“The Foreign Policy of the Empire: Origins,” first published in 1927, immediately became a reference work for scholars of Brazilian history and, above all, Brazil’s diplomatic history. Drawing on extensive research in the documentary archives of Itamaraty, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and on his broad historical knowledge, João Pandiá Calógeras (1870–1934) offers a meticulous, 490-page analysis of the principal developments in the formation of Brazil and its foreign policy, from the earliest records of the Iberian peoples, around 1300 BCE, to Brazilian independence in the nineteenth century.
A personal friend and disciple of Capistrano de Abreu and the Baron of Rio Branco, Calógeras enjoyed access throughout his life to two of the most knowledgeable scholars of Brazil ever to have lived in the country. His training as an engineer, his religious faith, and his service in the government of the First Republic, during which he held several ministerial portfolios and represented Brazil at the Congress of Versailles in 1918, endowed his intellectual outlook with a multidisciplinary breadth rarely found among other thinkers.
Combined with his capacity for sustained work, this knowledge enabled him to publish numerous studies, ranging from Brazilian history and the conditions of mining in the country to questions concerning the Catholic Church, among other subjects.
The book reviewed here is the first in a three-volume series entitled “The Foreign Policy of the Empire,” followed by “The First Reign” and “From the Regency to the Fall of Rosas.” Divided into fifteen chapters, it presents a perspective on Brazil that invites us to reconsider the problems the country has faced and continues to face, as well as our capacity to resolve them. In doing so, it challenges the assumption that these problems were inherited from the colonizers and have therefore been deeply embedded in our culture since the beginning of our history.
Our analysis, based on a later edition published in 1998, examines the book’s account of the formation of the Brazilian people and the prominence Brazil acquired in Portuguese eyes from the seventeenth century onward, relative to Portugal’s other colonies around the world. We shall see that this was attributed largely to the greater intellectual capacity and self-assurance of the settlers in Brazil, compared both with Portuguese settlers elsewhere and with their Spanish counterparts in neighboring South American colonies. Finally, we shall show how these characteristics enabled Brazil to make valuable contributions to international law even before its emergence as a nation, through the process that culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 under the auspices of Alexandre de Gusmão, and examine some of the treaty’s implications for international law.
The Formation of the Brazilian People: Values and Mentalities
The Influence of the Environment
The first two chapters cover the period preceding the discovery of Brazil, discussing the formation of the Iberian peoples, maritime exploration, and the Treaty of Tordesillas. In the third chapter, Calógeras turns to specifically Brazilian matters. He explains that, while living in their respective homelands, both the Portuguese and the Spanish observed certain standards of conduct and followed more or less clearly defined moral values, under the influence of aristocratic courts, the Catholic Church, and other traditional elements of their cultures.
Upon their arrival in the Americas, the two approaches to colonization began to follow paths that differed in many respects. Spain soon discovered precious metals in its colonies, a factor that profoundly shaped its colonial methods. Whenever a gold or silver mine was discovered, the country promptly dispatched the personnel needed to exploit it to the surrounding area, including Catholic clergy and political administrators. With few incentives to move elsewhere, they often remained there for years, until the mine was exhausted. Consequently, the Spanish experienced no significant changes in moral values or attitudes. Interpersonal relations and power structures remained virtually intact, and priests continued to grant absolution or impose penance. The only difference was that they did so in a different location.
In Brazil, by contrast, the initial absence of precious metals had very different consequences for the character of Portuguese settlers. Isolated in a vast territory, with only himself to rely on for protection against a wilderness far more hostile than it is today, and against incursions by the French, the Dutch, Indigenous peoples, or animals, the landowner developed a keener sense of personal initiative, judgment, and decision-making in circumstances that could determine whether he survived or died the next moment.
The difficulty of reaching the first Catholic chapels also helped shape the character of the Portuguese who settled in Brazil. In many cases, reaching the nearest priest took days. Isolation often made it impossible for outsiders to know what was happening on a landowner’s property. Gradually, settlers’ priorities became almost exclusively concerned with self-defense and survival, while the significance attached to committing any form of sin diminished. By fostering greater boldness, courage, and initiative, these characteristics contributed substantially to the subsequent expansion of Brazilian territory beyond the boundaries established by the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Exiled Convicts
Throughout Brazilian history, the belief has become widespread that many of the country’s present-day problems stem from Portugal’s having sent only criminals here during colonization. Calógeras, however, convincingly demonstrates that their influence on the formation of Brazilian society was virtually negligible.
