Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  Thirty-six years old, Silvestre already had a noticeable paunch. He had been married for fifteen years to Idalina Tavares, who was descended from the family of Raposo Tavares, and his bride had given him fourteen infants, nine of whom survived. Silvestre was very proud of his large family and ill-disposed to leaving them or the da Silva lands.

  On a morning in April 1788, Silvestre was among three men who were witnessing the agony of his father.

  Beads of sweat stood out on Benedito Bueno’s forehead; his knuckles were white as he clenched his hands.

  “Help me, Mother of All Saints! Aaahhh! Jesus! Give me courage!” Benedito Bueno’s eyes rolled back, then slowly moved from the face of one witness to the next with a look of frantic appeal.

  Benedito Bueno was suffering from a gnawing toothache.

  Silvestre showed great sympathy for his father’s plight, and now tried to encourage him by talking of Senhor Benedito’s bold nature and of the perils he had survived with the monsoons. Benedito Bueno listened silently; a small, brave smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, but his distress was not diminished. Two men present were guests in Benedito Bueno’s house. One was a distant relative, André Vaz da Silva, and the other a friend of André’s, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, alferes, or second-lieutenant, in the Sixth Company of Dragoons of Minas Gerais.

  André was the great-grandson of Trajano da Silva, whom Amador Flôres had executed for treachery during the obsessive search for the mountain of emeralds. When Trajano had marched off into the sertão in 1674, one of his Carijó concubines had been pregnant; Trajano did not live to see the child, Venâncio, who had been raised by the indefatigable Maria Ramalho.

  For the family of André Vaz da Silva, the wanderings had stopped long ago. When Olímpio Ramalho left Minas Gerais with his wife and sons, some family members had stayed; among them André Vaz’s grandfather Venâncio da Silva. The violence between Emboabas and Paulistas had abated, and for a time Venâncio prospected for gold. But in 1715 he opened a trading shack at Vila Rica de Ouro Prêto, which had thirty thousand miners and their slaves. His son Raimundo, born the year Venâncio set up the trading shack, was now seventy-three and widowed.

  The twenty-eight-year-old André Vaz da Silva was the son of Raimundo, and worked in the family business. André was tall, with a straight, sinewy frame. He had thick blue-black hair, a broad, prominent brow, and thin, ascetic lips. His pointy beard emphasized a slightly protruding chin.

  The third man in the room with Benedito Bueno, Silva Xavier, had journeyed with André from Vila Rica to São Paulo. Silva Xavier was forty-one and tall like André, straight-backed and square-shouldered. He had penetrating blue eyes and a slightly aquiline nose. His thick black mustache and beard and his long hair were flecked with gray. His long hands and slender fingers suggested sensitivity.

  But the very sight of Silva Xavier heightened Benedito Bueno’s distress: The hard-riding dragoon was a man of many talents, one of which had earned him the nickname Tiradentes, “Tooth-Puller.”

  The arrival of Silva Xavier and André a day ago was fortuitous. André’s father and grandfather had kept contact with these da Silvas through Benedito Bueno’s brothers, the muleteers, who used a smallholding of André’s family near Vila Rica as a resting place for their mules. However, André’s present journey to São Paulo had nothing to do with the tropeiros but rather with collecting a debt owed his father by a Paulista. After seeing the man, who lived on a fazenda near the town of Tiberica, André had come to Itatinga.

  Alferes Silva Xavier was on long leave from the dragoons. He had intended to go to Rio de Janeiro — the capital of Brazil since 1763, when the viceroy’s seat had been transferred from the Bahia. But when his friend André spoke of a quick visit to São Paulo, Silva Xavier decided to accompany him; he had friends among the military in the captaincy and was keen to visit the Paulista capital, which he had not seen for several years. Silva Xavier always traveled with his dental equipment.

  “Courage, Senhor Benedito,” André said. He flashed his own white teeth. “Joaquim has attended me. There’s little pain.”

  “O my little Jesus.”

  “There!” Silva Xavier cried triumphantly when it was done. “It is out, senhor!”

  Benedito Bueno made a dreadful noise and bent to spit into a silver basin Silvestre held up for him.

