The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-06-01

work. It is by their labor that sugar
and cotton are raised today, though
they take themselves with just so
much exertion on just 80 many days
a week al is needed to provide them
with food and the other scanty neces-
saries of their life.
A Region OF Immigrants.
Such are the cotton and sugar re-
gions: now let us turn to those south
erly States OF the republic, whose
staples are coffee and cattle and ce-
reals. In them and especially In Sac
Paulo and Rio Grande, the condf-
tons are altogether different. The
number OF negroes was never large
there, and It does not grow. Owing
to the elevation of the ground and to
the less powerful sun, the heat Is not
excessive in either State, and Euro
pean immigrants can work ana thrive
and be happy. So Europeans have
fiocked hither.
Between 1s4s and 1859 about
twenty thousand came from Germany
to Rio Grande do Sui. and there are
now, It Is said, about two hundred
thousand, forming compact COM
munity which preserves its national
habits and manages its own affairs
with little interference by the central
government. 1t Is. in fact, disposed
to resent any such interference and
to run things in Its own solid Ger
man way.
Even larger is the number OF Ital-
ians who in more recent years have
entered these Southern States. The
labor on the great coffee estates Of
Sac Paulo is almost entirely Italian,
and in Rio Grande they have become
well-to-do peasant proprietors. living
in less comfort than their German
neighbors, but working just as stead
lily. This better quality Of population
has largely gone to making the south
ern States the most progressive part
Of Brazil.
The foreign element In Brazil is
more important by Its energy and in
dustry than by Its numbers, for 1t
probably little exceeds a million all
told. and the total population of the
republic may approach nineteen or
twenty millions
The Mixed Blood OF the Brazilian.
But what of the Brazilian people
itself? The Brazilian is primarily a
Portuguese in the outlines of his mind
and character. He has, however, been
modified by intermixture with two
other races. The first OF these Ia the
native Indian. The settler both in
Sac Paulo and along the northeastern
coast, while they killed most OF the
Indian men either in fight or by work
ing them to death as slaves. intermar-
ried freely with Indian women.
The second modifying influence is
that Of the imported Africans. When
the first slave ships disgorged their
cargoes on the Atlantic coast. the
aborigines of those districts had al
ready been either killed off or merged
I'm the Portuguese population. so that
the mingling of Indian and negro
blood which Is supposed to produce
an especially undesirable class Of citi-
zens, was comparatively small. The
intermarriage Of blacks and whites
has. however, gone on apace, and the
negroes constitute a large. the mulat-
toes and Quadroons a still larger per-
centage of the population. Some OBJ
servers hold that the colored people,
taken all together, equal or outnumber
the whites.
The Brazilian Is primarily a man Of
the country, not of the city. Rio,
large as It is, is a less potent factor
than Buenos Aires Is in Argentina, or
Santiago in Chile. The landowner
loves his rural life, as did the Vir-
gilman planter In North America be-
fore the civil war. and lives on the
fazenda IN a sort OF semi-feudal patri-
archal way. often with grown-up sons
and daughters around him.
Estates Except in the extreme
south) are extensive: near neighbors
are few: families are often large
cipality, and its owner with his fell
low-proprietors is allowed. despite all
democratic theory, to direct the poll
tics of the district just as in England.
eighty years ago, the county families
used to control local affairs and guide