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‘These Industrial Forests’: Economic Nationalism and the Search for Agro-Industrial Commodities in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2013

TERESA CRIBELLI
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Abstract

In the nineteenth century, members of the Rio de Janeiro-based Sociedade Auxiliadora da Industria Nacional promoted the development of new agro-industrial commodities from Brazil's native forests as substitutes for expensive foreign imports. Influenced by late colonial scientists and reformers who followed the political economy of Carl Linnaeus, the society turned a Portuguese imperial project of economic revitalisation into a vision for developing the nation's post-independence economy. For society members, Brazil's ‘industrial forests’ were essential for economic independence and defined the new nation's place in an emerging global capitalist system.

Spanish abstract

En el siglo XIX, miembros de la Sociedad Auxiliadora de la Industria Nacional basada en Río de Janeiro promovieron el desarrollo de nuevos productos agroindustriales de la selva nativa brasileña como sustitutos de importaciones extranjeras caras. Influidos por científicos y reformadores del final de la colonia que seguían la economía política de Carlos Linneo, la agrupación transformó a un proyecto imperial portugués para la revitalización económica en una posibilidad de desarrollar la economía nacional después de la independencia. Para los miembros de la Sociedad, las “selvas industriales” de Brasil fueron esenciales para la independencia económica y definieron el nuevo lugar de la nación en el emergente sistema capitalista global.

Portuguese abstract

No século XIX, membros da Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional, baseada no Rio de Janeiro, promoveram o desenvolvimento de mercadorias agro-industriais oriundas das florestas nativas brasileiras como substitutos a dispendiosas importações estrangeiras. Influenciados por cientistas e reformadores do período colonial tardio que seguiam a economia política de Carl Linnaeus, a sociedade transformou um projeto imperial português de revitalização econômica em uma visão de como desenvolver a economia pós-independência da nação. Para membros da sociedade, as ‘florestas industriais’ do Brasil eram essenciais para garantir a independência econômica e definiram o lugar da nova nação em um emergente sistema capitalista global.

Keywords

Brazilhistory of sciencehistory of commoditiesenvironmental historyBrasilhistoria de la cienciahistoria de las mercancíashistoria del medio ambienteBrasilhistória da ciênciahistória das mercadoriashistória ambiental
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 545 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

1 Titles of publications and institutions quoted in this essay retain their nineteenth-century Brazilian Portuguese spelling.

2 Antunes, Antônio Salustiano, ‘Correspondencia’, O Auxiliador da Industria Nacional, Nov. 1870, pp. 460–1Google Scholar.

3 Antunes, Antônio Salustiano, ‘O coquilho das piassabeiras como combustível’, O Agricultor Progressista, 3 Oct. 1881, p. 3Google Scholar.

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5 ‘Biofuel, Partly from Nuts, Is Tested on an Airline Flight’, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2008.

6 See Bell, Stephen, ‘Aimé Bonpland e a avaliação de recursos em Santa Cruz, 1848–50’, Estudos Ibero-Americanos, 31: 2 (1995), pp. 63–79Google Scholar; and A Life in Shadow: Aimé Bonpland in Southern South America, 1817–1858 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010); Dean, Warren, ‘Deforestation in Southern Brazil’, in Tucker, Richard P. and Richards, J. F. (eds.), Global Deforestation and the Nineteenth-Century World Economy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1983), p. 58Google Scholar; and Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); de Freita, Marcus Vinicius, Hartt: expedições pelo Brasil imperial (São Paulo: Metalivros, 2001)Google Scholar; and Charles Frederick Hartt, um naturalista no império de Pedro II (Belo Horizonte: Editora da UFMG, 2002); Grandin, Greg, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (New York: Picador, 2009), pp. 305–15Google Scholar; and Stepan, Nancy, Beginnings of Brazilian Science: Oswaldo Cruz, Medical Research and Policy, 1890–1920 (New York: Science History Publications, 1976), pp. 26–7Google Scholar; and Picturing Tropical Nature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), chaps. 2 and 3.