  Two nights later, the four men were together again in the large front room, the furnishings of which were simple and utilitarian: studded chairs and two armchairs, a jacaranda table, cupboard, strongbox, and bench.

  Joaquim José da Silva Xavier was doing most of the talking. “An honor, Senhor Benedito, to be with the family of Amador Flôres, conqueror of the sertão . . . to meet with the descendants of Olímpio Ramalho, who flung open the gates of the treasure-house of Minas Gerais!” Silva Xavier held one hand against his chest. “Ai, Benedito Bueno, an honor, but in my heart, there’s sadness, too: Amador Flôres and Olímpio Ramalho gaze down from heaven upon the poor sons of America denied the birthright that was won for them.”

  André Vaz da Silva had often heard Silva Xavier express such sentiments, and he sympathized with them. Silvestre da Silva was at the card table, a deck spread out in front of him; his face, shadowed in the candlelight, expressed his disagreement, but he said nothing.

  “Year after year we sent our treasure to Lisbon,” Silva Xavier continued. “Sixty annual fleets sailing from Rio de Janeiro with their timbers groaning beneath the weight of the gold of Minas Gerais. The king asked for a minimum of one hundred arrobas a year in lieu of the royal fifth. Ten years the miners met this demand! A thousand arrobas!” This amounted to five hundred thousand ounces. “The rivers were panned, the hills were tunneled, and so long as the gold was there, the obligation was fulfilled by the Mineiros!” “Mineiro,” a man of Minas Gerais, was the proud regional identity shared now by men like André, the descendant of Paulistas, and by the descendants of the Emboabas.

  “But the Mineiros have known for twenty-five years that the gold supply is diminishing. You’ve seen this, too, Senhor Benedito, at the mines of Cuiabá. But at Lisbon?” He shook his head despairingly. “The Mineiros are liars, scoundrels, contrabandistas, they say.”

  Silvestre laughed and raised his eyes from the cards. “Come now, Joaquim José, be fair,” he said. “How many Mineiros have become wealthy as a result of this gold they say does not exist? How many contrabandistas pass through São Paulo carrying gold to the Spaniards at Asunción? You’re an officer of the dragoons: How many men do the patrols trap on the road to Rio de Janeiro?”

  “I don’t deny the smuggling,” Silva Xavier said, “but the gold supply is diminishing and the hydraulic works needed to mine it are ever more costly. Lisbon will not acknowledge these facts. ‘Settle your great debt, Mineiros, or we will use the derrama to extract every cruzado owed to the treasury,’” they say.

  When the minimum contribution of one hundred arrôbas had been ordered in 1750, the municipal câmaras of Minas Gerais were made responsible for collecting the gold and were warned that a derrama — a tax on every free man and slave — would be imposed to make up any shortfall.

  “The authorities hesitate with the derrama because they know the monopolies, tithes, and taxes are already impoverishing the Mineiro. And what do we get in return for our taxes? Every three years, the captaincies are sent a governor whose instructions are to rule with justice and concern for the well-being of our people. Some have been good men. And then there are others, like His Excellency Luiz da Cunha Meneses . . .”

  André had been wondering when Silva Xavier would mention the governor who had been sent to Minas Gerais in 1783. The great majority of Mineiros had detested the pompous martinet, but for Silva Xavier, the loathing had been of a personal nature, deriving from the circumstances of his background.

  The son of a first-generation Mineiro of Portuguese ancestry and a Mineiro girl, Silva Xavier was born in 1746 on a fazenda near the town of São João d’El Rei, about one hun
dred miles southwest of Vila Rica. When he was nine, his mother died. Two years later, his father, a successful miner and municipal alderman, also died. The orphan had gone to live with a godfather, a dentist at São João, from whom he learned his first skills as Tooth-Puller.

  Silva Xavier tried his hand at various occupations — muleteer, peddler, prospector — but with little success. In 1775, he enlisted in the paid regiment of the dragoons, with the rank of alferes. He served with distinction, commanding a patrol on the royal road to Rio de Janeiro over the Mantiqueira range. Despite a fine record, however, Silva Xavier was overlooked for promotion on four occasions. When Cunha Meneses came to Minas Gerais, Silva Xavier was removed from his command, which was given to one of His Excellency’s favorites.

