Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/494

BBAZIL. 436 BRAZIL. of the so-called whites are people of mixed Cau- casian, Indian, and negi-o origin. As shoAvn by the table, several of the larger States of Brazil are almost devoid of population, the bulk of the people living along the coast. and Poles, of whom about 100,000 came in tho years 1800 and 1891. The lil)oral provisions of the law were not, however, carried out long, and the Government confined itself later on only to granting free passage to the country, employing Area Population Population 1872 1890 mile 22,580 732.250 164.600 40,240 17.310 288.470 177.520 632.650 221.890 443.790 28.850 85.430 49.660 116.490 26,630 22.190 91.250 28.620 112.280 15.090 540 348,009 56.610 1.283.141 721,686 82,137 160,395 359,040 60,417 2,009,023 259,821 302,567 126,722 841.53^ 202,222 727,576 233,979 430,878 159,802 837,354 161.307 274.972 611,440 147,916 1.919,802 805.687 135,997 227,572 430,854 92,827 3,184,099 328,455 457,232 249,491 1.030.224 267.609 876.884 268.273 897.455 283.769 1.384.763 310.926 522.651 22.1 0.2 11.0 20.0 7.2 0.7 2.4 0.2 14.3 Pard 0.7 15.7 2.8 20.7 Piauhv 2.3 32.9 12.8 9.8 9.S 12.3 20.6 960.6 3,218,130 9.699,187 i 14.333.915 4.6 1mmigr.tion. The chief cause of Brazil's backwardness is its lack of a skilled, intelligent, industrious population. Nothing is more natu- ral, therefore, than that the Brazilian Govern- ment should tr3' to attract European immigra- tion by ottering the immigrants abundant land to settle on. The immigration laws of Brazil, like those of Argentina, were drafted solely with that end in view, but have never been carried out with the persistency or ability which has marked the policy of the Argentinians, and there- fore have not been crowned with the same degree of success. From the earliest time most of the im- migration into Brazil came from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The German immigration which be- gan in 1825 soon reached considerable propor- tions under the fostering care of the Hamburg 'Kolonisationsvcrein,' so that by the end of the seventies there were from 150,000 to 200,000 Germans in the country. These people were at- tracted to the southern States of Brazil — Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina, and Sao Paulo — ■ where the Government offered them, in addition to free transportation from Europe to the place of destination, from GO to 125 acres of land per family and furnished provisions, implements, and seeds until the time of the first crop. The land was not given free to the settlers, but sold at the low price of from $1 to /f2 per acre, to be paid to the Government in from seven to ten years. The object of the Government in settling the southern States was not only to increase the population in the most thinly settled parts of the country, but to create a European ])opulation capable of raising European agricultural products in the region best adapted for that purpose. That would create a cheap food-sup|)ly for the more northern States, which could then be entirely devoted to the cultivation of the more valuable tropical crops of coffee, sugar, etc. The plans succeeded so well that the Govern- ment was soon afraid of the preponderating in- fluence of the German population in the south, and began to favor the immigration of Italians the newly arrived immigrants in road-building on the land which they were to settle. This naturally led to a decline in immigration, since the newcomers found it diflicult, if not impossi- ble, to save enough from their small earnings as laborers to buy land and cultivate it. In 1891 the Government enacted a new colonization law favoring colonization by strong Jinancial com- panies willing to invest large sums of capital for the purpose. Any company could purchase from the Government great tracts of land at twenty cents per acre, which thej' were to resell to colo- nists whom the companies were to bring into the country at their own expense. The Government was to pay the companies a subsidy of .$230 for each familj- brought in, and $700 additional for each mile of road laid out. The terms of the new law were so favorable that companies im- mediately formed and secured concessions for more than 150.000 square miles of land. But the political troubles which set in in 1893 ])ut an end for the time being to all financial aid to im- migration by the Govermnent. In all, the (Gov- ernment spent about .$25,000,000 on immigration until 1890. The total innuigration in the decade oi 188()-9() amounted to nearlv 400,000. In 1890, it was 107,000: 1891, 217,000; 1895, 170,000; 189S, only 5-1,000. Education is in an extremely backward state, especially in the interior of the country. Pri- mary instruction is free, and every parish is supposed to possess one teacher for boys and one for girls, but in fact, the number of pujiils at- tending the elementary schools constitutes but a very small fraction of the population of school age. The percentage of illiteracy for the entire nation is over eighty. In the cities on and near the coast the level of general culture is much higher, for they contain all the institutions of secondary and higher learning controlled by the Federal Government. At Rio de Janeiro are the two high schools, known jointly as the Oymnasio Xacidii/il. There are schools of medicine at Ba- hia and Rio de Janeiro, schools of law and politi-