Original:  In that period, income averaged $140 per year, per capita, consumption of electricity was about one fifth the Brazilian national average, infant mortality rates ran from 250 to 500 per 1000 live births, about three quarters of the adult population was illiterate, and fewer that 3 percent of students finished primary school.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 5 Moreover, while the sugar industry in Pernambuco was recovering from the lows of the early twentieth century, the standard of living for the poorest sugar workers was declining.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 107 In this environment the workers began to organize and the Ligas Camponesas (peasant leagues) emerged. An attorney and member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), Francisco Julião, championed the peasants' cause and the publicity surrounding the ensuing court and political struggle caused the peasant league to grow to an estimated 40,000 members in Pernambuco.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 111&112 Following so closely after the Cuban revolution, the peasant leagues gave rise to an American CIA effort to clandestinely support moderate peasant organizations. One of the most noteworthy of these moderate organizations was the Pernambuco Rural Orientation Service (SORPE) organized by two priests, Paulo Crespo and Antonio de Melo. An outgrowth of SORPE's effort were several unions. In 1963, 200,000 sugar workers in Pernambuco went on strike and won an 80\% wage increase.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 117&118 Beginning during the Kubitchek presidency another important agent for the development of Pernambuco was the Superentendência do Desenvolvimento do Nordeste (SUDENE).Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy, Oxford University Press,, 1967, p.185 Under its director, noted economist Celso Furtado, SUDENE set forth a three-year plan for economic development. Although the military coup of 1964 would interrupt this plan, SUDENE, and the peasant leagues, were significant elements in developing a political voice for the poor of Pernambuco.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 11 Brazilian Military Government (1964–1985) In 1964, a coup established the military as the government of Brazil. Unlike previous occasions when the military intervened and forced a change in government and then withdrew, this time a military dictatorship was established which would last until 1985. While treatment of this period at the national level is beyond the scope of this article, the military government frequently resorted to violence in the state of Pernambuco.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 445 Under the military dictatorship, almost all of the change-oriented movements and organizations established during the Second Republic were halted or dismantled in the name of the regime's fiscal stabilization policy.Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 1971, p. 214 Despite the dismantling of many of these institutions, there were certain impacts made by these change-oriented movements that were not undone. Specifically, these movements provided a basis for both infrastructural development in Pernambuco and education of the state's population. For example, a Peace Corps worker recalled attending a meeting in rural Pernambuco in 1967. Of the thirty-five union officers attending thirteen had acquired literacy thru the Popular Culture Movement prior to the military dictatorship.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 116 In addition, some entities which were considered to be more moderate were allowed to continue in a limited fashion. One of these entities was the Rural Orientation Service of Pernambuco (SORPE), which identified leaders among the peasantry and established cooperatives in rural areas that assisted peasants in marketing their produce.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 122 These cooperatives directly addressed one hurdle in the development of Pernambuco, which was the practice of only growing sugar can on traditional plantations and having to import food form other Brazilian states. This caused a lack of production of local food crops and was a barrier to the development of the state.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, ch. 10 Opposition to the Dictatorship 280px|Hélder Câmara in 1984Despite brutal suppression on the part of military dictators, opposition to the regime quickly arose, especially in the Northeastern region of Brazil.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 454 The church in Pernambuco was not the only center of resistance in the state, nor was Archbishop Hélder Câmara the only bishop in Brazil to oppose the military dictatorship. However, throughout the military dictatorship the Catholic Church was the face of the resistance.Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 1971, pp. 258-9 Pernambuco's Archbishop Câmara, a leading exponent of Liberation Theology, became one of Brazil's most well known advocates for the poor and opponent of the military dictators.Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy, Oxford University Press,, 1967, pp 321, 401-402E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 459 Under the archbishop's leadership several priests advocated for the impoverished of Pernambuco and at least one priest in Recife was tortured and murdered without government investigation in 1969.João Quartim, Dictatorship and Armed Struggle in Brazil, Trans. David Fernbach, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1971, p. 211 Nevertheless, resistance continued. Toward the end of the military dictatorship, along with unions and squatters, the Catholic Church in Brazil participated in organizing the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST).Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010,pp. 46-50 While the initial efforts of MST were in the South of Brazil, in the 1990s MST became a force for land reform in Pernambuco. End of Military Dictatorship Two presidents—one a newly elected military dictator, the other a future Twenty-first Century president—took noteworthy actions toward the end of the military dictatorship. Future president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a native of Pernambuco, led a series of strikes in São Paulo.John D. French, Lula and His Politics of Cunning, Univ. of North Carolina Press, Ch. 1 The other newly elected president and dictator, João Figueiredo, declared an abertura'' (opening) to democracy.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 466 This declaration was followed by an amnesty, elections for governors and legislative elections in 1982, and in 1985 a civilian president of Brazil was elected.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 476 Modern History (1985– ) FromToGovernor of Pernambuco19831986Roberto Magalhães19861987 Gustavo Krause Gonçalves Sobrinho19871990 Miguel Arraes de Alencar19901991 Carlos Wilson Rocha de Queirós Campos19911995 Joaquim Francisco de Freitas Cavalcanti 1995 1999 Miguel Arraes de Alencar 1999 2006 Jarbas de Andrade Vasconcelos 2006 2007 Jose Mendonça Bezerra Filho 2007 2014 Eduardo Henrique Accioly Campos 2014 2015 João Soares Lyra Neto 2015 Paulo Henrique Saraiva Câmara Over the course of the 20th century, various forces improved the quality of life in Pernambuco. Particularly important were advances in communication and transportation, but also the centralization of the Vargas era governments and the military dictatorship that came to have greater influence than Brazil's centuries old regionalism.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, 1993, p 423 Since the country pivoted away from military rule and back to democracy, it is evident that while Pernambuco was still very much a state where latifundia, monoculture, and a ruling elite were in control, living conditions in the state have greatly improved. In the 1970s observers pointed to Pernambuco as part of the least developed region in the Western Hemisphere with an infant mortality rate variously described as 25 to 50\%Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 5 or that as many as 40\% of children died prior to reaching school age.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, Columbia University Press, New York, 1970, p. 350 Statistics from the turn of the millennium show a sharp and continuing improvement. Infant mortality declined (using two different measures) by 6.8 or 6.2 percent per annum between 1990 and 2015 from (again using two measures) 77.0 or 90.4 infant deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 13.4 or 18.2 infant deaths per 1000 live births in 2015.Szwarcwald, C.L., Almeida, W.d., Teixeira, R.A. et al. “Inequalities in infant mortality in Brazil at subnational levels in Brazil, 1990 to 2015.” Popul Health Metrics 18, 4 (2020). URL Rural life During military rule one earlier effort to improve the lot of the rural poor, the Ligas Camponesas (peasant leagues) was suppressed.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, p. 128 After the military dictatorship, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST) was organized in 1984 in the far South of Brazil.John French, Lula and His Politics of Cunning, Univ. of N. Carolina Press, 2020, p16 MST intentionally sought to organize on a national basis, not a regional basis.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, p. 4 MST began organizing in the South using land occupations and provisions of the Brazilian constitutions. MST experienced considerable success. However, when MST began organizing in Pernambuco, the process was more difficult due to Pernambuco's historic culture. MST found that the landless poor in Pernambuco's zona da mata (coastal areas of sugar cultivation) were amenable to organization during the 1990s largely because during the last decades of the century the market for sugar was in severe decline. Accustomed to regular paychecks, at least when employed, sugar cane workers saw subsistence farming as disadvantageous. Regular paychecks mean immediate money for food, whereas subsistence farming produced food only after planting, cultivation, and harvest. However, the due to the shrinking of the market for sugar that began in the 1980s and continued through the 1990s, MST was successful in organizing in Pernambuco and would execute land occupations especially during the 1990s. While many peasants returned to sugar farming at the turn of the millennium with the revival of the market for sugar, MST was still able to improve the rural quality of life in Pernambuco.