolating and inconveniencing the residents of Recife but despite a need to subsist mostly by eating shellfish and other seafood, Recife was able to sustain itself until the crown-appointed new governor arrived. The new governor, Felix Machado, came with a pardon for the rebels and relative peace was restored temporarily. However, the municipal status of Recife was also affirmed and the planters again took offense. Felix Machado, who would be remembered as one of the worst governors of Pernambuco, sided with the merchants and persecuted the planters. He too like his predecessor, Sebastiåo de Castro, accrued an attempted assassination.<ref name=Boxer /> |
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After several years of open warfare, the Dutch formally withdrew in ]; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Few Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remain. |
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However accurate or exaggerated the descriptions of the depravity of governor Felix Machado, his excesses were eventually quelled when António de Albuquerque, twice governor of Rio de Janeiro, stopped in Pernambuco en route to Lisbon. Apprised of the situation he presented his Pernambucan relative's case to the king. The king issued a new set of instructions to Governor Felix Machado, freeing a shipload of planters who were already chained and on board a ship about to sail to Portugal. In 1715 the crown dispatched a new governor to replace Felix Machado and residents of Pernambuco finally felt the troubles were ended, though many families of the colony's elites were ruined.<ref name=Boxer /> |
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After the expulsion of the Dutch in the Northeast of Brazil, the region's economy, dependent on the agro-manufacture of sugar, no capital to invest in crops, equipment and manpower (slave), compared to the decline in product prices in international market due to competition from the like product produced in the West Indies, went into crisis. |
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==See also== |
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Economically dependent on Portuguese merchants, to whom aggravated by falling into debt in international sugar prices, the landowners did not accept the Pernambuco political-administrative emancipation of Recife, by then a county subject to Olinda. The emancipation of Recife was seen as an aggravating the situation of local landowners (debtors) before the bourgeoisie ] (creditor), which passed by this mechanism is put in the level of political equality. |
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* ] |
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* ] |
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* ] |
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==References== |
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The competition has affected the wealthy planters of Olinda, which fell into decay and did not get more profits from sugar production, had no capital to pay off their debts. In search of an exit, the planters were to borrow money. At that time the Portuguese traders called peddlers, occupied the city of Recife and had money to lend to you at Olinda, but were charging very high interest rates for loans, caused the increasing indebtedness of the olindeses. |
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{{Reflist}} |
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== External links == |
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Until the late seventeenth century, Olinda was the main city of Pernambuco, where they lived rich planters, who thought his fortune would never end. But it happened for a price war in the European market for sugar and sugar planters of Olinda began to borrow money from traders from Recife, a mere village. Gradually, hatred and conflicts arose. Aware of its importance, traders asked the king of Portugal that the village was elevated to town. As he was being implemented the separation between the two cities in 1710, the lords of Olinda revolted, having as one of the leaders mill owner ]. No condition to resist, the wealthiest merchants of Recife fled to avoid being captured. The city intervened in the region in 1711, arresting the leaders of the rebellion. Recife was elevated to the status of capital of Pernambuco. |
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* https://web.archive.org/web/20121213152927/http://www.v-brazil.com/information/geography/pernambuco/history.html |
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{{Portuguese overseas empire}} |
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After the victory of the hawkers traders perceive the predominance of trade in relation to colonial production that had already occurred since the lords of Olinda caught the interest on money borrowed so the peddlers can keep their colonial system. |
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{{Portugal topics}} |
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== The Conflict == |
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{{Brazil topics}} |
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{{History of South America}} |
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In February 1709, shortly after receiving the Royal Charter which brought the town to a village, traders opened the Pelourinho and the town hall, formally separating the Recife Olinda, the seat of captaincy. |
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{{Authority control}} |
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Having members of the landed aristocracy abandoned Olinda to escape the plantations where they lived, hostilities commenced in ], led by their Captain General, ]. These forces, thickened in ] with reinforcements from ] and Olinda, under the leadership of Bernardo Vieira de Melo and his father, Colonel ], invaded Recife, demolishing the ], tearing the Provincial regal, freeing arrested and persecuting people connected to the governor ] (peddlers). This, in turn, in order to ensure their safety, he withdrew to ], and left the government over the captaincy of Bishop ]. |
