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General facts about Brazil's history

Brazil's history can be divided into two major parts: the colonial period from the arrival of the first Portuguese explorers in 1500 until independence in 1822, and the national period since independence from Portugal. During the colonial period Brazil became the first great plantation slave society in the Americas, producing sugar and later coffee on large agricultural estates worked by slaves. During the 1700s Brazil experienced the first major gold rush in the Americas after explorers discovered gold on frontier territory inland from the coast. .

After Brazil broke away from Portuguese rule in the 1820s, members of the Portuguese royal family ruled as emperors until 1889, in the only sustained monarchy in the western hemisphere. Since 1889 Brazil has been a republic, experiencing two periods of dictatorship: from 1937 to 1945 and from 1964 to 1985

The interaction of Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans in Brazil has produced one of the most racially mixed societies in the world, and one with enormous economic and social inequalities. Since its discovery and with the establishment of early settlements along the coast and the successful introduction of sugar cultivation, Brazil began developing an economy based on plantation agriculture, powered by slave labor. In the late 17th century, Brazilian explorers known as bandeirantes began to find gold in the mountain streams to the north of Rio de Janeiro.

Thousands of colonists and slaves poured into the rugged mountains north of Rio de Janeiro. In the 1720s they discoverer diamonds in the region north of the gold fields. Gold and diamond production rose dramatically until 1760. Probably 80 percent of the gold circulating in 18th-century Europe came from Brazil. The discovery of gold revitalized Brazil's economy, which had been stagnating since the decline of the sugar plantations, although the increase in available cash also caused prices to rise in the colony. In Lisbon, the Portuguese monarchy grew rich from collecting its one-fifth share of the gold that was mined in Brazil. Sugar, gold, and diamonds established Brazil as the economic heartland of the battered and reduced Portuguese Empire.

In Portugal the wealth from Brazil made the monarchy very powerful. The dictatorial Marquis de Pombal, the chief minister of King Joseph Emanuel of Portugal, used this power to modernize the imperial system. In 1755 he abolished slavery in Portugal and prohibited the enslavement of Native Americans by declaring them free citizens of Brazil. Pombal wanted to outlaw African slavery in Brazil as well, but he realized that slavery formed a central part of Brazil's plantation-based economy. Recognizing the

importance of Brazil to the economic well-being of Portugal, Pombal tried to improve the efficiency of the Brazilian economy and administration and to lessen tensions between colonists and their Portuguese rulers. He involved Brazilian-born individuals in the colonial government, promoted new crops, and expelled the Jesuits, who had opposed his economic programs.