7 See Baer, Werner, ‘Import Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America: Experiences and Interpretations’, Latin American Research Review, 7: 1 (1972), pp. 95–122Google Scholar.

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11 Pádua, Um sopro, pp. 14–15.

12 Stepan, Picturing Tropical Nature, chaps. 1 and 2.

13 O Agricultor Progressista, 3 Oct. 1881, p. 2.

14 de Beauclair, Geraldode Oliveira, Mendes, Raízes da indústria no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Studio F&S, 1990), pp. 15–16Google Scholar; Teresa Cribelli, ‘Apeferiçoar or Criar: Dilemmas of Brazilian Modernization, 1850–1889’, unpubl. PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2009, chap. 1; and Luiz Werneck da Silva, ‘Isto é o que me parece: a Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional (1827–1904) na formação social brasileira. A conjuntura de 1981–1877’, vol. 1, unpubl. MA thesis, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 1979, p. 8.

15 The introduction of Peruvian guano to European scientific circles is attributed to Humboldt: see Skaggs, Jimmy M., The Great Guano Rush: Entrepreneurs and American Overseas Expansion (New York: St Martin's Press, 1994), p. 4Google Scholar.

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17 Miers, John, Travels in Chile and La Plata: Including Accounts Respecting the Geography, Geology, Statistics, Government, Finances, Agriculture, Manners and Customs, and the Mining Operations in Chile (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1826)Google Scholar; and Illustrations of South American Plants (London: Baillière, 1849).

18 Bell, A Life in Shadow, pp. 206, 289 n. 204.

19 See de Carvalho Moreira, Francisco Ignacio, Relatorio sobre a Exposição Internacional de 1862 (London: Thomas Brettell, 1863), pp. 43–122Google Scholar; and Moreira, Nicolau Joaquim, Historical Notes Concerning the Vegetable Fibres Exhibited by Severino L. da Costa Leite (New York: O Novo Mundo, 1876), pp. 1–4Google Scholar.

20 da Silva Dias, Maria Odila, ‘Aspectos da ilustração no Brasil’, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 278 (1968), p. 163Google Scholar.

21 de Carvalho, José Murilo, A Escola de Minas de Ouro Preto: o peso da glória (Rio de Janeiro: FINEP, and São Paulo: Editora Nacional, 1978), pp. 18–21Google Scholar. Other important sites for the study of science and technology in the nineteenth century were the Academies of Medicine in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, and the Navy Arsenal in Rio de Janeiro. The Escola Militar in Rio de Janeiro was transformed into a modern polytechnic school in 1874, and the Escola de Minas was founded in Ouro Preto in 1876: see ibid.

22 Netto published a treatise on Brazilian plant species in 1866: Apontamentos sobre a colleção das plantas economicas do Brasil para a exposição internacional de 1867 (Paris: Ballière, 1866).

23 Another node in this argument which is not pursued here relates to the different pathways through which Enlightenment thought was disseminated in Brazil. Barreto attributes the omission of the Sociedade Auxiliadora in the historiography of Brazilian science to a failure to recognise the importance of salons and associations in disseminating scientific information in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Brazil, as opposed to the formal universities and institutions established in Europe: see Barreto, ‘Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional’, pp. 133–5. Silvia Fernanda Mendonça Figueirôa observes that this Eurocentric framework has also resulted in the oversight of Brazilian scientists' contributions to European and North American expeditions, an assessment shared by Marcus Vinicius de Freita: see Mendonça Figueirôa, Silvia Fernanda, As ciências geológicas no Brasil: uma história social e institucional, 1875–1934 (São Paulo: Hucitec, 1995), pp. 16–18Google Scholar; and Vinicius de Freita, Hartt: expedições, p. 157.

24 Luiz Werneck da Silva was the first to observe the absence of the Sociedade Auxiliadora in the historiography on Brazil: see ‘Isto é o que me parece’, vol. 2, pp. 8–18. Graham's classic, RichardBritain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar makes no mention of the Sociedade Auxiliadora despite the author's treatment of the industrial projects of two of its members, André Rebouças and the Baron of Mauá. Likewise, Nancy Stepan's The Beginnings of Brazilian Science does not reference the Sociedade Auxiliadora's role in nineteenth-century Brazilian science, despite the wide-ranging scientific topics published in the society's journal.