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The peddlers fought back in 1711, Olinda invading and causing fires and destroying villages and plantations in the region. |
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The appointment of a new governor, ], and the intervention of troops sent from Bahia ended the war. The commercial bourgeoisie was supported by the metropolis and Recife maintained its autonomy. |
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In the nineteenth century ] write about it: "When the country lacked the arms and blood of their sons, along with the browns have not given him his arms and blood whites and blacks? When those tears have washed their irons despotism, did not go well with the edge of tears? Before the pernambucanos have suffered more than other major storms in Pernambuco. Sedition in the last century, all entering the fray, only about white people came the plagues and lightning, the dungeons were full of the most respectable people of Pernambuco, others piled on more entrenched in the woods and distant hinterlands, and they were loaded irons and sent to Portugal Colonel Leonardo Bezerra Cavalcanti and his two sons, Maj. Bernardo Vieira de Melo, and with a son (Andrew) and his brother, the Commissioner General ], Captain ] and his brother Lieutenant colonel, the licensee ], Captain ], Captain ] and others. '(Frei Joaquim do Amor Divino Caneca "Collection Trainers Brazil, 1994, page 283) |
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The autonomist and anti-Lusitanian feeling of Pernambuco, which came from the fight against the Dutch continued to manifest itself in other conflicts such as the ], ] of 1817 and the ]. |
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== End == |
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After much struggle, which included the intervention of colonial authorities, finally in 1711 the fact was consummated: Recife and Olinda was treated. So ended the War of the Peddlers. With the victory of the merchants, this war merely reaffirmed the dominance of merchant capital (trade) on the colonial production. |
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The War of the Mascates evidences the tensions between the landed elites in colonial Brazil and the mascates (merchants) of Recife. The "war" (there was considerable shooting but little loss of life) has elements of class struggle. Moreover, although Recife and Olinda were far from the goldfields, to an arguable extent the War of the Mascates can be seen as a parallel to the War of the Emboabas between people born in Brazilian and newcomers. To the extent that is true, it shows effects of the gold rush were felt in Pernambuco, many miles from the goldfields.
After the expulsion of the Dutch, Olinda, then the capital of Pernambuco and the civic and religious center, was left in shambles. Yet Olinda was the municipality of the planters, the local aristocracy. Recife, the port facility for Olinda, had formerly consisted of a few modest dwellings, warehouses, and businesses catering to ships and seamen. It had been developed by the Dutch into a thriving center of commerce populated by wealthy, mostly recently arrived merchants. The investment required to build, operate, and maintain an engenho had always been high and the discovery of gold and the subsequent demand for slaves had driven up the cost of slaves significantly, which further indebted the planters to the merchants.
The governor, Sebastião de Castro e Caldas, was appointed by the crown. The local municipal offices were controlled by the planters. The wealthy merchants resented the political controls exercised by the planters, and the planters resented being indebted to the merchants. The governors frequently favored wealthy merchants.
In 1710, after many denied requests, the crown granted Recife municipal status. The governor, anticipating resistance from the planters, decided on a secret and clumsy strategy to implement the new municipality. The planters seized upon his secrecy to contend that the new status for Recife had not been authorized by the king. The planters reacted, the governor reacted, the governor was shot at and decamped to Bahia. The planters attacked Recife, although serious violence was averted by clerical intercession. The planters and their allies regrouped in Olinda where, in a precursor to the declaration of an independent republic in the nineteenth century, there was at least a minimally credible suggestion that Pernambuco be declared an independent republic.
For several months the situation was subdued, but then the merchants and their allies rebelled. After some minimal violence, the planters and their adherents laid siege to Recife, and additionally to some other areas adhering to the mascates, such as the fortress of Tamandaré. The siege succeeded in isolating and inconveniencing the residents of Recife but despite a need to subsist mostly by eating shellfish and other seafood, Recife was able to sustain itself until the crown-appointed new governor arrived. The new governor, Felix Machado, came with a pardon for the rebels and relative peace was restored temporarily. However, the municipal status of Recife was also affirmed and the planters again took offense. Felix Machado, who would be remembered as one of the worst governors of Pernambuco, sided with the merchants and persecuted the planters. He too like his predecessor, Sebastiåo de Castro, accrued an attempted assassination.
However accurate or exaggerated the descriptions of the depravity of governor Felix Machado, his excesses were eventually quelled when António de Albuquerque, twice governor of Rio de Janeiro, stopped in Pernambuco en route to Lisbon. Apprised of the situation he presented his Pernambucan relative's case to the king. The king issued a new set of instructions to Governor Felix Machado, freeing a shipload of planters who were already chained and on board a ship about to sail to Portugal. In 1715 the crown dispatched a new governor to replace Felix Machado and residents of Pernambuco finally felt the troubles were ended, though many families of the colony's elites were ruined.
