THE GLITTER of BRAZIL'S BAROQUE BOOM.

• Author: Malatesta, Parisina
• Position: Mining industry and mining towns of Brazil

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN MINAS GERAIS SPARKED THE RISE OF OPULENT CITIES AND A DISTINCTIVE ARTISTIC MOVEMENT

The Portuguese had long been looking for silver. If the Spanish had discovered a mountain of silver (Potosi) in their half of South America, surely, they believed there was a similar mountain in the Portuguese half. Portugal had not fared well during the sixty years it was held "captive" by the Spanish crown (1580-1640). Colonies were lost; the Dutch had invaded and held the northeast of Brazil until 1654; the growing plantations of the English and Dutch on the islands of the Caribbean had ended Brazil's sugar monopoly. By the end of the seventeenth century Portugal was in dire financial condition; mineral wealth had to be found in Brazil.

Throughout the seventeenth century the interior, or sertao, of the Portuguese colony was crisscrossed by bandeiras, quasi-military companies from Sao Paulo, culturally and racially mestizo, with their hundreds of Indian retainers. These bandeirantes traveled through the sertao--sometimes for years--capturing Indians, who would be brought back and sold as slaves to the plantations on the coast. Their travels pushed back the borders of the Portuguese colony and helped lay claim to the current contours of Brazil. Theirs was also a constant, if desultory, search for precious metals. How fortunate that the Portuguese crown had finally sent trained mineralogists to Brazil, for they were on hand to confirm in 1695 that the Paulistas had discovered, not silver, but gold!

As word of the discovery of gold spread throughout the colony and to Portugal, there began one of the great gold rushes in human history. From Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia, from Europe, over land and following the course of rivers, thousands hurried to the mines. Tens of thousands of African slaves, destined no longer for the sugar plantations of Brazil's northeast, were moved to the mining area. Gold was found in dozens of rivers and streams, and, like California one hundred and fifty years later, had to be panned and washed out laboriously. In Brazil, this was done by African slaves. The Portuguese, perhaps fortuitously, were then taking Africans from the "gold coast" of Africa, Africans who had their own experience with placer mining. In this manner, the Portuguese imported not only a labor force but the appropriate technology as well.

At first, the mining camps were lawless settlements. The Paulistas laid claim to the whole region of mines and tried to keep out all others, those whom they termed emboabas. However, they could not. These struggles led to the "War of the Emboabas"...