History of Sugar

After this visit, we board our historical vessel once again to continue our journey through the tunnel of time, returning to the colonial period.

Colonial ship sailing

Only two of the fourteen hereditary captaincies created achieved positive results: Pernambuco and São Vicente. This was because their donataries chose to implement large-scale sugarcane plantations.

There was land — vast stretches of fertile ground — plenty of water, and the know-how of sugar cultivation, already being developed on the island of Madeira. The problem was labour.

They initially tried to enslave the Indigenous peoples, but this proved unsuccessful, as the natives knew the land far better than the colonisers and would always escape. Furthermore, they refused to work in agriculture, as in many Indigenous cultures it was considered a task for women. The solution was to bring enslaved Africans to work in the sugar mills — and this is a part of history we know all too well: four million Africans were forcibly brought to Brazil over the course of roughly three centuries, and their legacy is far more present in our culture than most Brazilians realise. Not only in cuisine or music, but also in language, religion, culture, and customs. As the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro once said, even the whitest, blondest Brazilian carries within them — in their way of speaking, walking, gesturing, and relating to others — the legacy of the African people.

For many years, the Captaincy of Pernambuco produced vast quantities of sugar and was responsible for over half of the country’s exports. This prosperity attracted the attention of the Dutch, who invaded and occupied a large part of Pernambuco between 1630 and 1654.

It was a very important period for the city, as Count Maurice of Nassau arrived in 1637 with a highly skilled team of architects and engineers to design the city’s layout, which they named Mauritsstad. They built bridges, dykes, and canals to overcome the limitations of the local geography — a complex system of rivers and waterways — and erected significant new buildings. Recife is still known today as the “Brazilian Venice” because of the many bridges crossing its canals.

The city’s growth was also fuelled by the Dutch tradition of tolerance, opening the territory to Calvinists and Jews. Furthermore, the Dutch administration invested in art and culture, sponsoring the arrival of biologists, painters, and people from the fine arts, which quickly transformed the village into a dynamic and progressive city.

Political and economic tensions between the sugar aristocracy in Olinda and the Portuguese merchants operating in Recife’s port inevitably escalated, leading to the War of the Mascates in 1710.

It’s time for another stop. We now disembark in Recife.