25 Werneck da Silva, ‘Isto é o que me parece’, vol. 1, pp. 61–71; Barreto, ‘Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional’, pp. 49, 158–69. The Sociedade Auxiliadora also bears a resemblance to the Sociedades Económicas of Spain and its colonies: see Portuondo, Maria, ‘Plantation Factories: Science and Technology in Late-Eighteenth-Century Cuba’, Technology and Culture, 44: 2 (2003), pp. 232–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Bertol Domingues, Heloisa Maria, ‘A Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional e as ciências naturais no Brasil Império’, in Dantes, Maria Amélia M. (ed.), Espaços da ciência no Brasil: 1800–1930 (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 2001), pp. 85, 92–4Google Scholar.

27 de Beauclair, Geraldode Oliveira, Mendes, A construção inacabada: a economia brasileira, 1822–1860 (Rio de Janeiro: Vício de Leitura, 2001), pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

28 Ibid.

29 The Junta do Commercio oversaw patent applications before 1860.

30 Noah Elkin, ‘Promoting a New Brazil: National Expositions and Images of Modernity, 1861–1922’, unpubl. PhD diss., Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 1999, pp. 44–5. Sociedade Auxiliadora members also served as administrators and jury members at both national and international exhibitions.

31 Roller, Heather Flynn, ‘Colonial Collecting Expeditions and the Pursuit of Opportunities in the Amazonian Sertão, c. 1750–1800’, The Americas, 66: 4 (2010), pp. 437–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Colonial observers included sugar planters, Ambrósio Fernandes Brandão (c. 1555–?) and Gabriel Soares de Sousa (c. 1540–91). Both advocated the study and economic development of Brazilian species: see Brandão, Ambrósio Fernandes (attributed), Dialogues of the Great Things of Brazil (Diálogos das grandezas do Brasil) (trans. Holden Hall, Frederick, Harrison, William F. and Winters Welker, Dorothy) (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and de Sousa, Gabriel Soares, Tratado descritivo do Brasil em 1587 (ed. de Varnhagen, Francisco Adolfo) (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco and Editora Massangana, 2000)Google Scholar. On the exchange of plant species among Europe, Brazil, Africa and Asia during the colonial period, see Russell-Wood, A. J. R., The Portuguese Empire, 1415–1808: A World on the Move (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 152–82Google Scholar.

33 Profits from the local sale of an indigenous medicine made from Brazilian flora provided the lion's share of the Colégio dos Jesuitas' annual income in Bahia: see Walter, Timothy, ‘Acquisition and Circulation of Medical Knowledge within the Early Modern Portuguese Colonial Empire’, in Bleichmar, Daniela, de Vos, Paula, Huffine, Kristin and Sheehan, Kevin (eds.), Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 266Google Scholar.

34 Maxwell, Kenneth, Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 118.Google Scholar

35 Alden, Dauril, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil; with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968), p. 359Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., pp. 370–1.

37 Ferreira Lagos, Manoel (ed.), ‘Hipólito José da Costa Pereira, manuscrito’, Revista do Instituto Histórico Geographico Brasileiro, 21 (2nd edition, 1858), p. 317Google Scholar; see also Safier, Neil, ‘A Courier between Empires: Hipólito da Costa and the Atlantic World’, in Bailyn, Bernard (ed.), Soundings in Atlantic History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 265–93Google Scholar; and ‘Spies, Dyes, and Leaves: Agro-Intermediaries, Luso-Brazilian Couriers, and the Printed Worlds They Sowed’, in Schaffer, Simon, Roberts, Lissa, Raj, Kapil and Delbourgo, James (eds.), The Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770–1830 (Uppsala: Watson Publishing International, 2009), pp. 239–69Google Scholar.

