Augusto Ivan de Freitas Pinheiro and Eliane Canedo
Research and contributions: Cristiane Titoneli
Crossing the port hills
A significant factor for the city was the appearance of a new elite during the XVIII century: merchants, traders and businessmen. This new social group managed to break through the monopoly of power held until then by powerful plantation owners, lords of the agricultural exports sector. As trade rose in importance, new topics and interests came under discussion, intervening not only in the economic sphere, but also in the old political system already established in the city.
These diverging interests soon led to tussles for political power between the local aristocracy and the merchants. Throughout the entire XVIII century, one of the main battlegrounds for these two groups was City Hall. This was the main seat of political power established by the Portuguese Crown, eager to transfer the production systems of the kingdom to its overseas colonies, while at the same time ensuring greater uniformity in the administration of its royal interests.
One of the principles of Portugal’s colonial system that was followed strictly by City Councils was discouraging industries setting up in the colonies, as they were supposed to focus only on farming or mining activities for export. This is why there were only 268 small workshops throughout the entire Rio de Janeiro Captaincy in 1784, most of them processing Indigofera plants (that thrived in this region) to produce anil dye. This had to be sold to the Portuguese Crown, which exported it to textile mills in the UK. Despite resistance from the upper classes, merchants and workshop owners grew rich, eager to invest not only in land, but also other more profitable activities. These were the first signs that changes were looming.
The XIX century was a time of sweeping changes throughout the city, reflected in the use of land that until then had not been encompassed by its expansion. As the new century dawned, roads began to push northwest towards the Fazenda Real de Santa Cruz estate, running through areas that later grew into neighborhoods like Rio Comprido, São Cristóvão, Tijuca and Andaraí. To the south, new settlements sprang up along the road to the Moinho d’El Rei mill, later developing into neighborhoods like Glória, Catete, Laranjeiras, Flamengo, Botafogo and Gávea.
Downtown, roads spread out from the Centro towards Santa Teresa and Conceição. Extending on from the Praia de Manuel de Brito, the beach road was rough and broken, clinging to the slopes framing the Guanabara Bay and interrupted by the Saco do Alferes cove (today Avenida Francisco Bicalho) between today’s São Cristóvão and Santo Cristo districts. Although enchanting, the topography was rough, thus hampering the comfortable expansion of the urban fabric. The landscape consisted of water and hills. The promontories of the Saúde and Gamboa districts were topped by small churches: São Francisco da Prainha (1738/48) and Nossa Senhora da Saúde (1743).
An eye-catching feature of the Morro da Conceição hill was the massive wall of the derelict fortress, unused since 1710, when some 3,500 French invaders made a final attempt to take the city. Besieging it under the command of Duguay-Trouin, and demanding a heavy ransom of 600,000 cruzados in gold, 200 head of cattle and 100 crates of sugar, in addition to looting, they were finally defeated and departed forever.17
The French were to return to the city only a century later, with a cultured and courteous mission focused on art and architecture that added polish to the Imperial Court and Brazil’s burgeoning aristocracy. Intended to expand the academic knowledge of the people of Rio, it included French teachers and artists like Lebreton, Debret, Taunay and Grandjean de Montigny, whose names are still famous today.
By the mid-XVIII century, Rio de Janeiro was the largest city in Brazil, with a population of around 50,000, followed by São Salvador in Bahia State. Internationally, it ranked 29th compared to major European cities, with London the largest at 1,117,000 inhabitants.18
With its port growing towards the Gamboa district, busy with large ships carrying gold and sugarcane to the metropolis, interspersed with smaller freighters linking the rear of the bay to the Valongo shoreline, its urban dynamic certainly qualified the city as a sanctuary suitable for the Portuguese Court, fleeing Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal in 1808.
As the XIX century dawned, a whirlwind blew through the city, reshaping the future of the country and its still-timid colonial capital forever. On March 8, 1808, seventeen caravels arrived in Rio de Janeiro, escorted by a British squadron. After 108 days at sea and a brief stopover at São Salvador in Bahia State, they moored at the slabbed granite wharf, topped by a pyramid fountain designed in the mid-XVIII century by Mestre Valentim.
The largest of these sailing vessels was the Príncipe Real; in addition to Queen Maria I of Portugal, and Crown Prince John VI, they carried the entire Royal family, the Court and its nobles, servants and crews. Although historians have not yet been able to count the total number of people involved with any accuracy, some 10,000 to 15,000 people left the seat of the Portuguese Kingdom in Europe on November 29, 1807, in flight from Napoleon’s invading army. They traveled on 56 ships belonging to the Portuguese and British fleets (28 vessels), as well as Merchant Marine vessels.19