The setting for Stanley J. Stein's book Vassouras takes place in one of the most unique environments in the world. Housing large tracts of virgin rain forest, Vassouras represents the ideal climate for the coffee cultivation that has come to dominate Brazilian agriculture, and during the latter half of the 19th century proved as the foremost region for coffee growing in the world. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, Vassouras had declined as a major coffee producing region, and its decline demonstrates important aspects of Brazilian cultural and economic life. Vassouras ultimately lost its affluence as a coffee producer because of the destructive and ineffective agricultural practices of its farmers and the crumbling of the slave-based society that served as its dominant labor force. The experience of Vassouras also demonstrates larger themes in Latin American economics at the end of the 19th century.
Vassouras's boom and bust depended largely on the institution of slavery. Slaves worked plantations and provided virtually all the labor in the cultivation of coffee. Instead of hurting the economic status of the fazenda owners, the end of the slave trade in 1851 improved their condition in the short-run, as it made the value of their slaves double. This provided for more financial resources for the fazenda owners and which ultimately led to expanded production and increases in the land used for coffee cultivation. However, with the anti-slavery movements of the 1870s, the economic condition of the fazenda owners became more precarious, as they knew that they would inevitably lose the backbone of their labor force. This realization lead to decreased investment in the region, and by the eventual end of slavery in 1888, the fazenda owners were left without a labor force they could exploit. However, exploitation was not limited to only the labor market. In one of the greatest ecological disasters in history, fazenda owners cleared large tracts of rainforest and quickly exhausted the soil through using poor farming practices. The more prosperous the region became, the more forest fazenda owners destroyed. This trend of exploitation of land and labor proved representative of Latin American economics of the period, as large landowning families used free or cheap labor, in the form of slaves or repressed indigenous and mixed classes, to cultivate lands in largely ineffective measures.
During this time in reference to Sam patch and the 1800-1837; the Industrial revolution is taking place. Large Factories are being produced in large costal cities. Production of new and old products are on the rise and as well as the demand. People are working day and day out in the factories just live another day but hoping ultimately to be able to afford the products they create themselves. However with that being said obviously those who own these growing ever so
After the discovery of sugarcane from the Arabs, European nations began establishing plantation communities throughout the Americas which were rich with sugarcane. With the creation of these plantations, which focused on mass production of various products, a large amount of cheap human labor was necessary in keeping up with production quotas. Therefore, the Europeans found the best option was to import boatloads of African slaves, who were skilled, non Christian, and immune to many of the diseases that the Native Americans had previously perished from. Mexico, under the rule of the Spanish at the time, had previously relied on Aztecs acquired from warfare for human labor. However, as foreign diseases started to contaminate the enslaved in unsanitary conditions, and the Aztecs began to perish at uncontrollable speeds, the Spanish had had to rely on slaves exported from West Africa to fulfill their agricultural needs in plantations, and their economical needs in mines.
Bergad, Laird. "The Coffee Boom, 1885-1897," from: Bergad, Coffee and Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1983), 145-203
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
This was a great post because I learned a lot about the Septima Poinsette Clark. I learned that she was an African American educator who was fired as a teacher because of her role to change segregation laws so black students could be taught by black teachers. I learned she developed workshops for reading and writing to help African Americans gain civil rights to vote.
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
The Europeans needed to acquire profitable and cheap labor somehow. They knew that workers in foreign lands would be perfect. Not only were cheap laborers needed, but also profitable and cheap land. Goods such as tea, oranges, coffee, bananas, and chocolate were at high demand. The easiest way to acquire all of their desi...
The coffee industry has proven there is a never-ending shift of global power through the global economy. Thus, through the history of coffee, it is apparent that factors involving the globalization process such as absolute advantage and comparative advantage have had an impact on the coffee industry. Although coffee was discovered in Ethiopia, “it was only a matter of time until the drink spread through trade with the Arabs” (5) and eventually spreading to all parts of the world. This specific industry was very attractive to other countries that had the substantial climatic aspects or effective companies to establish this prosperous business. As technology became more advanced, transportation expanded rapidly throughout the world, thus spreading the word of this special drink. In addition, transporting coffee became easier, quicker, and more efficient. Pendergrast asserts that right before the start of the twentieth century, “a pattern of worldwide boom and bust commenced” (xvii).
It wasn’t until the 1700s that the secrets of coffee growing were finally wrestled from the growers in Yemen and the Red Sea region, and coffee began to be grown as a plantation crop (Cowan, 76). Coffee’s switch from being a specialty product to a plantation crop is truly why coffee became available in large quantities and developed as a global beverage. Before this change, there simply wasn’t enough coffee available to be consumed the way it was by the end of the 1800s. Before the introduction of plantation crops, “matching supply with the nascent consumer demand for coffee in Britain was not an easy task” (Cowan, 61). Essentially, even though there was an increase of demand for coffee in England, the East India Company could not meet that demand until plantation crops enabled the supply to
its coffee, and more homes to more slaves than any place expect Brazil; as being a slave
Brazil is an entrepreneurial country. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world! The country has gained its position in the last 150 years of production and maintenance. The crop first arrived in Brazil during the 18th century and the country had become the supreme producer by the 1840’s. Coffee remains as an important export, although its vitality has reduced in the last 50 years. Brazil is the world’s biggest coffee grower and exporter and the size of its annual harvest can have a strong effect on world prices. Brazil itself is the second largest consumer of coffee, next is Germany, on the authority of the International Coffee Organization in London. Brazil increased its coffee production to an amazing 46 million bags in 2008, easily beating its
“A formal public commitment to legal racial equality, for example, had been the price of mass support for Latin American’s independence movements. In the generation following independence, the various mixed-race classifications typical of the caste system were optimistically banished from census forms and parish record keeping.” This was meant to make all slaves citizens, equal to all other citizens. Slavery receded in Latin America, except in non-republican Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. However, Brazil’s pursuit of independence was the least violent and provoked the least amount of change. The case of Brazil suggests that retention of colonial institutions such as monarchies lent to stability. “Brazil had retained a European dynasty; a nobility of dukes, counts, and barons sporting coats of arms; a tight relationship between church and state; and a full commitment to the institution of chattel slavery, in which some people worked others to death.”
The extraction of the raw materials and natural resources can be done through the second factor of production which is labor. The labor process involves human’s effort and productivity to maintain a wellbeing workforce. Brazil’s coffee production sets ...
Until about the mid 19th century, Sao Paulo was a small trading town and slowly continued to grow in importance due to coffee exports (The challenge of slums global report on human settlements, 2003, p. 226). The city eventually became socially divided between the wealthy and the poor with the wealthy concentrated in the higher central districts and the poor on the floodplains and along the railways (The challenge of slums global report on human settlements, 2003, p. 226). To make this socio-spatial segregation even more prominent, urbanization increased dramatically between 1930 and 1980 when there was an intense process of migration from the countryside. Throughout the 1980’s there was major industrial deconcentration that caused medium-sized Brazilian cities to grow at rates much above those of the metropolises. In large metropolises, this caused lower central area population growth rates or even a decrease (The challenge of slums global report on human settlements, 2003, p. 227). This transformation from an industrialized city to a more service metropolis furthered the economic and social polarization and quickly grew the income gap between the richest and the poorest. Also during this time, there was an increasing growth of shantytowns within the urban periphery (which in Brazil are called favelas). According to The challenge of slums global report on human settlements (2003),