Sample file iv 1. A Cidade Maravilhosa, or “The Marvelous City” A Brief History of Brazil until King John II divided the country into fifteen Captaincy Colonies in 1534. These Settlement in Brazil began perhaps 8000 land grants were orderly strips of land fifty years ago. The people who inhabited this land leagues from north to south, but in practice prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500 followed rivers, mountains, and other were called the Marajoara, a semi-nomadic geographical features. The various captaincies people who subsisted on fishing, hunting, and quickly led to abuses of power and graft, and gathering. Multiple family groups and tribes continual conflict with the native population. within the Marajoara frequently went to war In response, Portugal sent out a Governor- with each other, a fact the Portuguese used to General in 1549, appointed to bring these their advantage when colonizing the area. captaincies to heel and coordinate the efforts to pacify the native tribes under a centralized On 22 April, 1500, a fleet of vessels arrived colonial government answerable to Lisbon. under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral, Samplewho claimed the land for the Portuguese By the middle of the century, file sugar was Empire. Colonization did not begin in earnest already becoming the primary export of 1 Brazil thanks to increasingly high prices in who was not yet of age — under the regency Europe, and the colony was set to be a of the National Assembly. The weakness of principal player in the market. The the young emperor’s position led to multiple Portuguese colonists regardless of their revolts in the provinces, but he eventually involvement in the sugar trade desperately took power as Pedro II of Brazil in 1841. needed more labor and they quickly turned to slaves imported from Portuguese colonies on Pedro II would rule for 58 years, overseeing the African coast. A pattern of trade rapidly and winning three major wars — the Platine developed, with Brazil;s largest import being War, the Uruguayan War, and the Paraguayan slaves, and the largest export being sugar War. He also oversaw the eventual cane. Brazilian dominance in the sugar dismantling of slavery in the nation in 1888. market continued for a century before the Finally, on 15 November 1889, a military cheaper sugar from plantations in the coup overthrew Pedro II and declared the Caribbean began to cut into their profits. Republic of Brazil. The Republic, however, was simply a facade for military rule from In 1807, the Napoleonic War reached Rio de Janeiro, and in 1894 the junta was Portugal, displacing Prince Regent João. He overthrown by civilian forces. This new traveled from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, where government remained in power until the he turned his attention to ruling Brazil, setting Great Depression, when a military coup up a national bank, ending the mercantilistic brought Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, who had trade restrictions that required Brazil to trade lost election in 1930, to power. only with Portugal, and launching a war on French Guiana. After the war, the victorious A Brief History of Rio de Janeiro European countries ordered Queen Maria I and João to return to Lisbon. Instead, he set The Marvelous City was founded in 1565 as up the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro. It and Algarves. The Portuguese Cortes and became the capital of the State of Brazil in political class resented the shift of power to 1763, then of the United Kingdom of Brazil and forced the royal family to return in Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves in 1808, and the 1820 Liberal Revolution. Leaving Brazil finally of an independent Brazil. Despite its for Portugal, João left his son, Prince Pedro haughty position as capital, the city was a de Alcãntara as regent of the Kingdom of provincial and pestilential backwater that was Brazil. contained to the neighborhood later called Centro — the City Center — located against The Cortes attempted to reassert its authority the shore of Guanabara Bay. over Brazil and return it to colonial status, but Pedro declared independence on 7 September In 1902, Rio’s mayor, Pereira Passos, set out 1822, becoming emperor of the nation. The to modernizing the city in an attempt to create war of independence lasted two years and in a Paris in the southern hemisphere. In 1825, Portugal recognized Brazil as a attempting to address the poverty and disease sovereign nation. Pedro, however, was that infected the city, Passos demolished the Sampledeclared King of Portugal in 1831, and left cortiços, the rough neighborhoods file of for the mother country, leaving his son — tenements that were the homes of the 2 descendants of slaves. Fleeing the demolition was a massive outbreak of smallpox that crews, the residents fled into the hills killed 9,000 in the city. Passos’ work upset surrounding