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Business, Nationality and Dependency in Late Nineteenth Century Brazil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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‘No one is unaware,’ stated Brazil's Minister of Finance Ruj Barbosa in 1891, ‘that commerce, especially large-scale commerce, in our most important trade centers resides in greatest part, not to say in its near entirety, in the hands of foreigners.’ Rui was calling attention to a situation of increasing concern to Brazilian leaders: the preponderance of foreigners in big business. Another Brazilian Minister of Finance, Felisbello Freire, remarked on the subject in 1894, ‘to my mind this phenomenon is an indication of a subjugation which, dating from colonial times, threatens the annulment of native commerce.’.
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References
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25 Ibid..
26 Some business occupations taxed in the highest bracket, such as Coal Merchant, had less than ten members annually. Others, such as ‘Hydraulic Elevator Entrepreneur’, were esoteric. Ibid., p. 747.
27 Van Delden Laërne, C. F., Brazil and Java: Report on Coffee Culture in America, Asia, and Africa (London, W. H. Allen, 1885), p. 464;Google ScholarPaul, Singer, Desenvolvimen to económico e evoluçāo urbana (análise da evoluçāo económica de Sāo Paulo, Blumenau, Porto Alegre, e Recife) (2nd ed., Sāo Paulo: Editôra Nacional, 1977), p. 30.Google Scholar
28 In Industries and Professions Tax records they are listed separately, but are combined here to aid statistical analysis.
29 Commission merchants were placed in the third, and after 1888 in the second, of the Industries and Professions Tax's brackets. However, this reflects the nature of their profit-taking, rather than the lucrativeness of the occupation. Because commission merchants, unlike most other businessmen, could not expand their margin of profit to compensate for increased taxation, it was considered unfair to tax them at the rate of other overseas traders. Pernambuco, , Presidente da Província, p. 16.Google Scholar
30 Ibid., p. 15.
31 Stanley, J. Stein, Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, 1957), pp. 82–2: Affonso de Escragnolle Taunay,Google ScholarHistória do café no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Departamento Nacional do Café, 1939–1943), VII, 67–9. For a detailed treatment of comissários and their role in Brazil's economy,Google Scholar see Joseph, Earl Sweigart, ‘Financing and Marketing Brazilian Export Agriculture: The Coffee Factors of Rio de Janeiro, 1850–1888’ (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas, 1980).Google Scholar
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34 In 1866, for example, national textile production was only six per cent of the value of importation. Lobo, , História do Rio, I, 389.Google Scholar
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45 This is partially confirmed by Joseph Sweigart's exhaustive study of Rio de Janeiro coffee comisórios from 1850 to 1888. Basing his data mainly on Industries and Professions Tax records, Sweigart finds the nationality of comissários to have been 48 per cent Brazilian, 47 per cent Portuguese, and 5 per cent other European. However, he also finds the nationality of individual partners in Rio de Janeiro comissário firms between 1870 and 1888 to have been 57 per cent Brazilian, 42 per cent Portuguese, and I per cent other European. The discrepancy might be partially explained by a larger proportion of Brazilians among silent partners, theoretically inactive in the firm's business, in comissário firms. Sweigart, , op. cit., pp. 59n., 70, 253, 255, 260.Google Scholar
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53 On the advantage of local ties, see Rollie, E. Poppino, Brazil: The Land and People (2d ed.; New York, Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 213. The total number of company heads increased several times in the threeGoogle Scholar
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65 Estatística das indústrias e profissōes sujeitas no exercício de 1873 a 1874 ao imposto de que trata o regulamento de 23 de Março de 1869, Arquivo do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, Rio de Janeiro, Arquivo do Barāo de Cotegipe, lata 85, doc. 24.
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70 ‘Lifeless’ and ‘backward’ were two descriptions of Maranhāo commerce given by local business leaders themselves. Casa da Praça, Maranhāo, to Emperor Pedro II, Sāo Luiz, no date, 1873, Relatório apresentado pela Commissāo da Praça à Assembléa Geral dos Assignantes da Casa da Praça em sessāo de 13 de Janeiro de 1873 (Sāo Luiz, O Paiz, 1873), p. 21, and Casa da Praça, Maranhāo to President of Province, Sāo Luiz, 21 04, 1871,Google ScholarRelatório de 1872, p. 34.Google Scholar
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76 The 1866 Survey shows a much greater proportion of Brazilians for the province of Bahia than did the 1873–74 Industries and Professions Tax document (see Table 4). Both Portuguese and non-Portuguese foreigners were correspondingly fewer. Since there is no wvidence elsewhere of a notable influx of foreigners into Bahian business between 1866 and 1873, the difference probably stems form the absence of some of the province' urbanized areas (although Salvador is included) in the survey. Ibid..
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