Note 54 — Chapter IX · RIO JANEIRO, CAPITAL OF BRAZIL.

The Brazil government have adopted measures to introduce immigrants to supply the place of slaves, they have established some large colonies from Germany, France, and Portugal, principally by private speculation and by the government; and those colonies of private individuals are the surest guarantee for the abolition of the slave trade, because those parties are now interested by the larger profit they derive from free labour, in keeping this system instead of the other, especially in coffee. They are greatly prized for their steady industry, peaceable disposition, and easy adaptation of themselves to the manners and usages of the people among whom they come to reside. As is the case in Australia, and in most parts of North America, they are very general favourites with the inhabitants of all classes, and, on the whole, are preferred probably to any other Europeans. The number of German immigrants now in Brazil may be considered as amounting to somewhere about 15,000; and to these considerable additions are still being made from the large importations which are now daily taking place from the Old World. They bear coffee labour pretty well, but most of them are employed in the province of Rio Janeiro and Rio Grande; the government is very solicitous to treat them as well as possible, and it has established those colonies in the provinces which are best for it, more like the climate of Europe; the provinces of Rio Grande and St. Catherine are the coldest provinces in the country. They imported, besides those Germans, a great many Portuguese, a different set of people altogether. They are from Madeira, and from all parts of Portugal, and from their islands; they generally arrive in greater numbers than the Germans. Very few Chinese have been tried. The white natives of Brazil do not work much upon the sugar and coffee plantations; they only serve like what we call headmen, superintendents; not in any other way. The Germans are contracted with and brought to Brazil; the Portuguese come on their own account; they do not contract them in Portugal; they come of themselves by hundreds; they generally get employment about the towns, about the gin shops, and gin taverns, and small businesses. For particulars of this kind, see the Report on Slave Trade Treaties. It is calculated that the sugar crop this year, 1854, will be about 30,000 tons less than the last.