The German colonization in Rio Grande do Sul was a large-scale and long-term project of the Brazilian government, motivated initially by the desire to populate the south of Brazil, ensuring the possession of the territory, threatened by Hispanic neighbors. In addition, the search for Germans intended to recruit mercenary soldiers to reinforce the Brazilian army. The immigrants would also be important to improve the domestic supply of basic goods, since they would settle on the land as owners of productive small farms. Furthermore, the Germans would help to "whiten" the Brazilian population.
An area of unclaimed land in the Sinos River valley was chosen for the settlement and the first settlers arrived in 1824. Throughout the 19th century and into the mid-20th centuries, tens of thousands more would arrive, either through government initiative or private entrepreneurship.
Overview After a difficult start, being settled in a jungle region, many colonies prospered, although several remained stagnant for a long time. Others were not consolidated and their inhabitants dispersed. Within the rural colonies, urban centers were soon being formed, gathering the first schools, churches, administrative buildings, party halls, and a series of workshops, stores, small industries and manufactures.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a large Germanic community had already formed in the state, with significant political, cultural, economic, and social expression, but this same empowerment was the cause of friction with the Portuguese-Brazilian population. The interwar period was particularly difficult for the preservation of the socio-cultural identity of the German descendants, going through a period of repression and persecution resulting mainly from the nationalist campaign of Getúlio Vargas. The associations of many Germans with Nazism and Integralism made the dialogue with the government and the rest of society more complicated. After this crisis, new problems arose with the progressive decline of family farming, rural flight, and swelling of the cities.
In 1974, when the 150th anniversary of the beginning of German colonization in the state was celebrated, the main traumas of Vargas' repression were overcome, and movements of cultural affirmation based on the immigrant's heritage and identity emerged in many cities, increasing the critical bibliography on the theme of immigration, overthrowing old myths that erected the immigrant as the prototype of a hero, and the Germans as a superior race, bringing light to previously unknown, obscure or contradictory aspects of the colonization process.
Many memorialist narratives and genealogical studies have also appeared since then, and there is an effort of official bodies, communities and universities to rescue the heritage that time has erased. Aside from disputes and divergent discourses, it is a consensus that the Germans left a mark in the history of Rio Grande do Sul. They are the founders of numerous cities, some of them being regional poles today. The Germans brought many traditions, ways of thinking, and forms of coexistence, which enriched the socio-cultural panorama. Their descendants became renowned politicians, artists, scientists, and intellectuals, and founded countless associations, schools, social, sports, and recreational clubs, companies, and newspapers. Their contribution to the economic development of the state was significant, and their language is still heard in the daily life of many communities in the countryside. A rich collection of architecture, art and handicrafts from the early days survives, although a vast amount has disappeared due to neglect or under the urgencies of progress.
History
Context In colonial Brazil a productive system based on latifundia was built, where natural resources such as lumber were exploited, export monocultures such as sugarcane and coffee were developed, and cattle were raised extensively. The labor force was composed of slaves. After the installation of the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro in 1808, the royal house and liberal politicians began to develop plans to colonize the demographic voids in the south with free foreigners, who would be given small farms for the agricultural production of basic commodities, supplying the precarious domestic market. This population would also serve to swell the army in case of a border conflict with the neighboring Platinos, at a time when the Iberian powers' disagreements about the relations and limits between their American colonies had not yet been solved. Finally, they helped to fulfill the elites' desire to whiten the Brazilian population, which at that time was massively composed of blacks and indigenous. Immigrants would later fill the labor shortage on the coffee farms generated by the abolition of the slave trade.
In the European continent a crisis was forming: With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, great masses of peasants became impoverished and left the countryside taking refuge in the cities and swelling the mass of proletarianized workers in factories, or were sent to the mines and railroads. Great political and social instability, successive and devastating wars, revolts, epidemics, and famine contributed to an unsustainable scenario. Thus, due to a series of factors, a vast wave of emigration began in which tens of millions of emigrants from various countries left for America, where they hoped to prosper. According to Zuleika Alvin, "for some expelling countries, such as Italy and Spain, the descriptions of the places where the immigrants lived and the promiscuity in which they were forced to live due to poverty are good examples of the repercussion of the economic crisis on the bucolic landscape of the countryside". The researcher continues:
The crisis would drag on throughout the nineteenth century, and in the first decades of the twentieth century, due to new upheavals in Europe, many other emigrants would also leave.