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, pp. 211-226 Urban life The capital of Pernambuco is Recife, the largest city in Northeast Brazil and one Brazil's largest cities. In Recife and other cities, there is a great contrast between the cities that tourists see and the slums that impoverished residents live in. Moreover, there is much scholarly documentation of the migraton to cities and the plight of the poor in Recife and other Brazilian cities.Robert Levine, Pernambuco in the Brazilan Federation, 1889-1937, ch 1E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 309, 360, 481 Notwithstanding, the fact that conditions in the slums are bad and much improvement is needed, taking homicides in Recife as an indicator of progress, this very fundamental indicator of quality of life shows that since the return of democracy to Brazil, quality of life has experienced some improvement. Moreover, the trend of decrease in Recife is opposite the trend in Brazil overall which has generally increased from a homicide rate of 28.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2002 and reached 29 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants by 2012. In 2000, the homicide rate in Recife was 97.5 per 100,000 inhabitants and Recife was said to be the most dangerous state capital in Brazil. However, by 2012, this rate dropped to 52 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, this decrease in homicides is noteworthy both for its dramatic plunge and because the rate still exceeds the national average by a significant margin.D. Pereira, C.Mota, and M. Andresen, "The Homicide Drop in Recife, Brazil: A Study of Crime Concentrations and Spatial Patterns", Homicide Studies 2017, Vol. 21(1) 21&27. Recent history As it was evidenced by the discussion in preceding sections Pernambuco has made great strides in improving the quality of life for its citizens. While true to conditions throughout the Northeast coast of Brazil Pernambuco remains an underdeveloped state in Brazil. Recent statistics from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics Foundation (IBGE) show a (prepandemic) 2019 average monthly income of 970 R$ (about US$180) up from just over 600 R$ in 2012.
Revised:  In that period, income averaged $140 per year, per capita, consumption of electricity was about one fifth the Brazilian national average, infant mortality rates ran from 250 to 500 per 1000 live births, about three quarters of the adult population was illiterate, and fewer that 3 percent of students finished primary school.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 5 Moreover, while the sugar industry in Pernambuco was recovering from the lows of the early twentieth century, the standard of living for the poorest sugar workers was declining.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 107 In this environment the workers began to organize and the Ligas Camponesas (peasant leagues) emerged. An attorney and member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), Francisco Julião, championed the peasants' cause and the publicity surrounding the ensuing court and political struggle caused the peasant league to grow to an estimated 40,000 members in Pernambuco.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 111&112 Following so closely after the Cuban revolution, the peasant leagues gave rise to an American CIA effort to clandestinely support moderate peasant organizations. One of the most noteworthy of these moderate organizations was the Pernambuco Rural Orientation Service (SORPE) organized by two priests, Paulo Crespo and Antonio de Melo. An outgrowth of SORPE's effort were several unions. In 1963, 200,000 sugar workers in Pernambuco went on strike and won an 80\% wage increase.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 117&118 Beginning during the Kubitchek presidency another important agent for the development of Pernambuco was the Superentendência do Desenvolvimento do Nordeste (SUDENE).Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy, Oxford University Press,, 1967, p.185 Under its director, noted economist Celso Furtado, SUDENE set forth a three-year plan for economic development. Although the military coup of 1964 would interrupt this plan, SUDENE, and the peasant leagues, were significant elements in developing a political voice for the poor of Pernambuco.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 11 Brazilian Military Government (1964–1985) In 1964, a coup established the military as the government of Brazil. Unlike previous occasions when the military intervened and forced a change in government and then withdrew, this time a military dictatorship was established which would last until 1985. While treatment of this period at the national level is beyond the scope of this article, the military government frequently resorted to violence in the state of Pernambuco.