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The Plantations of St. Benedict: The Benedictine Sugar Mills of Colonial Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Stuart B. Schwartz
Stuart B. Schwartz*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Extract

With the exception of the Franciscans pledged to poverty, the major religious orders of colonial Brazil, Carmelites, Benedictines, and Jesuits, all maintained their religious activities and establishments by means of bequests, stipends, loans, urban and rural properties. Any analysis of the economic role of the Church in Brazil normally and justifiably begins with the activities of the Society of Jesus whose extensive properties spread throughout Portuguese America. Unquestionably, their operations were the most extensive of any corporate group or institution in the colony. The other orders, however, were often regionally important and were always an integral part of the economic life of the colony, sharing in the good times and bad along with their secular counterparts. The following article is an attempt to examine the operations of the Benedictine sugar engenhos in Brazil by analyzing previously usused records. These materials not only reveal a great deal about the management of ecclesiastical estates, but also provide one of the few opportunities to analyze the expenses and income of a series of plantations over time, thus allowing us to examine some of the general economic trends in the colony's export history.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , July 1982 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1982

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References

* The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor José Mattoso of Portugal, Dr. Egídio Guimarães of the Arquivo Distrital de Braga, Dom Timórdio, Abbott of the Mosteiro de São Bento do Salvador and Professor Dauril Alden, University of Washington. The following abbreviations have been used in the footnotes:

1 Capsner, Oliver “The Benedictines in Brazil,” The American Benedictine Review 28:2 (June 1977): 113–132,Google Scholar which is essentially an excellent summary of the mammoth tome of Endres, José Lohr Catalogo dos bispos, gerais, provinciais, abades, e mais cargos da Ordem de S. Bento do Brasil, 1582–1975 (Salvador, 1976).Google Scholar On the wealth of religious orders in Portugal see de Sousa, Fernando “O rendimento das ordens religiosas nos finais do antigo regime,” Revista de História Económica e Social 7 (January-June 1981): 1–27.Google Scholar

2 On the Benedictines in São Paulo see Johnson, Dom Martinho O.S.B., Livro do Tombo do Mosteiro de São Bento (São Paulo, 1977),Google Scholar which contains an excellent bibliography.

3 See especially, Smith, Robert S. “O mosteiro benditino do Rio de Janeiro e sua fazenda da vargem no seculo xviii,” RIHGB 304 (1974): 158–200 Google Scholar; da Silva Nigra, Climente Construtores e artistas do Mosteiro de São Bento do Rio de Janeiro (Bahia, 1950),Google Scholar and other works by this remarkable and indefatigable scholar.

4 The Monastery of the City of Paraiba do Norte owned two engenhos, Maraú and Cajabaçú, but I have not discussed them in this paper. See ADB/CSB 141.

5 Smith, , “O mosteiro beneditino,” 158–160,Google Scholar contains an adequate description of the collection of estados and their contents. Mattoso, José “Inventário dos fundos de antigos mosteiros beneditinos existentes no Arquivo Distrital da Braga,” Bracava A ugusta(1967), 15–17,Google Scholar provides a guide. I wish to thank Professor Mattoso for his aid in locating these materials. They are now presently housed in the Arquivo Distritai da Braga in the section Congregação de São Bento. The ADB has been renamed the Arquivo da Universidade do Minho but as of April 1980, the new name was not in common use.

6 APB, Cartas do governo 137(1794–97); ABNRJ, 36 ( 1913): 455. The monastery received support from the public treasury until 1831. It owned ninety-three buildings in Salvador and received ground rent on others. Most of the Benedictine rural properties were acquired by bequest. A listing of their lands with the date of acquisition appears in de Cerquea, Ignacio Accioli e Silva, , Memorias historicas e políticas da Provincia da Bahia, Braz do Amarai, ed., 6 vols. (Bahia, 1919–1940), 5: 162–168.Google Scholar

7 Report of the Juiz de fora for Santo Amaro (28 November 1817), APB, Cartas ao governo 241.

8 MSSB, Livro III do Tombo (28 Dept. 1604). The presence of the Fathers of São Bento as cane farmers milling their sugar cane at Engenho Sergipe do Conde is confirmed by the Livro de Safra of 1611 (ANTT, Cartorio dos Jesuitas, maço 14, n. 4). The Benedictines had acquired some of the land at Lages by direct purchase. In 1607 they acquired 88002 meters from Gonçalo Alvares. This land had originally been bought by Alvares from the Count of Linhares and the Benedictines were required to pay a symbolic annual rent to him or his estate. See Escritura de venda e obrigação (26 March 1607), MHN, CWP pacote 22. Nearby to Lages was the Benedictine monastery of Our Lady of Brotas, a house dependent on the Monastery of Salvador.

9 Provincial da Ordem de São Bento to Sec. of State, de Mendonça Furtado, Francisco Xavier in RIHGB 65:1 (1902): 135–142.Google Scholar In the early nineteenth century the lands at Lages were described as infertile and the reason why expenses often exceeded income. See Accioli, , Memórias 5:162.Google Scholar

10 Inventário de proteção do acervo cultural, 4 vols. (Salvador: Secretaria da Industria e Comercio, 1978), 2: i, 197–198.

11 RIHGB 65:1 (1902): 138.

12 Father João de Santa Anna (12 January 1730, AHU, Bahia papeis avulsos caixa 41.

13 Percentages have been calculated from the estados of Bahia for the relevant years.

14 ADB/CSB 136, f. 77–96.

15 See figure II which is based on, the estados for Bahia in ADB/CSB 136, 137.

16 In 1694 the Jesuit College of Bahia received 3,000 scuta romana from sugar on a total income of 10,812. In 1701, sugar earned 3,000 after expenses on a total of 10,032. Cf. ARSI, Bras. 5 (II) 136; Bras. 6 (I) 26.

