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Discover the fascinating history of sugar cane, which originated in Papua New Guinea, its introduction in the Algarve and expansion to Madeira Island and Brazil. Learn how sugar cultivation fuelled the colonial development and economy of Pernambuco in the 16th century.
Sugarcane, which originated in Papua New Guinea, was cultivated in South Asia and was taken by the Arabs to Sicily and later to Spain.
In Portugal, its cultivation began in the Algarve during the reign of King João I and was expanded to the island of Madeira by Prince Henry the Navigator. Planting on Madeira developed rapidly and by 1455 it was producing 6,000 arrobas of sugar.
Sugar cultivation was officially introduced to Brazil in 1532 by Martim Afonso de Souza, but it had already existed in Pernambuco since the days of Cristóvão Jacques ‘ trading post in Itamaracá.
The Captaincy of Pernambuco, given to Duarte Coelho Pereira in 1534, prospered with the support of Jewish capital and African slave labour. The first sugar mill was built in Beberibe.
Sugar was the main driver of Pernambuco’s economy, which expanded to other captaincies and participated in the incorporation of territories such as Maranhão.
The Journey of Sugarcane: From Portugal to Colonial Brazil
Sugarcane originated in distant Papua (New Guinea), where it was already known some 12,000 years ago, and was later cultivated in South Asia. The Arabs brought sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) from Africa to Sicily and from there to the south coast of Spain.
Among the Portuguese, sugar cane cultivation began in the Algarve during the time of King João I (1404), and was later transported by Prince Henry the Navigator to the island of Madeira, where it became a major driver of progress in the colonial world of the time.
From being a product sold in European apothecaries in the 14th century, as part of the Arab cuisine that dominated the Iberian Peninsula for three centuries and tried to develop the planting of sugar cane in Granada, sugar arrived in Portugal ‘as a medicine and a treat, sparing for rich people’.
The first sugar cane seedlings were planted on the island of Madeira in 1425, brought from Sicily by order of Prince Henry the Navigator and planted in the centre of Funchal, near Terreiro da Sé.
História do engenho de açúcar no Brasil Colonial
A cultura da cana-de-açúcar logo se desenvolveu e, em 1455, a produção era estimada em 6000 arrobas.
In 1498, two years before the discovery of Brazil, Dom Manuel , King of Portugal , had already set exports from the islands – Madeira, the Azores, São Tomé and Cape Verde – at 120,000 arrobas.
At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese confectionery was already centuries old, with its honey cakes, alfenim and alféloa, originating from Arab cuisine.
It is from this period that the Cortes of Évora took action against the ‘ alfeloeiras “ who, among other damages, made ”children cry and ask their parents for more money to buy the said alféloa’; hence Dom Manuel‘s prohibition, punishing the transgression with imprisonment and flogging, of the trade in this sweet to be carried out by men.
The sugar produced on the island of Madeira had become known in Europe at the time.
The episode in which Captain Simão Gonçalves da Câmara, a Madeiran well known for his liberal behaviour, sent Pope Leo X (1513-1521) a life-size sculpture of all the cardinals of the Sacred College.
Although it was officially introduced to Brazil by Martin Afonso de Souza in 1532, sugar cane had already taken over Pernambuco’s landscape since the early days of colonisation, even at the time of Cristóvão Jacques’ trading post in the Itamaracá Canal (1516).
In 1526, the payment of duties on sugar from Pernambuco was already mentioned in the Lisbon Customs House, according to information revealed for the first time by F. A. Varnhagen.
When the system of hereditary captaincies was introduced in Brazil, the territory of the captaincy of Pernambuco was donated to Duarte Coelho Pereira, who had rendered the crown important services in the conquest of the Indies.
The territory that made up the original Captaincy of Pernambuco was established when King João III donated it to Duarte Coelho Pereira on 10 March 1534.
The northern limit of Pernambuco was demarcated by half of the southern bar of the Itamaracá channel – which King João III called the ‘river’ of Santa Cruz – up to fifty paces beyond the site of Cristóvão Jacques‘ original trading post; to the south, the limit of the captaincy was the São Francisco River, in all its width and extension, including all its islands from its mouth to its source.
Thus the territory of the Captaincy of Pernambuco inflected to the south-west, following the course of the river, reaching its sources in what is now the state of Minas Gerais.
