258 Antonio Carreira
These figures also give an idea of the volume of cattle production, particularly
in the north-east of Brazil.
Tobacco
Bahia: 25,000 rolls. 303,100,000 reis.
Alagoas and Pernambuco: 2,500 rolls. 41,550,000 reis.
Total: 27,500 rolls. 344,650,000 reis.Gold
100 arrobas 'apart from what was extracted (and is till extracted) secretly from
other streams which the miners did not declare as they did not wish them to
be taxed', 614,400,000 reis.
Between 1721 and 1754, the gold sent from Brazil to Portugal fluctuated
between 11,000 to 20,000 arrobas a year (Magalhäes Godinho).
In the space of a century sugar took over as the leading export product.
It supplied vast sections of the European market, and brought about a radical
change in eating habits. Sugar exports rose from 378,000 arrobas a year at the
end of the sixteenth century to 1,295,700, which means that they increased
around three and a half times.
These five key products had a total value of 3,743,992,800 reis. They all
relied heavily on slave labour.
We should also mention the discovery of diamonds (1729). They proved
to be a further source of revenue. But like gold they were badly used. They
enabled the Portuguese aristocracy and upper middle classes to give full rein
to their propensity for ostentation, vanity and luxurious living. The country
began to import somewhat wildly (especially from Great Britain) a whole
range of useful, essential and superfluous consumer goods as a form of regale-
ment for the privileged classes, thus mortgaging Brazil's production. Great
Britain recognized an easy way of advancing the 'Industrial Revolution', by
having the Portuguese trading deficit settled in gold and diamonds.
We should mention two other Brazilian products: cotton and coffee.
In 1776, the exportable cotton production was 42,664 arrobas; it had risen to
560,000 arrobas by 1796 (Borges de Macado).
Coffee growing, which dates from the end of the eighteenth century,
relied just as heavily on slave labour. The slave was responsible for clearing
and setting out the plantations, tending the seedbeds, weeding, and cultivating
the coffee plants. In the space of a hundred years, coffee rose to head the list
of exports, taking over from sugar which had begun to feel the effects of com-
petition from producers in the West Indies. In regard to coffee, we should also
note the influence of the European immigrant, who arrived at the dawn of
the nineteenth century to contribute to the development of the south of Brazil
at the very time when it was recognized that the slave trade and African forced