At the time of Brazil’s discovery, more than thirty offenses could be punished by penal exile. These included offenses as minor as involvement in gambling, the sale of adulterated goods, and even cutting down fruit trees along the Tagus River or killing wild animals. Serious offenses punishable by exile included murder, procuring for prostitution, and engaging in amorous relationships with members of the clergy. As the author acknowledges, exiled convicts undeniably caused problems in Brazil’s nascent settlements. Yet dangerous and depraved offenders never constituted a majority of the population established in Brazil, or even a majority of the convicts sent there, since homicide and rape were only two among more than thirty offenses.
The number of convicts transported to Brazil was also much smaller than is commonly assumed. Calógeras estimates that the practice most likely lasted around fifty years, perhaps longer. It is unlikely, however, to have continued for more than one of the three centuries of colonial rule. Quoting contemporary documents, he illustrates the discontent these convicts provoked in Brazilian settlements and rightly argues that, if their disruption of social order generated complaints, the prevailing order could not have reflected their behavior. It is therefore important to qualify the notion that Brazil has always been a “land of disorder,” where everything is tolerated and accepted as normal.
Finally, many of those who came to Brazil did not survive for long. They received no financial support from the Portuguese government and arrived with few resources, if any. Moreover, many sought to evade official surveillance by fleeing into the forests surrounding the towns, where they soon died, victims of animals, insects, or hostile Indigenous peoples. Thus, although they were able to disrupt public order for a time, their harmful influence neither lasted long nor became dominant or rooted in Brazilian society as a whole. In Calógeras’s own words, “the Portuguese factor was not negative, but positive and constructive, in the sense of harnessing the qualities of the race as modified by the environment […] (p. 286).”
How the Portuguese Viewed Brazil
It is virtually certain that Portugal regarded Brazil with a strong sense of superiority throughout the colonial period. Yet the book makes clear that this superiority did not necessarily imply contempt for Brazil’s inhabitants. On the contrary, numerous recorded instances suggest that, on various occasions, the Portuguese respected and even held prominent Brazilian figures in high esteem, albeit within the limits of a metropolitan-colonial relationship. Some of the principal examples examined in the book follow.
The first is Father Antônio Vieira, who, although born in Portugal, moved to Brazil as a child and grew up and was educated there, leading many to consider him Brazilian rather than Portuguese. Referring to him repeatedly, particularly in passages concerning the end of the Iberian Union (1580–1640) and Dutch rule in Brazil, Calógeras explains that Vieira was not only respected at the Portuguese court but also heeded by the king himself, whom he served as an adviser.
Another Brazilian mentioned in the book—this time Brazilian-born, a native of Santos—who enjoyed prestige among Portuguese royalty was Alexandre de Gusmão, the celebrated architect of the Treaty of Madrid of 1750. Calógeras, however, focuses much more closely on the treaty than on Gusmão’s personality and life, devoting part of Chapter VII exclusively to the circumstances surrounding its signature. Like Vieira, Gusmão also represented Portugal on diplomatic missions in Europe, thanks to the confidence the Portuguese court placed in him (FUNAG).
This relatively favorable view of Brazil was not confined to particular individuals; it extended to the territory itself. The author explains that, long before the Portuguese royal family’s relocation to its South American colony in 1808, the possibility had been considered on at least two occasions. The first was as early as the mid-seventeenth century, when King João IV proposed moving there. The second proposal came from the Marquis of Pombal, shortly after the earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755.
At a time when Portuguese settlement in Brazil was still confined to isolated locations near the coast—in the mid-seventeenth century—and Portugal’s American possessions were not much larger than its African holdings combined, the very consideration of transferring the royal family to Brazil, a colony much farther away than several others, suggests that it was the best option and offered the most favorable conditions for receiving the Portuguese court, at least compared with the other colonies. This presents a very different picture from the widespread assumption that Portugal invariably regarded Brazil with contempt.
Finally, Brazil’s upper and middle classes long maintained the custom of studying at Portuguese universities, particularly in Lisbon and Coimbra. This not only provided them with a traditional European education, considered the most advanced of its time, but also enabled them to establish closer ties with upper-class Portuguese society.