38 Lagos, ‘Hipólito José da Costa Pereira’, pp. 327–8.

39 The Academia de Ciência was likewise founded in 1789.

40 Pádua, Um sopro, pp. 15–16. Ferreira led an expedition into the Amazon and Mato Grosso between 1783 and 1792.

41 Carvalho, A Escola de Minas, pp. 7–8.

42 Pádua, Um sopro, pp. 15–17.

43 See de Almeida Pinto, Joaquim, Diccionario de botanica brasileira; ou, Compendio dos vegetaes do Brasil: tanto indigenas como acclimados (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Perserverança, 1873)Google Scholar; and Documentos officiaes da 3a Exposição Nacional inaugurada na cidade do Rio de Janeiro em 01 de Janeiro de 1873 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional, 1875), pp. 108–10; see also Arruda da Câmara, Manuel, Dissertação sobre as plantas do Brazil, que podem dar linhos próprios e suprir falta do cânhamo, indagas de ordem do príncipe regente, nosso senhor (Rio de Janeiro: Impressão Regia, 1810)Google Scholar.

44 de Andrada e Silva, José Bonifácio, ‘Representação à Assembléa Geral Constituinte e Legislativa do Império do Brasil sobre a Escravatura’ (Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot, 1825), in Cerqueira Falcão, Edgard de (ed.), Obras científicas e sociais de José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, vol. 2 (São Paulo?: Grupo de Trabalho Executivo das Homenagens ao Patriarca, 1963), p. 133Google Scholar.

45 Pádua, Um sopro, pp. 174–9.

46 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, pp. 147–8.

47 Elkin, ‘Promoting a New Brazil’, p. 15.

48 Catalogos dos productos naturaes e industriaes remettidos das provincias do Imperio do Brasil que figurárão na Exposição Nacional inaugurada na Côrte no Rio de Janeiro no dia 2 de Dezembro de 1861 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional, 1862), pp. 73, 140.

49 See for example, Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, 1851 (London: Spicer Bros., 1851); Official Catalogue of the International Exhibition of 1876 (revised edition, Philadelphia, PA: John R. Nagle & Co., 1876); and Official Catalogue of the British Section (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1876).

50 Elkin, ‘Promoting a New Brazil’, p. 15.

51 The term is borrowed from Scott, James C., Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, see chaps. 1 and 2; see also Elkin, ‘Promoting a New Brazil’, pp. 45–6.

52 Netto, Ladislau, ‘Botanica industrial’, O Auxiliador, Aug. 1879, p. 176Google Scholar. Conversely, a French scientist who hoped to popularise botanical knowledge within Brazil complained that the Latin names for Brazilian species impeded more than they facilitated the dissemination of botanical knowledge: see Bell, A Life in Shadow, p. 161.

53 Compiled from Catalogos dos productos naturaes e industriaes que figurárão na Exposição Nacional … 1861; Catalogos dos productos naturaes e industriaes remettidos das provincias do imperio do Brasil que figurárão na Exposição Nacional (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia do Diario do Rio de Janeiro, 1862); and Catalogo da Exposição Nacional em 1875 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Carioca, 1875).

54 Catalogo dos objectos enviados para a Exposição Universal de Paris em 1867 (Rio de Janeiro: 1867?), pp. 33–41, bound with Brazil na Exposição de 1867 (Rio de Janeiro: 1867?), Kroch Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University.

55 ‘A Exposição Nacional’, O Mosquito, 325 (4 Dec. 1875), p. 4.

56 Fernando da Cunha, Antônio Luiz, Relatorio geral da Exposição Nacional de 1861 e relatorios dos jurys especiaes (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia do Diario do Rio de Janeiro, 1862), p. 27Google Scholar. According to Burlamaque, 2,099 of the total of 9,962 objects exhibited in 1861 came from Pará and Amazônas. Only Rio de Janeiro supplied a higher number of products, with a total of 5,928: see ibid., p. 21.

57 Cunha, Relatorio geral da Exposição Nacional de 1861, p. 28. Burlamaque was especially critical of the monoculture of coffee: see ibid., p. 32.

58 Conversion value for 1850 from Leff, Nathaniel H., Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil, vol. 1: Economic Structure and Change, 1822–1947 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), p. 246Google Scholar.