  “Governor Cunha Meneses looks down on every man born in America, rich or poor,” Silva Xavier continued. “By God’s great mercy, we have notice of his recall and await his successor, the visconde de Barbacena. But how did we protest those years of misrule?” Silva Xavier raised his slender hands in a gesture of despair. “ ‘Ai! Ai! Ai!’ we cried, like so many slaves, and stood around helplessly, awaiting the despot’s pleasure.”

  “Other members of the Cunha Meneses family have served with honor at São Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil,” Silvestre said.

  “But we got Luiz, strolling through the streets of Vila Rica with his prostitutes swaying beside him. He hung on their every word, but would he listen to our miners’ appeals for loans? For modern machinery? For a foundry so that tools needn’t be carried halfway around the world to be sold to our miners at exorbitant prices? For new sugar mills? Of course not! ‘No iron!’ ‘No sugar!’ ‘No enterprise of any kind that takes labor away from the mines!’ say the Lisbon authorities. Incredible!” Silva Xavier exclaimed. “I ask you, how long are we to be the stepchildren of Lisbon?”

  The present rulers of Portugal were confident that their vast colony could be kept in loyal subjection. On February 24, 1777, Dom José died, and with his royal protector gone, on March 1, Sebastião José Carvalho e Melo offered his resignation to Maria I, Dom José’s successor. Carvalho e Melo, who by then enjoyed the title Marquis of Pombal, retired to his country estate north of Lisbon, where he died in 1782, after being served with a royal decree declaring him “a criminal worthy of exemplary punishment.” His eighty-three years and ruined health had saved him from corporal chastisement.

  Queen Maria I had long been the great hope of the nobles and hierarchy of priests displaced by Carvalho e Melo. She had married her uncle, Dom Pedro, a son of His Most Faithful João V, and Dom Pedro had also surrendered to mystic zeal and doted upon his wife, whom he regarded as a saint.

  Queen Maria’s accession had also pleased the British government and the merchants of London, who had been frustrated by Carvalho e Melo’s successful promotion of local industries in Portugal and Portuguese-owned trading companies in Brazil. The latter were abolished within two years of Maria’s enthronement. Equally injurious to British commerce had been the protracted dispute between Portugal and Spain over the territories across the east bank — the Banda Oriental — of the Rio Uruguay. After the fall of Carvalho e Melo, the Portuguese had relinquished their claim to the Rio Plata enclave, Colônia do Sacramento, with the signing of the Treaty of Ildefonso in October 1777. They had accepted a border delimitation much the same as that specified in the earlier Treaty of Madrid, excluding the lands of the seven missions of the Guarani.

  Listening to Silva Xavier, Silvestre had grown increasingly irritated, and now he spoke up: “The troubles you detail concern one governor and one captaincy.”

  “Minas Gerais is not one captaincy; it’s the soul of our America! We’re still rich in gold, diamonds, iron, fertile lands, and people. More people, Silvestre, than in any other captaincy!”

  “One captaincy,” Silvestre repeated. “Her Majesty’s overseas councilors have to administer all Brazil. With so vast a territory to control, mistakes are unavoidable.”

  “Is gross stupidity also unavoidable?”

  Silvestre looked at his father, but Benedito Bueno’s eyes were closed. “Before the discovery of gold and diamonds, Portugal ruled this land for two centuries,” Silvestre replied hotly. “Was it stupid to defend a savage and distant domain for a small reward?”

  “Who defended Brazil against the Spanish, French, Dutch? Against the English pirates? The patriots of Pernambuco and Bahia! Your own Paulistas. White men, black men, brown men, all born in these captaincies — they fought and died to defend this land. A small reward? Forests of brazilwood torn down? Fortunes in sugar transported to Lisbon? Spices of the forest? And what about the great territories conquered by the bandeiras for the Crown?”

  Benedito Bueno opened his eyes. “Senhor, does it matter who won what and where?” he asked. “We’re all Portuguese.”

  “Some of us, Senhor Benedito, are more Portuguese than others.”

  Silvestre ignored the jibe. “Do you agree with Joaquim José?” he asked André.