All these factors helped create an image of Brazil abroad that was more favorable than many Brazilians believe. Together with specific developments in the country’s history, such as its elevation to the status of a kingdom, they also facilitated the emergence of a highly accomplished diplomatic service. It remains respected worldwide, thanks in part to its contributions to international negotiations, one of which we shall now examine.
The Treaty of Madrid of 1750 and Its Contributions to International Law
According to Renato Mendonça, the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, whose conclusion owed much to Alexandre de Gusmão’s broad and judicious vision, was enormously important not only for the territorial formation of Brazil but also for transferring the concept of “uti possidetis” from Roman civil law to international law. Moreover, by stipulating that peace should be maintained between Portuguese and Spanish settlers in the Americas even if their respective crowns went to war in Europe, it also provided an early expression of “Pan-Americanism,” an idea of considerable importance in the history and international relations of the Americas.
As Brazilians, we can take pride in Gusmão’s actions, since, as Mendonça himself observes, this was “the first time that a native-born Brazilian […] elevated to the position of the King’s private secretary, combining talent with political wisdom, could effectively express an opinion and make decisions on diplomatic matters concerning his native land (p. 67).” In doing so, Gusmão unquestionably contributed to the enlargement and consolidation of Brazilian territory, bringing its configuration at the time closer to its present form.
The significance of uti possidetis can be understood in relation to the circumstances in which the Treaty of Madrid was signed. By making the right to possess land conditional on its effective settlement by a particular people or nation, the concept established a new basis for subsequent negotiations concerning territorial acquisitions. A country occupying a tract of land would have a right to it and could no longer invade territory already occupied by other peoples solely on the pretext of territorial expansion. As a result, it significantly influenced subsequent peace negotiations, limiting the expansionist ambitions of many state leaders and thereby preventing still more wars between them.
For Calógeras, the Treaty of Madrid of 1750 is a “document with few equals in the diplomatic history of the two crowns [Portuguese and Spanish], and one that every Brazilian should know, in order to honor the memory of the eminent native of Santos who conceived and drafted it (p. 203).” It was also very likely the first manifestation of the high standards for which Brazilian diplomacy would later become known.
Influences on Brazilian Diplomacy
Although the book does not explicitly make this connection, we believe that the factors discussed in our analysis, together with the Portuguese royal family’s transfer to Rio de Janeiro and Brazil’s subsequent elevation to the status of a kingdom, contributed to the development of the Brazilian diplomacy that emerged alongside independence. The influence of the royal family’s arrival on that diplomacy is, however, explicitly mentioned, albeit briefly. In the final chapter, Calógeras states that, with the arrival of the Portuguese court, “Brazil’s isolation was now coming to an end. And it was already possible to foresee that autonomy and independence would emerge from this engagement with the world” (p. 455).
This outcome was to be expected. After reading the book, it is easy to discern the relationship between the notions of “autonomy and independence,” invoked by the author in reference to Brazil’s future diplomacy, and the development of those same qualities early in the colonial period, when the inhospitable environment exerted such a strong influence on the character of Portuguese settlers in Brazil. The influence of the royal family’s arrival is even clearer, since it enabled Brazilian public officials to establish direct contact with representatives of other countries in international negotiations, even before Brazil proclaimed its independence and formally emerged as a nation.
Concluding Remarks
Reading “The Foreign Policy of the Empire: Origins” enables us not only to understand various aspects of Brazil’s formation but also to view the country through unfamiliar lenses, qualifying much that we have almost invariably taken for granted about our history and ourselves. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge, Calógeras describes in detail every significant development in that history, from its most distant antecedents, before the Common Era, to events abroad—principally in Europe—that had repercussions in Brazil. By bringing so much information together in a single volume, he spares readers the task of conducting additional research to understand the context of each subject, assembling material that would otherwise have remained scattered had his treatment been less thorough.
For scholars of international relations, particularly Brazilians, the book’s substantial contribution is evident. It addresses subjects that had international repercussions in their own right, such as the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, even as its analytical focus remains firmly on Brazil. The book fulfills its purpose of filling the considerable gap that existed at the time of its first publication, when studies of Brazilian foreign policy were scarce. As the author himself states, “it is not that studies of particular periods and episodes in our relations with other countries are lacking. They exist, and they are excellent. All, however, concern isolated cases. Very few rise above the purely national perspective” (preface, p. XXXVI). The book thus remains relevant even a century after its publication, thanks to its distinctive treatment of subjects so important to Brazil and its international relations.