Portuguese research on the slave trade 259labour had to end. But we should not forget that the slave was an important
factor (indirect, to be sure) in the recruitment and transportation to Brazil of
European immigrants. Recruitment was financed from a percentage of the
customs duties levied on the slave trade. Coffee proved to be a turning-point
in the Brazilian agricultural economy and superseded sugar as the country's
leading product. Conditions favourable to increased coffee consumption had
developed in Europe (and elsewhere). Coffee became widely drunk for its
stimulative effects at the expense of tea, which until then had been drunk
throughout Europe.
The economic development of Brazil has to be ascribed in part to vol-
untary and involuntary immigration. Voluntary immigration, in particular,
may be considered a constant feature of Portuguese life.
The African slaves working on the plantations and in the mines soon
began (in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) to disturb agriculture and
other forms of economic activity. They destroyed farms and settlements; they
established quilombos with the aim of shaking off the yoke of slavery and
trying to wipe out or reduce the effects of their submission to the white man.
Slave rebellions occurred here and there and became common, or very frequent,
in the nineteenth century. It is our view that they were fomented, led and directed
by Muslim slaves, many of them learned man from the Costa da Mina, where
there was a struggle to impose the Islamic doctrine.
Gold and diamonds also brought about an unaccustomed upsurge of
wealth, which unhinged the economy of regions specializing in sugar cane,
tobacco, manioc and the manufacture of sugar and spirits, because of the high
cost of slaves. With his highly valuable products, the miner could buy his
labour force at prices which the farmer could ill afford. The miner did not
haggle over prices. A slave costing from 150,000 to 200,000 reis in Bahia would
fetch, in the mining areas, between 250 and 500 oitavas of gold (an oitava
generally equalled 1,400 reis) which was between 310,000 and 700,000 reis
(1700-03). Agricultural production could not support a similar increase in
labour costs. The price disparity led to the emergence of 'the poor [or impo-
verished] farmer or plantation owner' and the wealthy miner or prospector.
Panic broke out in many agricultural regions ; the cost of essential foodstuffs
soared out of all proportion in the ports and in the interior. In many respects,
the situation of the poor and the middle classes became critical. The less-well-
to-do farmers and plantation-owners were forced to sell their slaves. It was not
that they had to realize their capital; they could simply no longer afford to
feed and clothe them. However, apart from these considerations, they also
had to cope with the continual problem of runaway slaves and incitement by
trouble-makers. When slaves escaped, a double loss was usually involved:
the loss of the labour force and the capital investment which it represented;
the need to replace that labour force and the corresponding new investment.