  André did, though he had never been as outspoken as Silva Xavier. He hesitated before replying.

  “Do you think Portugal has done nothing for the captaincies?” Silvestre prodded.

  “Portugal has been paid ten times and more for her investment in Brazil,” André said. “Think about it, Silvestre: With the Indies bankrupt, what would have become of Portugal without the captaincies? God forbid, but the Spaniard himself might have swallowed her up.”

  “Exactly!” Silva Xavier exclaimed. Then he stood up. “I want to read something to you, Silvestre.” He withdrew a book from the leather valise that contained his dental instruments. “My French is poor, but it’s enough to understand this.” He opened the book and took out a sheet of paper that had been folded in the front. “Here . . . this I’ve had translated.”

  “What book is this?” asked Benedito Bueno.

  Silva Xavier passed him the volume. “The laws and Constitution of the states of North America, Senhor Benedito,” he said.

  Benedito Bueno was illiterate, but he appeared to examine the volume studiously. He looked puzzled. “Their laws are in French?”

  “No, senhor, only this book, which was published in Philadelphia.” Silva Xavier opened the sheet of paper. “This is a translation of the Declaration of Rights by the people of Virginia. Please listen, Silvestre, and tell me if you disagree with these statements.”

  As Silva Xavier began to read, his voice quickly became charged with emotion:

  “ ‘All men are by nature equally free, and have inherent rights, of which when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety . . .’”

  Several times, Silva Xavier paused momentarily and looked in Silvestre’s direction, waiting for some response, but Silvestre only beckoned for him to continue.

  “ ‘All power is vested in and consequently derived from the people . . .’” Silva Xavier placed emphasis on the next statement: “‘The magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them…’”

  “Yes!” André said. “And what of Governor Cunha Meneses’s regard for judges and magistrates? His trustees! His servants!”

  As Silva Xavier read the clauses of the Declaration of Rights proclaimed by the Virginians in June 1776 at Williamsburg, he was interrupted by Benedito Bueno, who sought clarification of certain statements. Silvestre said little, until Silva Xavier came to the end.

  “Tiradentes!” — Silvestre spit out the nickname — “what you have just read is a prescription for revolution! We owe allegiance to Her Sovereign Majesty. To think otherwise is to contemplate sedition and turmoil.”

  “Did I speak of revolution?” Silva Xavier waved the sheet of paper in front of Silvestre. “These truths are the voice of reason against turmoil. They were given by men claiming their natural right to reject tyrann
y.” He nodded. “Tiradentes,” he said. “Of course, Silvestre, it’s far better to save a tooth than to extract it.” Then he smiled. “Sometimes, though, the decay is too advanced and there’s no choice: The tooth has to be plucked!”

  The road over the Mantiqueira range from Rio de Janeiro was patrolled by the dragoons and forbidden to anyone without a Crown passport. North of the Mantiqueira, the crystalline highlands of Brazil, lying three thousand feet above sea level, was a complex of small valley flats, deep-fissured tablelands, and ranges of hills. Some of the slopes were bald and pitted with evidence of the search for gold, but most remained blanketed by virgin forest. Vila Rica de Ouro Prêto was 250 miles from the coast and located at the southern base of the range called The Spine.

  Neither royal passport nor mountain barrier deterred the contrabandistas carrying gold or diamonds out of Minas Gerais or bringing in pack mules with goods from Europe and the Orient. Priest, lawyer, miner, shopkeeper, royal official, Portuguese ship captain — all participated in the illegal free trade. From time to time, Crown agents broke up syndicates of smugglers and clandestine smelting works, but the hemorrhage of gold was not staunched. Moreover, by attempting to seal off the region, the Portuguese created the very conditions for the miraculous flowering of genius at Vila Rica.

  To best comprehend this miracle, one had only to watch a particular man as he set out to work in Vila Rica on a morning in July 1788. The bastard of a Portuguese architect and a black slave woman, he had been freed at the time of his birth at Vila Rica and was now in his fifties. He moved slowly along the kidney-shaped cobblestones, with a black slave walking beside him and carrying his tools. His short, thick body was wrapped in a black cloak, and his heavy head covered with a huge hat.