59 da Cunha e Figueiredo, José Bento, Falla dirigida à Assembléa Legislativa da provincia das Alagoas na abertura da primeira sessão ordinaria da oitava legislatura, pelo exm. presidente da mesma provincia, em cinco de maio de 1850 (Maceió: J. S. da S. Maia, 1850), pp. 37–8Google Scholar.

60 Medicinal plants were also important in publications of the period, but due to constraints of space I am unable to explore this topic here: see Moreira, Nicolou Joaquim, Diccionario de plantas medicinaes brasileiras contendo o nome da planta, seu genero, especie, familia e o botanico que o classificou: o logar onde é mais commun, as virtudes que se lhe atribue, e as doses e formas da sua aplicação (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia de Correio Mercantil, 1862)Google Scholar. Moreira was a member of the Sociedade Auxiliadora. A nineteenth-century German immigrant and pharmacist, Theodore Peckholt, studied the medicinal use of 6,000 Brazilian plants. Peckholt published his research in national and international journals and contributed botanical samples for Brazil's exhibition displays. A pioneer Brazilian-born pharmacist, Ezequiel Corréa dos Santos, was the first to isolate the active alkaloid in the pau-pereira tree, a species used by indigenous peoples to treat malaria: see dos Santos, Nadja Paraense, Pinto, Angelo C. and de Alencastro, Ricardo Bicca, ‘Theodoro Peckholt: naturalista e farmacêutico do Brasil imperial’, Química Nova, 21: 5 (1998), p. 669Google Scholar; and Paraense dos Santos, Nadja, ‘Passando da doutrina à prática: Ezequiel Corrêa dos Santos e a farmácia nacional’, Química Nova, 30: 4 (2007), p. 1042Google Scholar.

61 Catalogo da Segunda Exposição Nacional, 1866 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Perserverança, 1866), p. 383.

62 Miller, Shawn William, Fruitless Trees: Portuguese Conservation and Brazil's Colonial Timber (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 82Google Scholar; Cunha, Relatorio geral da Exposição Nacional de 1861, p. 27.

63 Ibid., p. 75.

64 Catalogo da Segunda Exposição, 1866, pp. 488–90.

65 Jörn Seemann, ‘From Candle Wax to E 903: Commodity Geographies of the Carnaúba Palm (Coperinicia cerifera) from Northeastern Brazil’, unpubl. paper, Brazilian Studies Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, 2008, pp. 5–7.

66 Williams, Michael, ‘Industrial Impacts of the Forests on the United States: 1860–1920’, Journal of Forest History, 31: 3 (1987), p. 1Google Scholar.

67 Catalogo dos productos naturaes e industriaes que figurárão na Exposição Nacional … 1861, pp. 41–2.

68 Rebouças, André, Ensaio de indice geral das madeiras do Brazil, vol. 1 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional, 1877), p. 220Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., preface.

70 See Antônio Pereira Rebouças, ‘Classe IV: Material de estradas de ferro’, pp. 214, 218; and André Rebouças, ‘Classe VII: construções civis; diques e apparelhos para a reparação dos navios’, in Moreira, Relatorio sobre a Exposição Internacional de 1862, p. 370. After their return from the 1862 exhibition, André and Antônio organised an unsuccessful pine-lumbering company in Paraná: see Graham, Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, pp. 194–5.

71 See Miller, Fruitless Trees, p. 207; and de Carvalho Cabral, Diogo, ‘Floresta, política e trabalho: a exploração das madeiras-de-lei no Recôncovo da Guanabara (1760–1820)’, Revista Brasileira de História, 28: 55 (2008), pp. 219–20Google Scholar. A member of the Sociedade Auxiliadora, Baltasar da Silva Lisboa, published an earlier volume on Brazilian Wood: Riqueza do Brasil em madeiras de construção e carpintaria (Rio de Janeiro, 1823).

