Chapters of Brazil's Colonial History 1500-1800

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 3 NOV 1997

Capistrano de Abreu (1853-1927) "liked to read in a hammock," says Stuart Schwartz in his introduction. "One author believes that the hammock explains why Abreu read so much and wrote relatively little." His main work is this thin outline of the complicated history of Brazil prior to the arrival of the Portuguese court and the struggle for independence. Capistrano de Abreu doesn't tell a strictly chronological story by any stretch. His longest chapter, called "The Backlands," is essentially about the bandeirantes (essentially bandit slavers) as they make their long, bloody incursions inland in the search for Indian slaves, often kidnapped from Jesuit missionaries. But the real details of how this led to the mid-18th-century "war of the seven reductions" (as the Jesuit settlements were called) aren't discussed until the chapter "Setting Boundaries." Nor is it a complete account--not every pre-independence revolutionary gets a mention here. Instead this book originally published in 1907 offers a surprisingly humane, sympathetic and smart analysis of this history whether it be in Capistrano de Abreu's discussion of the collateral growth of cattle farming and gold mining or his emphasis on the complicated racial mixtures as a particularly Brazilian virtue. Even his dry humor shows his sympathies as when he records the governor of Paraguay's observation that the churches of the Jesuit reductions " `were most beautiful. I have seen none better in all the settlements I have visited in Chile and Peru.' He also gave the bandeirantes a sign telling them they could advance." FYI: This is part of Oxford's new Library of Latin America, dedicated to rescuing lost classics and introducing unknown works from Latin America.