Brazil 1789 CE

What is happening in Brazil in 1789CE

Brazil’s sugar exports, once the mainstay of her economy, have been loosing ground to those of the British and French Caribbean, but coffee-growing is becoming more important. This is centred on plantations on the southern coast.

The bandeirantes based in the Sao Paulo area have continued their slave raiding activities, travelling further and further into the interior. In so doing they have explored western Brazil, and effectively opened up much of the interior to settlement. Their activities have pushed out the boundaries of Brazil far to the west of the line originally agreed between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas, in 1494.

In the south, slave raiding has increasingly given way to gold prospecting, especially in the region of Minas Gerais; and to diamond mining. These activities, together with coffee-growing, have turned the south of the country into the wealthiest part, with Rio de Janeiro as Brazil’s chief city and seat of government.

In the grasslands of the interior cattle ranches are beginning to be established.

Next map, Brazil in 1837

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