Fazendas [antikvár]

ntkoduction u nder the lens of history, Brazil's rural houses reflect the country's major economic cycles. They evince the predominance of agriculture and cattle herding, and their interior decor bears witness to a thriving social and cultural life. Until the end of the Second Empire in 1889, rural society was of a patriarchal and slave-holding nature, and the element that perhaps best illustrates the system is the casa-grande, or great house, the residence of the "master," the center around which everything revolved. In Brazil, rural property generally finds its name preceded by the term jazenda. Old sugar plantations would have cngenho (mill) in front of their names. Engenho could mean the great house itself as well as the whole sugar-producing complex: mill, warehouses, slave quarters, cane fields, pastures, forest preserves. Today's plantations are called usfKiis, Those still called engenhos are most often plantations that furnish cane for the larger usinas. In the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul the great cattle fazendas are called estancias, a Spanish influence. The subject of this book is Brazil's sugar and coffee plantations and, in the south, its cattle ranches. The opulent mansions that appeared as a consequence of the gold cycle lie outside its scope, for they are located in urban areas. Also excluded are houses connected with economic cycles of lesser impact, notably those of rubber in Amazonas and Para and cacao in Bahia. The Sugar Plantation The engenho preceded the fazenda and the estancia. The first cane fields and mills appeared shortly after the discovery of Brazil by the Portuguese in 1500, and years before the Crown officially occupied the coast of the colony in 1535. Their administrative system divided the colony into hereditary "captaincies"—the nuclei of the future provinces of the Empire (1822-89) and the states of the Republic (1890 on). Along with dyewood, sugar cane was the principal attraction.