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 445 Under the military dictatorship, almost all of the change-oriented movements and organizations established during the Second Republic were halted or dismantled in the name of the regime's fiscal stabilization policy.Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 1971, p. 214 Despite the dismantling of many of these institutions, there were certain impacts made by these change-oriented movements that were not undone. Specifically, these movements provided a basis for both infrastructural development in Pernambuco and education of the state's population. For example, a Peace Corps worker recalled attending a meeting in rural Pernambuco in 1967. Of the thirty-five union officers attending thirteen had acquired literacy thru the Popular Culture Movement prior to the military dictatorship.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 116 In addition, some entities which were considered to be more moderate were allowed to continue in a limited fashion. One of these entities was the Rural Orientation Service of Pernambuco (SORPE), which identified leaders among the peasantry and established cooperatives in rural areas that assisted peasants in marketing their produce.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 122 These cooperatives directly addressed one hurdle in the development of Pernambuco, which was the practice of only growing sugar can on traditional plantations and having to import food form other Brazilian states. This caused a lack of production of local food crops and was a barrier to the development of the state.Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, ch. 10 Opposition to the Dictatorship 280px|Hélder Câmara in 1984Despite brutal suppression on the part of military dictators, opposition to the regime quickly arose, especially in the Northeastern region of Brazil.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 454 The church in Pernambuco was not the only center of resistance in the state, nor was Archbishop Hélder Câmara the only bishop in Brazil to oppose the military dictatorship. However, throughout the military dictatorship the Catholic Church was the face of the resistance.Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 1971, pp. 258-9 Pernambuco's Archbishop Câmara, a leading exponent of Liberation Theology, became one of Brazil's most well known advocates for the poor and opponent of the military dictators.Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy, Oxford University Press,, 1967, pp 321, 401-402E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 459 Under the archbishop's leadership several priests advocated for the impoverished of Pernambuco and at least one priest in Recife was tortured and murdered without government investigation in 1969.João Quartim, Dictatorship and Armed Struggle in Brazil, Trans. David Fernbach, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1971, p. 211 Nevertheless, resistance continued. Toward the end of the military dictatorship, along with unions and squatters, the Catholic Church in Brazil participated in organizing the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST).Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010,pp. 46-50 While the initial efforts of MST were in the South of Brazil, in the 1990s MST became a force for land reform in Pernambuco. End of Military Dictatorship Two presidents—one a newly elected military dictator, the other a future Twenty-first Century president—took noteworthy actions toward the end of the military dictatorship. Future president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a native of Pernambuco, led a series of strikes in São Paulo.John D. French, Lula and His Politics of Cunning, Univ. of North Carolina Press, Ch. 1 The other newly elected president and dictator, João Figueiredo, declared an abertura'' (opening) to democracy.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 466 This declaration was followed by an amnesty, elections for governors and legislative elections in 1982, and in 1985 a civilian president of Brazil was elected.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, p. 476 Modern History (1985– ) FromToGovernor of Pernambuco19831986Roberto Magalhães19861987 Gustavo Krause Gonçalves Sobrinho19871990 Miguel Arraes de Alencar19901991 Carlos Wilson Rocha de Queirós Campos19911995 Joaquim Francisco de Freitas Cavalcanti 1995 1999 Miguel Arraes de Alencar 1999 2006 Jarbas de Andrade Vasconcelos 2006 2007 Jose Mendonça Bezerra Filho 2007 2014 Eduardo Henrique Accioly Campos 2014 2015 João Soares Lyra Neto 2015 Paulo Henrique Saraiva Câmara Over the course of the 20th century, various forces improved the quality of life in Pernambuco. Particularly important were advances in communication and transportation, but also the centralization of the Vargas era governments and the military dictatorship that came to have greater influence than Brazil's centuries old regionalism.