To the north, the King drew a line westwards, through the land, to the limits of his conquest; in other words, those defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1493), i.e. the lands situated beyond 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
This roughly established the borders of the Duartina captaincy, whose sixty leagues of frontage covered the whole of the current state of Alagoas and ended to the south, at the São Francisco River, bordering the current state of Minas Gerais.
Thanks to the possession of this important watercourse, in all its length and breadth, the territory of Pernambuco grew in a south-westerly direction, far exceeding the sixty leagues established in the letter of donation.
According to F. A. Varnhagen, Duarte Coelho ‘s captaincy had twelve thousand square leagues, making it the largest territorial area of all those distributed by King João III.
Arriving in Pernambuco on 9 March 1535, Duarte Coelho was accompanied by his wife, Brites de Albuquerque, his brother-in-law Jerônimo de Albuquerque, and some families from the north of Portugal who had come to try their luck in developing the sugarcane agro-industry.
It was up to this ‘founder of the nation’ to systematically lay the foundations of the sugar agro-industry. He brought new sugar-making techniques with the arrival of mills and specialised masters from the island of Madeira and, above all, the import of Jewish capital to finance the enterprise.
The first sugar mill in Pernambuco, Engenho Velho de Beberibe, was built in the early years of colonisation by Jerônimo de Albuquerque, under the invocation of Our Lady of Help.
It was this enterprise, the first of hundreds that followed, which began an economy based on sugar cane cultivation, founded by the grantee Duarte Coelho, who sent for sugar masters on the island of Madeira, importing slave labour from Africa, where the first blacks from Guinea came from.
The cultivation of sugar cane brought new colours, customs, smells and flavours to the landscape, thus contributing to the development and superpower of the land of Pernambuco, whose beginnings were seen in this way by Oliveira Lima:
Duarte Coelho ‘s captaincy was the one that prospered the earliest, although at the cost of much expense and effort, because, in addition to the uncommon personal qualities of the grantee, the land commended itself for its excellence. The climate was hot, but tempered by the gentle turns of land and sea so often spoken of by Piso, Maurício de Nassau‘s wise doctor. Abundant and regular rainfall throughout the hinterland, refreshing the fields, thickening the rivers and preventing droughts. The terrain is not too rugged, gradually descending from the plateaus or tablelands of the interior to the leafy forests, in which beauty is not outweighed by vigour, and to the fertile floodplains bathed by many rivers, and expiring in the mangroves or marshes of the sea.
In Pernambuco, the ‘terra garanhona do massapê’, to use Gilberto Freyre‘s expression, was the ideal soil for the foundation of this culture that has dominated the economy of an entire region for more than four centuries.
With its mills spread across the floodplains of the Capibaribe, Beberibe, Jaboatão and Una rivers, the Duartina Captaincy saw the sugar civilisation flourish.
For the first grantee, Nova Lusitânia, as he insisted on calling Pernambuco, would never be a simply extractive colony, as the Lisbon orders wanted in the first half of the 16th century, but a land of plantations, the embryo of what would become the civilisation of sugar.
This product was the economic backbone of the great civilising march of Pernambuco, responsible for the colonisation of the whole of northern Brazil.
Sugar was the great economic driver of these conquests; sugar that, in 1583, was produced by 66 mills.
The economic situation of the captaincy at the beginning of the 17th century was, in the words of Friar Vicente do Salvador (c. 1564 – c. 1636-39), one of the best, with the most frequented port in Brazil and an income of twenty thousand cruzados, ‘apart from brazilwood and sugar duties’.
Thanks to the profits made from sugar, those from Pernambuco colonised Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte, extended their conquest to Ceará and Pará, and played a decisive role in incorporating Maranhão into the national territory.
For his part in the effort to incorporate Maranhão, whose territory was occupied by the French, one Pernambucan proudly added this toponym to his family name, a practice that was extended to all his descendants.
I’m referring to Jerônimo de Albuquerque who, born in Olinda in 1548, son of Captain Jerônimo de Albuquerque, brother-in-law of the first grantee, with D. Maria do Espírito Santo, an Indian from the Tabaiares tribe, conquered Maranhão from the French, then commanded by Monsieur de la Ravardière, Daniel de la Touche.
By signing the term of capitulation on 2 November 1615, Jerônimo de Albuquerque added the place name Maranhão to his name.
History of sugar cane in the colonisation of Brazil – The Sugar Cane Journey: From Portugal to Colonial Brazil