History of Brazil

Brazil Tours / History - Since the proclamation of independence from Portugal in 1822 (beginning of immigration) until the abolishment of slavery in 1850, less than 20.000 immigrants came to Brazil.

This small immigration was mainly motivated by the occupation of unpopulated, "empty" areas and the formation of colonial nucleus, prinicpally in southern Brazil and in Espírio Santo. The first German colony, with immigrants from Hunsrück and Saxony, was São Leopoldo (Rio Grande do Sul), in 1824.

The labour bottleneck at the coffee farms due to the extermination of the Indians and the abolishment of slavery, combined with unemployment in Europe, due to the industrial revolution, initiated the so-called great immigration to Brazil.

Since the proclamation of the republic in 1889 until 1939, more than 4 millian immigrants came to Brazil (1,4 millian Italians, 1,2 million Portuguese, 600.000 Spanish, 170.000 Germans, 190.000 Japanese, 100.000 Syres and Turks and 500.000 immigrants of other nationalities).

Most of them were poor farmers, who arrived at the port of Santos, from where they were transferred by train to a kind of immigrants hostel (Hospedaria dos Imigrantes) in São Paulo (actually a museum). Here they were examined and contracted by the so-called coffee barons and afterwards transferred to the coffee plantations in the west of the state.

Evidences of European immigration are some of the buildings in São Paulo's historical center, such as Martinelli or Itália, as well as curches and multinational restaurants of the metropolis. European settlements can be found among others in Visconde de Mauá (Rio de Janeiro) or Superagüi (Paraná).