the city, establishing the first many. He methods were heavy-handed and favelas, the poor neighborhoods clinging to anti-liberal, but ultimately earned him the sides of the mountains an hills of the city. international acclaim for his policies. Destroying the cortiços was just the start, Passos also sought to change the look of Rio, however. Addressing the regular epidemics of widening and paving roads for the use of diseases like yellow fever, smallpox, measles, automobiles, rebuilding the center of the city typhus, leprosy, and malaria — to name the in the French style with edifices like the worst — that plagued the city was a massive National Museum of Fine Arts and the undertaking. Following the sanitation trends Municipal Theater, and luring hoteliers and of cities like New York and London, he other businesses to help renovate the city’s created the position of Director General of lovely beachfronts. Development expanded Public Health, first occupied by Dr. Oswaldo into the Zona Sul (Southern Zone) and the Cruz, who attempted to rid the city of disease neighborhoods of Ipanema and Copacabana through compulsory vaccination, widespread with their spectacular beaches against the bay, elimination of rats and other other vermin, and long the lagoa (lagoon.) and the installation of sewers in the better neighborhoods. The city continued to expand as electrification and streetcar construction These efforts were not as well received as connected previously separate villages from they had been in America or Europe. The Ipanema all the way to Santa Teresa. A tunnel compulsory nature of vaccinations led police was cored through the São João hill and sanitation officials to force their way into separating the Copacabana and Botofogo, peoples’ homes. Rain water barrels and other connecting the Zona Sul to the Zona Norte. standing water was drained to prevent .Rio de Janeiro continued to see more than its mosquitos, and the use of pesticides led to the share of strife, often tied to the military. The Vaccine Revolt. Rumors the vaccines were “Revolt of the Lash” saw sailors of the harmful and that they would be applied to Brazilian Navy mutiny in 1910 against the intimate areas of the body led to the use of the lash for punishment. The mutineers formation of the Liga Contra a Vacina seized the battleship Minas Geraes and turned Obrigatória (League Against Mandatory its guns on Rio, threatening to fire on the city. Vaccination) in 1904. Politicians, academics, This was averted, but mutinous military men and military men cynically used the continued to be a problem for the city. opposition to try and rid themselves of the Inspired by the Kemalists in Turkey and the president at the time, using street riots against fascists of Italy, young and politically active the policy as cover for their actions. In the lieutenants in the military formed the end, thirty people would die and over a tenentismo movement. These soldiers sought hundred would be injured before the riots political reform, including the introduction of were put down and exemptions to the policy the secret ballot. This last demand was Sampleenacted. These did not last long however, especially important in the wakefile of the 1922 when shortly after vaccinations stopped there elections, which saw widespread influence 3 peddling by the coronéis (colonels) and rural bosses, in particular, were often also oligarchs in the powerful coffee and dairy military officers). industries, a political alliance known as the “cafe com leite” or “coffee with milk”. From 1930 until 1934, “Provisional” “Ghost” voting, in which fake ballots were President Getúlio Dorneles Vargas ruled as entered for the dead or fictional, and other dictator. Elections were held in 1934, and corrupt practices were seen as having made Vargas easily won reelection as president, a the election illegitimate. Worse, some of these post he maintained even after strong practices were openly displayed in the opposition looked to oust him in 1937. With Pernambuco provincial elections, leading the the support of his revolutionary cadre of “lieutenants” to mutiny against the civilian officers, he simply made himself dictator government. once more, retaining the position throughout the period of the Second World War. The revolt centered on the Copacabana Fort, although it was supposed to have been a nation-wide affair. The officers in charge of the fort fired their artillery batteries on the government buildings throughout the city on 5 June, 1922. Retaliation was swift, with the naval squadron offshore bombarding the rebels, eventually forcing their surrender. Only a few remained dedicated to the cause. Twenty-eight of the rebels tore the Brazilian flag into parts, which they wore as bands of honor as they marched toward the Catete Palace to protest. They never made it; most were arrested or fled. The revolt fizzled. The tenentista movement underground was driven underground, but it did not weaken.