Immigration in 19th Century Brazil

Immigration in 19th Century Brazil

During the 19^th Century, the colonial planters in Brazil where preparing for the end of slavery. They sought immigration as a means of obtaining cheap labor and whitening Brazilian society. In order to get immigrants, the government started sponsoring immigration. They funded the passport and promised land to the immigrant. This land was called nucleos colonaias. There the immigrant population lived together and worked together like any regular plantation town.  The problem arose on what lands where available for the immigrants. The plantation owners did not like giving up fertile land to outsiders. They simply wanted the immigrants to work on their own plantations as replacement for slaves (Costa 2000, 95). Thus, it occurred that the only land available for immigrants was infertile. Eventually, to survive, they were forced to integrate into a regular plantation. 

            Other problems with obstacles faced by immigrants centered on the ownership of few lands by key Paulinistas. They had the support of legislators. Plus, they had monopolized the best lands (Costa 2000,98). Thus, time and time again, they foiled the creation of nucleus colonaias. They saw subsidized colonies as completion. Yet, almost all immigrant colonies that did not have government aid failed (Costa 2000, 97).  What helped to mitigate these obstacles was the end of slavery.  

            The legislators eventually created share cropping in order to keep both the immigrants and the planters happy. Any immigrant that obtained some land had to give a portion of their earning to the plantation owners. Plus, a certain part of their land had to be reserved for coffee (Costa 2000, 102).  This allowed for the plantation owners to better integrate the immigrants into Brazilian society.

            This is where Jacobina Maurer comes in. She was born in one of the few successful German nucleos colinaias. She was also the spiritual leader of the Muckers cult built around her. In Brazil, it was seen wrong to have women in any kind of leadership position. The fact that she was a leader of a Protestant religious cult broke a lot of taboos in Brazil. Not only did her position anger the Catholics, but the Protestants as well. Many a time both Jesuit priests and Lutheran ministers tried to fix the heretical Muckers practices (Kittleson, 79). However, the Muckers  were steadfast in their devotion to Jacobina Maurer. This was the first major cause for the Muckers destruction. 

            Another reason, the Muckers where disliked was because their colonia laid outside the Brazilian planter’s control. The Germans in her colony were free to continue their cultural practices (Kittleson, pg 69). Their existence posed a threat to Paulinistas plantation owners. They had an almost a complete monopoly of fertile land. Thus, they did not like having competition from foreigners. Another issue with the Muckers laid in their religious practices. Brazil had forbidden public displays of other religions. Yet, the Muckers isolation allowed them to continue their religious practices thanks to their isolation (Kittleson, 69).

             These German immigrants had very limited integration into the Brazilian society. They did adopt the dress code and food.  However, they kept their protestant religion (Kittleson, 69).  They did contribute to the economy via working on their plantation. However, even this did not humor the Brazilians planters who saw them as competition. They were a threat to their agricultural monopoly.  In the end, this integration too became mitigate. Jacobina Maurer’s doomsday preaching caused the Muckers to become even more isolated. They started to take their children out of school.  This was seen very negatively by both the planters and the government. By this time, public education was used as a means of integration. Both the Natives and the immigrants where expected to send their children to school to make them more Brazilian. Thus, the removal of the children from school ran counter to the Government’s unified Brazil agenda. In the long run, this made the Muckers an enemy of the Brazilian state. 

            There was also a power issue.  The planters had a great influence in the government because of how they managed their sharecroppers.  They used their influence to grain votes in their favor. Thus, they won they had a lot of political power in their region (Kittleson, 79). Things fell apart due to the near slave condition of their sharecroppers. With the rising prices of land, many sharecroppers where left landless. These flocked around Jacobina Maurer. Like her, they were poorly educated, Prostestant and spoke mostly German.

            The fact that the Mockers colonia lied outside the system appealed to them. They were tired of the abuses of the plantation owners. For example, the plantation owners expected the immigrants to work as hard as their slaves. They felt they were treated the same as a slave. Plus, the advance sums did not left them enough money to buy supplies outside the plantation.  They felt trapped, controlled by despotic plantation owners. As for the plantation owners, their most common complaint was the immigrant’s refusal to work (Costa 2000, 105). Whenever the sharecroppers felt justly angered, they would go on strike. Because they were not slaves, the plantation owners could not simply force them to work.  The best they could manage was to restrict their movements or lower their wages. For this and many other reasons, it seemed more attractive to the German immigrates to live with the Muckers (Kittleson, 80). 

            Thus, when they started to go live with the Muckers the planters saw this as a threat to their political powers. There was an incident with Jacobina Maurer’s husband Joao Jorge Maurer. The police Chief Lucio Schreiner had counted on the Mucker’s votes for to get reelected. However, the Muckers had stayed away from the polls (Kittleson, 81). This angered the police official who pressured the authorities to deal with the Mucker problem. It did not take long to put both the Liberals and the Conservatives against the Muckers. The Liberals used to Muckers to show that the Conservatives where “weak and ineffective” (Kittleson, 81).  After that incident, it only took eleven days to create a petition to investigate the Muckers.  

            However, the thing that really doomed the Muckers was the completion of their meeting house.  Originally, this meeting house was meant as a place of worship. However, led by Jacobina Maurer’s visions, her followers began to collect arms to prepare for the final battle written in the Apocalypse. This arms race was the last drop that convinced the provincial government that Maurer was leading rebellion (Kittleson, 83). It did not take long to amass an army to take down the Muckers. With the completion of the Muckers meeting house, Jacobina Maurer went from being considered a crazy woman to a rebel leader. Had the meeting house not being completed and stuffed with arms, perhaps it would have taken longer for the Brazilian government to act against them. 

            The irony of this event is that the Brazilian government was to blame for the Muckers failure to integrate into Brazilian society. The Muckers where isolated because the lands reserved for them where miles away from a Brazilian settlement. The cruelty they showed to their German immigrant workers forced many to flee from Brazilian control. They saw the Muckers community as a safe haven was they could keep being German.   Also, the fact that the Brazilian government prioritized the needs of the planters over the immigrants, made the Germans feel excluded from the Brazilian society. In the end, it was the Brazilian’s fault that many immigrant communities did not integrate well into Brazilian society.

Bibliography

Emilia Viotti da Costa, "Sharecroppers and Plantation Owners: An Experiment with Free Labor," in The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories, Emilia Viotti da Costa (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000): 94-124.

Kittleson, Roger A. “Jacobina Maurer: German Brazilian Mystic” The Human Tradition in Modern Brazil. Edited by Peter M. Beattie. Scholarly Resources Inc. 2004