72 Miller, Fruitless Trees, pp. 204–7.

73 See Zeller, Suzanne, ‘Darwin Meets the Engineers: Scientizing the Forest at McGill University, 1890–1910’, Environmental History, 6: 3 (2001), pp. 428–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Rebouças, Ensaio de indice geral, preface.

75 da Costa Rubim, Braz, ‘Ensaio sobre a historia das plantas uteis do Brasil’, O Auxiliador, Jan. 1851, p. 289Google Scholar. In India, the same coconut fibres (coir) have been used for centuries to produce mattresses, rope and many other products.

76 da Costa Leite, Severino Lourenço, ‘Botanica industrial: breve noticia sobre o Cipó Lactescente’, O Auxiliador, Jan. 1878, p. 26Google Scholar.

77 For a description of the forest destruction caused by the expansion of coffee plantations in nineteenth-century Brazil, see Dean, Warren, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 180–90Google Scholar; and Stein, Stanley, Vassouras, A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900: The Roles of Planter and Slave in a Plantation Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 219–25Google Scholar. O Auxiliador regularly criticised the environmental destruction caused by slash-and-burn agriculture, and the Baron of Capanema published a vigorous critique of forest destruction in 1855: see Pádua, Um sopro, pp. 174–9, 244–6.

78 Leite, ‘Botanica Industrial’, p. 26.

79 da Costa Pereira Junior, José Fernandes, ‘Novas plantas textis’, from Relatorio apresentado à Assembléa Geral Legislativa na Segunda Sessão de Decima Quarta Legislativa pelo Ministro e Secretario de Estado dos Negocios de Agricultura, Commercio, e Obras Publicas (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Commercial, 1873)Google Scholar, annexo C, p. 2.

80 Moreira, Historical Notes, pp. 3–4.

81 Michler, W. and José Sampaio, Antônio, ‘Industrial textil’, O Auxiliador, June 1884, p. 130Google Scholar.

82 Falla que recitou o presidente da provincia da Bahia, o conselheiro Joaquim José Pinheiro de Vasconcellos, n'abertura da Assembléa Legislativa da mesma provincia em 2 de fevereiro de 1843 (Bahia: Typographia de J. A. Portella e Companhia, 1842 [sic]), p. 12, also cited in Beauclair, A construcção inacabada, p. 177.

83 Soares, Sebastião Ferreira, Historico da Fabrica de Papel de Orianda ou a defesa do Dr. Guilherme Shüch de Capanema (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Universal de Laemmart, 1860), pp. 27–8Google Scholar.

84 Capanema patented the process in 1857: see ‘Decreto 2053, 16 de Dezembro, 1857’, available at www.senado.gov.br.

85 Ferreira Soares, Historico da Fabrica de Papel, p. 29.

86 Ibid., p. 37.

87 The application was for a ‘patent of introduction’, or short-term monopoly of ten to 20 years in which the engineers would have the exclusive right to import and use the machinery: see ‘Ordem do Dia’, O Auxiliador, Oct. 1878, p. 223.

88 Ibid., p. 222; Guignet, Ernesto, ‘Relatorio sobre uma viagem á [sic] provincia de Minas Geraes dirigido à S. Ex.o Sr. ministro do Imperio, pelo Sr. Ernesto Guignet, professor da escola Polytechnia’, Revista Agricola do Instituto Imperial Fluminense de Agricultura, Sep. 1877, p. 100Google Scholar.

89 ‘Ordem do Dia’, pp. 222–3. An additional patent, not mentioned in society minutes, was granted to Eugênio Muller for a process for the fabrication of yarn, thread and paper from banana trees: see ‘Decreto no. 3415, 15 de Março, 1865’, available at www.senado.gov.br.

90 Saldanha da Gama, José de, Estudos sobre a Quarta Exposição Nacional de 1875 (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Central de Brown and Evaristo, 1876), pp. 90–1Google Scholar.

91 ‘Ordem do Dia’, p. 223.

92 Weinstein, Barbara, The Amazon Rubber Boom: 1850–1920 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983), p. 93Google Scholar.

