Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-07
PEoNAeE IN SOUTH AMERICA.
Slavery Of Italians on Brazilian
Farms.

From the Literary Digest.
For the last few years italian peasantry
have been ecouraged to emigrate to Bra
I'll. and Roman and Florentine reviews have
published articles setting forth the advan-
tages of South America for the exploitation
OF Italian capital and labor. In the year
1904. we are told. there were 1.100. 900 Ital-
ians settled in Brazil. $4,000 being in San
Paulo. in the south region Of the republic.
But according to Oreste Ristori, who writes
from San Paulo, the condition of the Ital-
Ian farm laborers in that region is most
deplorable. Writing in the Universita Pop
lorae (Mantua), he speaks Of the miserable
slavery of his fellow-countrymen They
are compelled to work from twelve to four
teen hours day. The food given them
Physical and moral degeneration has re-
suited from the horrors of their lot and
they have sunk into condition below that
of the brutes. This writer says that al
though heavy taxation and capitalistic
oppression have driven them to foreign
lands, they find after some years in South
America that they have merely jumped out
Of the frying pan into the fire. To quote:
ION their arrival in Brazil they are dis
tributed through the fazendas, or farms.
Of the country and are compelled to labor
far beyond their strength, badly fed,
lodged like swine in the mud of novels des-
titute Of light or fresh air. Here they are
exposed to the weather, to disease, to all
the pestilential vapors Of night, with no
alienation for their exhaustion excepting
a few hours of sleep between sunset and
dawn. After years Of WEAKNESS and tribu-
lations, our slaves of the SOIL those strong
and indomitable cultivators Of the ground,
are no longer recognizable. Their physical
constitution is broken, their strength is
exhausted, their blood becomes impoverish-
ed, their spirit is gone. Even their counte-
nances betray their condition, for privation
and suffering have emaciated and turned
them into the aspect of skeletons"
The personal liberty of the Italian set
tiers has become subject to the whims of
cruel taskmasters, and the law in San
Paulo affords no redress. Mr.. Ristoi tells
US:
ION the fazendas the italian colonists
count for nothing. They are merely chat
tells gifted with the power of locomotion,
and their masters have absolute right to
them, as to the negroes who were formerly
his slaves. They are compelled to give up
all their human rights, to htink only of
their duty, and to conform to the local
estimate OF their own fnferiority to their
Spanish masters, at the risk of being Sc
verely punished. Weakness and resignation
are indispensable requisites in avoiding
the lash of the slave driver or foreman,
and only in this way can the laborers es-
cape from a worse fate.''
The worse fate Is forfeiture of wages.
torture, and sometimes death. The laws
and the italian consulate have no protec-
ton for the italian farm hands of San
Paulo. Thus:
Tine laws of the land, which breathe
the spirit of the fullest liberalism, have no
force in protecting the Italian colonist.
All the guarantees of which we so frequent
ly hear are a mere dead letter as regards
him. The police invariably favor the as
Aassins, and the magistrates exculpate
them. Their excellencies the italian con-
suls dine with the owners of the fazendas,
and the horrors of slavery. apparently put
stop to by Brazilian legislation. are &C
tually brought back again, in all their
frightful cruelty, and still flourish under
the blue sky Of the republic"
The Italian colonies of San Paulo are
fast degenerating into a condition of quasi
cretinism. They die early Mr. Ristori
predicts that all will eventually perish in
such an environment, and concludes with
the remarks that 'in nature there prevails
an iron law from whose application no liv-
ing thing can escape 1t is either adapt
yourself to your environment or de- Well,
In the atmosphere of the fazendas all condi-
lions indispensable for the life of the hui
man species are lacking, and without these
conditions the italian colonists must die
and disappear in Brazil"