In Rio Grande do Sul there were areas where latifundia had not developed as they were located in regions unsuitable for extensive cattle raising, at the time the main economic activity of the province. The region of the Sinos River valley was then chosen to host the government's first colonizing venture in the south. The south was a favorable region for several reasons: The landowners were not interested or did not look kindly at the idea of introducing free labor and a smallholding system, which could compete economically and shake the political and social power of the landowning elite. However, in the south, there was a large amount of idle wasteland, the so-called "demographic voids", which although populated by Indians, did not change anything in the eyes of the government.
In the middle of the century, other factors contributed to the increase in the attractiveness of the south. When Germans began to be shipped to the coffee plantations in São Paulo, they became poorly paid employees, often encountered subhuman working and housing conditions, and suffered abuse. Reports circulated in Europe, causing outrage and leading to restrictions on the departure of Germans from some regions. The prospect of obtaining land and being a landowner remained open in the south. Finally, there was a scientific discourse circulating at the Court, which considered the North and Northeast inadvisable for the settlement of Europeans.
Stage One The Brazilian government, convinced of the benefits of immigration, sent in 1822 Major Georg Anton von Schäffer to Europe to recruit interested emigrants to Brazil. The major traveled first to Hamburg, negotiating contracts with the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and then with Birkenfeld, belonging to the Duchy of Oldenburg. To convince those interested, the Brazilian government offered a series of advantages: Transport at the government's expense; free land allotment of 78 hectares; a daily subsidy of one franc or 160 réis for each settler in the first year and half in the second; a certain amount of clothing, oxen, cows, horses, pigs, and chickens, in proportion to the number of people in each family; ten-year exemption from paying taxes; freedom of worship, and immediate granting of Brazilian citizenship. Some promises hurt the Empire's Constitution, such as freedom of worship and immediate citizenship, and the aid in materials and money did not always deliver what was promised. There are many accounts of settlers living the first years in misery.
The first immigrants set sail on the sailing ship Protector from the port of Hamburg in March 1824. After passing through Rio de Janeiro, where they were received and reallocated by Monsignor Miranda, they arrived in São Leopoldo on July 18, 1824. They were then sent to the deactivated Real Feitoria do Linho Cânhamo, where they arrived on July 25, 1824. There were 39 people from nine families. Also in 1824, with settlers not adapted in São Leopoldo, a colony was created in the village of São João, one of the former Sete Povos das Missões, but the initiative failed and the remnants were taken to São Borja. In 1826, the colonies of Três Forquilhas and Dom Pedro de Alcântara were created, but they were isolated and remained stagnant. In 1827, some families moved from São Leopoldo to Santa Maria. Between 1824 and 1828, Schaeffer reportedly brought about 4,500 soldiers and settlers to Brazil. Their regions of origin were diverse: Hunsrück, Saxony, Württemberg, Coburg, Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg, Hanover, Palatinate, Pomerania, and Westphalia.
In 1830, when more than 5,300 Germans were already in the province, pressure from landowners led to the approval of a new Budget Law that prohibited any spending on colonization, including the payment of back debts. The law created difficulties for settlers who were establishing themselves, preventing them from receiving subsidies. The outbreak of the Ragamuffin War in 1835 divided the province and increased the difficulties for the continuity of the government's colonizing plans, worsened when Law nº 16 of 12 August 1834 had transferred to the province's the responsibilities for organizing the project. With these upheavals, the flow of immigrants was greatly reduced but not entirely interrupted, and the colonized areas increased. At the beginning of the war the German colonization already extended to the north of São Leopoldo with the formation of the nuclei of Hamburgo Velho, Dois Irmãos, Bom Jardim, Quarenta e Oito, and São José do Hortêncio.
When the war ended, the flow intensified again and increased with the arrival of many emigrants who traveled on their own without integrating themselves into the government's project. Other waves were brought to settle private colonies, as was the case with the founding of the Colônia de Santa Maria do Mundo Novo, owned by Tristão José Monteiro, which gave rise to the cities of Taquara, Igrejinha, and Três Coroas, and the Colônia Padre Eterno, current Sapiranga, owned by the Baron of Jacuí. By the mid-century, more than eight thousand Germans had arrived.
In this first stage of colonization, São Leopoldo and Hamburgo Velho were the most prosperous centers, favored by their proximity to Porto Alegre, the provincial capital, and by the control of an important network of land and river transport. In a few decades, these centers had become dynamic villages with well-structured commerce, an expressive rural production concentrated on maize, beans, manioc, and tobacco, as well as several manufactures and small industries. The surplus production supplied Porto Alegre and nearby regions and was exported. The economic and urban growth provided for the formation of a new society and a differentiated culture in this region. A German community was also formed in Porto Alegre, which by mid-century had almost two thousand members in a variety of trades and enterprises.
Second Stage