93 Ibid., p. 94.

94 The Jesuits were the first European cultivators of mate: see Jamieson, Ross W., ‘The Essence of Commodification: Caffeine Dependencies in the Early Modern World’, Journal of Social History, 35: 2 (2001), p. 276CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

95 Bell, ‘Aimé Bonpland’, pp. 67, 75; see also Bell, A Life in Shadow, p. 206.

96 Rebouças, André, Acondicionamento da herva-mate (Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Carioca, 1875), p. 1Google Scholar.

97 Jamieson, ‘The Essence of Commodification’, pp. 276–7.

98 ‘O Mate’, Revista Agricola do Instituto Imperial de Agricultura, March 1883, p. 43. In nineteenth-century Peru, the association of coca leaves with the indigenous population ‘left coca racially debased in the eyes of Creole elites’: Gootenberg, Paul, ‘A Forgotten Case of “Scientific Excellence on the Periphery”: The Nationalist Cocaine Science of Alfredo Bignon, 1884–1887’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49: 1 (2007), p. 205CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Louis Couty, a French physiologist hired by Pedro II to fill the post of chair of industrial biology at the polytechnic school in Rio, facilitated a series of experiments with mate at the Collège de France in the 1880s: see ‘O Mate’, p. 41; see also Couty, Louis, A erva-mate e o charque (Pelotas: Seiva, 2000 [1880])Google Scholar.

100 Rebouças, Acondicionamento da herva-mate, p. 2.

101 Ibid.

102 For selected works on mate, see Barbosa Lessa, Luiz Carlos, História do chimarrão (3rd edition, Porto Alegre: Sulina, 1986)Google Scholar; Linhares, Temístocles, História econômica do mate (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editora, 1969)Google Scholar; and Renk, Arlene, A luta da erva: um ofício étnico da nação brasileira no oeste catarinense (2nd edition, Chapecó: Argos, 2006)Google Scholar. Early twentieth-century promotional materials on mate include Commissão pela Ecônomica, Expansão, Il mate del Brasile (Roma: Tip. Enrico Voghera, 1910)Google Scholar; and Le thé maté du Brésil: analyse chimique (Paris: Mission Brésilienne du Propagande, 1908); see also Ribeiro, Vanderlei, ‘Instituto Nacional do Mate’, in Motta, Márcia (ed.), Dicionário da terra (Rio de Janeiro: Civilisação Brasileira, 2005), pp. 264–6Google Scholar. Mate eventually became a niche export to the Old World, if not to the markets that Rebouças envisioned. Today the herb is cultivated and consumed in Syria and Lebanon, where it was introduced by returning Middle Eastern immigrants in the twentieth century. My thanks to Roberto Khatlab for this observation.

103 ‘Turfa no Ingá, em Nitherohy [sic]’, Jornal do Commercio, 6 Dec. 1849, pp. 1–2.

104 Gama, Estudos, p. 68.

105 Catalogo da Segunda Exposição, 1866, pp. 81–2.

106 ‘Noticia sobre a illuminação a gaz’, O Auxiliador, Dec. 1850, p. 275.

107 ‘Decreto no. 3485, 21 de Junho, 1865’, available at www.senado.gov.br.

108 Gazetilha, ‘Gaz de turfa’, Jornal do Commercio, 19 Jan. 1880, p. 1.

109 ‘Decreto no. 5199, 11 de Janeiro, 1873’, available at www.senado.gov.br; and ‘Decreto no. 5752, 23 de Setembro, 1874’, available at www.senado.gov.br.

110 Leavitt, T. H., Facts about Peat as an Article of Fuel (Boston, MA: Lee and Shepard, 1867), pp. 16–17Google Scholar, 82.

111 Ibid., pp. 73–173.

112 Ibid., p. 82.

113 Swedish Catalogue (Philadelphia, PA: Hallowell and Co., 1876), pp. 192–3. Peat remained an important twentieth-century fuel in Ireland: see Kearns, Kevin C., ‘Development of the Irish Peat Fuel Industry’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 37: 2 (1978), pp. 179–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114 ‘Os camellos no Ceará’, Jornal do Commercio, 3 May 1862.

115 See note 23.