INTRODUCING BRAZIL - Brazil - page 48

the central government
could exercise control
only through the local
oligarchies, or patrias .
The constitutional sys-
tem was offset by the
coronelismo , or the
real system of unwrit-
ten agreements among
these local bosses, by
which local oligarchies
chose the state gover-
nors, who in turn selec-
ted the president.
The informal
distribution of power
emerged as the result
of armed struggles and bargaining. In
order to check the nationalizing
tendencies of the army, the oligarchic
republic strengthened the navy and
police, turning them into small armies
in the larger states.

THE FIRST REPUBLIC
In 1889, the monarchy was
overthrown by a military
coup, which was led by
Marechal Deodoro da
Fonseca and supported by
Brazil's coffee barons. Dom
Pedro II was exiled in
Paris, where he died two
years later. A republic was
born, with Deodoro as
the first president. The
Constituent Assembly that
drew up the 1891 consti-
tution was a confrontation
between the São Paulo
coffee oligarchy that
sought to limit executive power
and the radical authoritarians who
wanted to expand presidential
authority. The growing opposition
culminated in a navy revolt, forcing
Deodoro to step down only a few
months later. It was recognized that

The funeral of King Dom Pedro II in
Paris, reported in a French journal

THE STRUGGLE FOR MODERNIZATION
At the turn of the 19th century, Brazil
lacked an integrated economy.
Domestic consumption was largely
neglected, and the middle class was
not yet active in political life. The
economy was organized around large
agricultural estates, or latifundia .
Brazil had lost its sugar market to
Caribbean producers, while the
rubber boom in Amazônia was
beginning to lose its primacy to more
efficient Southeast Asian plantations.
The outbreak of World War I was the
turning point for the dynamic urban
sectors. Industrial production doubled,
and agricultural diversity received an
impetus, as the growing demand by
the Allies for staple products sparked
a new boom for goods other than
sugar and coffee. The old order gave
way to the political aspirations of the

Scooping coffee beans for shipment
after drying, on a São Paulo plantation

“CAFÉ COM LEITE” REPUBLIC
The early years of the republic were
called café com leite (coffee and milk)
by its opponents. Brazilian politics was
dominated by an oligarchy that com-
prised São Paulo coffee barons and
Minas Gerais cattle ranchers. These
groups controlled electoral politics, and
the presidency alternated between the
two wealthy states of coffee and milk.

TIMELINE
1889 Military officers
rebel against Dom
Pedro II, establishing
a republic

1916 A civil statute
formally enshrines
hierarchical and
patriarchal view of
family and sexual
relations

1897 Belo
Horizonte founded
in Minas Gerais, as
Brazil's first mod-
ern planned city

Train station,
Belo Horizonte

1890 1900 1910 1920

1891 The first
president of
Brazil, Deodoro
Fonseca, ousted
by a navy revolt

1896 Teatro
Amazonas
(see pp282-3)
opens in
Manaus

1902 Euclides
da Cunha
writes Os
Sertãos (see
p206)

1908 The
first Japanese
immigrants
arrive in
Santarém

1915 Southeast Asian
rubber elbows out
Brazil from the market