|  | A history of success and decline Around the 18th century there was a small inn serving the convoyos of gold and minerals from Minas Gerias to Paraty. As the mines declined the borgouise that grew rich on the trade built initially small farms around the Paraíba river. A small urban nucleus emerged around the inn and the vegetation clearned was used to build brooms, hence the name (Vassouras means brooms).
By the 19th century coffe was the Precious Commodity of Brazil that was high in demand in Europe and provided enroumous profits to the new Brazilian Empire. The State of Rio then produced more than seventy percent of Brazilian coffee, and most of it came from the hills and valleys around this lovely town.
The bourgoise by the late 18th century in this area converted their small farms into coffee plantations and became more and more rich. This small village started to be built rapidly as soon as 1813. The railway built to transport coffee added to its increase of prosperity and population. Very quickly Vassouras became an empire within an empire. The rich Barons of the coffee farms made Vassouras into the administrative and commercial centre, building oppulent palaces, public buildings and coffe farms that resemble great mansions. 18 of these Barons also received titles of nobility.
Oliveira Viana described Vassouras´s high society at the time as follows: "They do not have the arrogant pride of the people São Paulo, nor the democratic pretentions of the Mineros. They are more of a polished finish, elegant, more socially cultured, and closer to the conviviality and hegemony of the Imperial family." Indeed the best materials, musicians, artists, were brought from Europe to this town. The city became one of the most harmonious and oppulent urban centres of Brazil, and excersized considerably political influence on the Imperial politics.
In 1889, when the Republic was proclaimed, the coffee culture in Rio was already in decline. The revoloution itself was instigated by the competitor coffee cultivators in Sao Paulo that were less politically influencial and a pact with the rich farms and miners of Minas. Since the coffee culture started in Rio early, soil erosion became a problem much more earlier than it had been in São Paulo.
The new Republican coffee growers of São Paulo knew that the abolition of slave work would further damage the hegemony of the bourgoise close to the imperial family Rio. This was one of the reasons for the abolition of slave labour, while São Paulo had already started to bring immigrants (this is also the reason for SP later rapid industralisation, and the inability of this reigion to regenerate economically). The final blow to the coffee bourgoise/aristocracy then came with the abolition of slavery in 1888, many farms in the reigion faced bankruptcy.
Coffee was the prime mover and the republicans were mostly made of the rich elite that controlled the coffee farms. The Paulista adapted better and thus controlled more and more the economy and hence Brazil... Something that has not changed until this day. With the economic decline of coffee planations, Rio lost also the economic and political predominace of Brazil. Although still the captial, during the First Republic (until 1930), politicians from São Paulo and Minas alternated offices in the Presidency. Rio de Janeiro state and its reigions slid slowly into economic decline and neglet, and with them Vassouras sank into obscurity and became a shadow of its glorious past. By the mid 20th century it was at best an economic centre for the cattle ranches business to which most coffee farms adapted to eventually.
Have a look at "Vassouras - A Brazilian Coffee County 1850-1900"
By Stein, Stanley J. |
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