17 ADB/CSB 137 (estados 1786–89, 1789–93), fs. 227–47, 271–93.

18 Maximilian, Prince Travels in Brazil in the Years 1815, 1816, 1817 (London, 1820), 97–98.Google Scholar

19 The story is summarized in Harrison, William F. “A Struggle for Land in Colonial Brazil: The Private Captaincy of Paraiba do Sul, 1533–1753” (Ph.D. thesis, University of New Mexico, 1970).Google Scholar

20 ADB/CSB 134 (1648–52).

21 Ibid., estado of 1652–57, f. 51; Harrison, , “The Struggle for Land,” 136.Google Scholar

22 Coaracy, Vivaldo O Rio de Janeiro no século xvii (Rio de Janeiro, 1965), 184 Google Scholar; Boxer, C.R. Salvador de Sá and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola 1602–1686 (London, 1952), 69–111.Google Scholar

23 ADB/CSB 134 (1720–23). Várzea, Affonso “Geografia dos engenhos cariocas,” Brasil Açucareiro (BA) 23:1 (1944): 14–24 Google Scholar; Lamego, Alberto “Os engenhos de açúcar nos recóncavos do Rio de Janeiro em fins do século XVIII,” BA 21:6 (1942): 584–586 Google Scholar; 23:2 (1944): 271–278.

24 Smith, , “O mosteiro beneditino,” 181.Google Scholar

25 The Portuguese arroba was equal to 32 pounds.

26 ADB/ CSB 135 (1783–87). Considerable reforms were made on the Benedictine estates in Rio de Janeiro under the guidance of Frei Gaspar da Madre de Deus who served as Abbott of the Monastery of Montserrate from 1763 to 1766. See de Deus, Gaspar da Madre Memorias para a história de capitania de São Vicente (São Paulo, 1975), 11–13.Google Scholar

27 “Numero dos monges conventuaes neste mosteiro de Nossa Senhora de Monserrate do Rio de Janeiro,” RIHGB 65.1 (1902): 150–153.

28 Ibid., 151–153.

29 Tombo do Mosteiro de São Bento in RIAHGP, 41 (1948): 318–352. contains many tites and legal materials of Engenho Musurepe.

30 “Compozicam com Duarte de Albuquerque sobre a pensam do Engenho de Mussurepe…,” in Tombo do Mosteiro de São Bento de Olindo, in RIAHGP 41 (1948): 350–353.

31 ADB/CSB 139 (1660–1663).

32 ADB/CSB 139(1712–1715).

33 Informação geral da capitania de pernambuco (1749) (Rio de Janeiro, 1908), 300–301.

34 (22 February 1680), in Guerra, Flavio Alguns documentos de Arquivos Portugueses de interesse para a história de Pernambuco (Recife, 1969), 41.Google Scholar

35 Father Belchior Pires (Bahia, 26 February 1662), ARSI, Bras. 3 (II).

36 Roster, Henry Travels in Brazil. 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1817), 2: 218–222.Google Scholar John Luccock, who visited a Benedictine property near Campos in Rio de Janeiro, complained against the poor conditions of the slaves but suggested that the Engenho of Camorim was kept much better. See Luccock, John Notas sobre o Rio de Janeiro (São Paulo, 1975), 214.Google Scholar Luccock, a merchant, spent about ten years in Brazil (1808–1818) and his observations are among the most penetrating of all the foreign observers of the period.

37 Contranando o proposto no Estado do Rdo P. D. Abbade Fr. Miguel Archanjo da Annunciação no título do Engenho Musurepe,” ADB/CSB 322.

38 See below, pp. 20.

39 Estado (1763–70), printed in Smith, , “O mosteiro beneditino,” 199.Google Scholar

40 ADB/CSB 135 (estado 1763–70).

41 ADB/CSB 134 (Rio de Janeiro, estados 1787–89, 1789–93). See Alden, Dauril “The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Comparative Economic History,” Journal of Economic History 25:1 (March 1965): 35–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 I have discussed the demography of slavery in colonial Bahia, in Sugar, Slavery and Society (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar

43 ADB/CSB Liv. 136.

44 ADB/CSB 139 (1766–69).

45 ADB/CSB 134(1747–48).

46 ADB/CSB 135 (1783–87).

47 MSSB, Livro 18, “visitas e juntas de São Paulo.”

48 ADB/CSB 135 (1763–66), f. 57.

49 MSSB, Livro 18.

50 ADB/CSB 139 (1778–93).

51 ADB/CSB 135 (1763–66), fs. 55–56.

52 Ibid., The concern with sexual conduct among the slaves appears with some regularity in the Benedictine records. In 1835, for example, the criticism levelled at one fazenda in Bahia was that the slave women lived as if they were free, “engulfed in their appetites,” and something had to be done. See MSSB, Livro 365.

53 Koster, , Travels in Brazil, 2: 221–222.Google Scholar

54 ADB/CSB 135 (1783–87). The slave manager worked under orders from the Father Administrator of Engenho da Varge.

55 Koster, , Travels in Brazil, 2: 219.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., 220.

57 Evidence of slaves marrying people off the estate is also present in the estados. See, for example, ADB/CSB 139 (Olinda 1772–78).