Since its discovery on on April 22nd, 1500 by Pedro Alvares Cabral, three great periods, inter alia symbolized by the mobility of the capitals, the history of the occupation of the Brazilian ground and the difficult access of the country mark to an economic and political independence, still incomplete today.  

Colonial Brazil

The colonial period (1500-1822) is that of the mercenary attitude and the dependence with respect to Europe. The soft food of the Eldorado dictates the three “business cycles” which see following one another the gatherers, the growers and the minors. The research of “Pau-brasil”, wood with the tinctorial virtues (Caesalpinia echinata), appears one moment being the only profitable activity of the colony. Divided into twelve “harbor offices”, directed by “donees”, Brazil immediately does not take the shape of a colony of settlement, in spite of the distribution of immense ground surfaces (sesmarias) to Portuguese nationals, more often military commoners or administrators that noble.

The relationship with the Indians, initially dispersed on the whole of the territory - probably 2 million against approximately 250 ' 000 today - is remained difficult, although the Portuguese Crown expressed the will to assimilate them (regrouping in villages, schools, encouragements with the mixed marriages) after having noted the failure of their setting in slavery.  

The cycle of the cane with sugar succeeds that of Pau-brasil in 1532 and remains until second half of the XVII E century, time when hard West-Indian competition begins. Practiced on the grounds close to the littorals of Nordeste and Sudeste, this plantation, mainly, directed the settlement of the country and the distribution of the ground.

The hostility of the Indian slave encourages the growers to control Blacks of Africa, in particular of Guinea and Angola. Four million Africans thus will constitute the labor of the plantation, then mines. The traditional life of rural Brazil, popularized by Put large and Senzala de Gilberto Freyre, starts to be born. It continues until the late abolition of slavery (1888), so much in the plantations of cane with sugar than in those, more interior and recent, of coffee-trees. Apart from the fazendas of breeding of the interior, food spaces of the colony were reduced (Bahia) and sheltered a population of mongrel (caboclos).  

The cycle of gold, actually from the invaluable ores in general, begins to the XVIII E century. It involves a slip of the settlement towards the highlands of the province of Minas Gerais, recognized tardily by the Portuguese as the Eldorado sought so much by the first forwardings of will bandeiras, groups of adventurers on the basis of the current territory of São Paulo to recognize Brazil in search of Indian slaves and of precious stones. The pressure of the Portuguese Crown, which granted the monopoly of the cast iron of the gold (of which it retained the fifth) and who undertook the exploitation of diamonds in narrowly supervised zones, prepares the rise of a certain Brazilian national feeling, exacerbated by a famous revolt (Inconfidência Mineira) which bursts when, in second half of the XVIII E century, production of the mines starts to decrease.  

With the Napoleonean wars, the installation of the Portuguese royal family in Rio de Janeiro and, for the first time, the opening of Brazil to the international business, the truly colonial Portuguese period, mercantilist and singularly obscurantist, are completed in 1822 by a curious transfer of the viceroyalty to the son of the king of Portugal, which lends oath as emperor of Brazil under the name of Pedro I er.  

Independence

The second great period (1822-1889), known as imperial, does not cancel the dependence with respect to the foreigner. Great Britain indeed takes again on its account the commercial and financial primacy of Portugal.  

Whereas cotton gains Nordeste and rubber Amazonia, the “walk of the coffee”, arrival of the littoral of Rio de Janeiro by the valley of Paraíba C Sul, starts to invade the depression of São Paulo in the middle of the XIXe century and progresses - been useful by networks of railways, trade and banks dynamic - towards the valley of Paraná. Of 54 ' 000 T in 1850, the production of coffee with São Paulo will reach a record in 1928-1929 (900 ' 000 T).  

The abolition of slavery (1888) shakes the Brazilian economy without however deteriorating the bases of them. The areas of the South support the change all the more easily as the diffusion of the barbed wire makes it possible to be exempted of part of the labor employed on the great establishments of extensive breeding. The plantation must, on the other hand, substitute for the slaves of the European colonists (Italian, German, Spanish), who will develop the small plantation of coffee-trees at the sides of traditional the fazenda. This immigration of European workers, in addition, is preceded in the South (since the years 1830) by a systematic colonization by the forest grounds by German families, then Italian. One finds here the origin of the powerful food colonies of the Rio Grande C Sul, the center and the west of Santa Catarina and the west of Paraná.  

Vargas, Kubitschek and soldiers

The republican period does not deteriorate of anything, until the years 1930, the primarily agricultural orientation of the economy and the financial dependence of Brazil with respect to Europe, then of the United States. From 1930, Getúlio Vargas, nationalist and populist, start the phase of industrialization, marked by achievements as spectacular as symbolic systems (Volta Redonda, Compagnie iron and steel national, Petrobras).

In 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek launches an ambitious plan of factory constructions and inaugurates, at the same time, a period of strong inflation.  
 Come with the power in 1964 by a consecutive coup d'etat to increasing social disturbances, the soldiers continue industrial development while launching projects of great width, but by being unaware of their social consequences. After the period known as of the “economic miracle” (1968-1973), the two oil crises, corruption and the misery of about half of the population contribute to drive out the authoritarian regime.  

The “República nova”

Although the new Constitution returned the power to the members of the Congress and to the federated States, the two presidents who follow one another as from 1985 (José Sarney and Fernando Collor de Mello) do not make a success of the so much awaited miracle: to reduce inflation and to relieve poverty all while maintaining the economic dynamism of the country. The dismissal, on on September 30th, 1992, of president Collor convinced of corruption opens one disturbed period, as well in the economic domain as in the political situation, to which must face the vice-president Itamar Franco. This one made vote in February 1993 a tax reform, which makes it possible to obtain from the IMF the confirmation of the rescheduling of the debt of the country (21 billion dollars).

This stabilization program will be reinforced in June 1993 by a “immediate action plan” of the new Minister for Finance Fernando Cardoso, then in March 1994 by the creation of a new currency, the Real Unit of Value (URV), whose daily evolution is dependant during the dollar. On July 1st, 1994 the real between in force in its turn (1 real = 2 750 cruzeiros and 1 dollar); the inflation, which was of 2 848 % for the year 1993, is maintained in September 1994 to 1.55 %. On October 3rd, 1994, Fernando Cardoso gains as of the first turn the presidential election.  

As of its come to power, this last announces great changes. It thus implements a plan of austerity intended to purify the public internal debt of the country, estimated then at nearly 300 billion dollars. However, in 1999, the country is in the grip of an economic serious attack. Indeed, the widening of the limits of fluctuation of the real compared to the dollar causes a fall record of more than 10 % of the purse of São Paulo and the general fall of the foreign purses.

In addition, the intervention of president Cardoso (re-elected in January 1999) after the resignation of the governor of the central bank, Gustavo Free, does not prevent the international investors fearing a chain reaction on the model of the Asian crisis, and from doubting the capacities of Brazil to honor its debt or to conclude the adjustment promised in the IMF in return for the loan of 41.5 billion dollars agreed by this last.

Lastly, the government is confronted with the rebellion of certain governors of State, members of the opposition, who refuse to honor totality with their debts (the total weight of the debt of the 27 Brazilian States rises with nearly 49 billion euros) with respect to the central government, to mark their dissatisfaction vis-a-vis the government policy.