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, 1993, p 423 Since the country pivoted away from military rule and back to democracy, it is evident that Pernambuco is still very much a state where latifundia and monoculture are major factors, and, likewise the same ruling elite controls the government, nevertheless living conditions in the state have greatly improved. In the 1970s observers pointed to Pernambuco as part of the least developed region in the Western Hemisphere with an infant mortality rate variously described as 25 to 50\%Kit Sims Taylor, Sugar and Underdevelopment of Northeastern Brazil 1500-1970, University Presses of Florida, p. 5 or that as many as 40\% of children died prior to reaching school age.E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, Columbia University Press, New York, 1970, p. 350 Statistics from the turn of the millennium show a sharp and continuing improvement. Infant mortality declined (using two different measures) by 6.8 or 6.2 percent per annum between 1990 and 2015 from (again using two measures) 77.0 or 90.4 infant deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 13.4 or 18.2 infant deaths per 1000 live births in 2015.Szwarcwald, C.L., Almeida, W.d., Teixeira, R.A. et al. “Inequalities in infant mortality in Brazil at subnational levels in Brazil, 1990 to 2015.” Popul Health Metrics 18, 4 (2020). URL Rural life During military rule one earlier effort to improve the lot of the rural poor, the Ligas Camponesas (peasant leagues) was suppressed.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, p. 128 After the military dictatorship, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST), which had been organized in 1984 in the far South of Brazil, had some success in providing land to the rural poor.John French, Lula and His Politics of Cunning, Univ. of N. Carolina Press, 2020, p16 MST intentionally sought to organize on a national basis, not a regional basis.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, p. 4 MST began organizing in the South using land occupations and provisions of the Brazilian constitutions. MST experienced considerable success. However, when MST began organizing in Pernambuco, the process was more difficult due to Pernambuco's historic culture. MST found that the landless poor in Pernambuco's zona da mata (coastal areas of sugar cultivation) were amenable to organization during the 1990s largely because during the last decades of the century the market for sugar was in severe decline. Accustomed to regular paychecks, at least when employed, sugar cane workers saw subsistence farming as disadvantageous. Regular paychecks mean immediate money for food, whereas subsistence farming produced food only after planting, cultivation, and harvest. However, the due to the shrinking of the market for sugar that began in the 1980s and continued through the 1990s, MST was successful in organizing in Pernambuco and would execute land occupations especially during the 1990s. While many peasants returned to sugar farming at the turn of the millennium with the revival of the market for sugar, MST was still able to improve the rural quality of life in Pernambuco.Wendy Wolford, This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil, Duke Univ. Press, 2010, pp. 211-226 Urban life The capital of Pernambuco is Recife, the largest city in Northeast Brazil and one Brazil's largest cities. In Recife and other cities, there is a great contrast between the cities that tourists see and the slums that impoverished residents live in. Moreover, there is much scholarly documentation of the migraton to cities and the plight of the poor in Recife and other Brazilian cities.Robert Levine, Pernambuco in the Brazilan Federation, 1889-1937, ch 1E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 3 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 309, 360, 481 Notwithstanding, the fact that conditions in the slums are bad and much improvement is needed, taking homicides in Recife as an indicator of progress, this very fundamental indicator of quality of life shows that since the return of democracy to Brazil, quality of life has experienced some improvement. Moreover, the trend of decrease in Recife is opposite the trend in Brazil overall which has generally increased from a homicide rate of 28.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2002 and reached 29 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants by 2012. In 2000, the homicide rate in Recife was 97.5 per 100,000 inhabitants and Recife was said to be the most dangerous state capital in Brazil. However, by 2012, this rate dropped to 52 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, this decrease in homicides is noteworthy both for its dramatic plunge and because the rate still exceeds the national average by a significant margin.D. Pereira, C.Mota, and M. Andresen, "The Homicide Drop in Recife, Brazil: A Study of Crime Concentrations and Spatial Patterns", Homicide Studies 2017, Vol. 21(1) 21&27. Recent history As it was evidenced by the discussion in preceding sections Pernambuco has made great strides in improving the quality of life for its citizens. While true to conditions throughout the Northeast coast of Brazil Pernambuco remains an underdeveloped state in Brazil. Recent statistics from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics Foundation (IBGE) show a (prepandemic) 2019 average monthly income of 970 R$ (about US$180) up from just over 600 R$ in 2012.
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