Brazil history part VIII 1690–1800

Brazil history part VIII The gold cycle (1690–1800)

Minas Gerais–Brazil

The growth of gold mining in Brazil was an important development that influenced the course of events, not only in the colony but also in Europe. Although the gold was controlled by Portugal and shipped to Lisbon, it did not remain there. Under the Methuen Treaty of 1703, England supplied textile products to Portugal. These were paid for with gold from the Brazilian mines. The Brazilian

gold that ended up in London helped to finance the Industrial Revolution.Many explorers have had experiences similar to those related in this volume, but, at least so far as the fever and the cannibalsare concerned, they have seldom survived to tell of them. Their interviews with cannibals have been generally too painfully confined to internal affairs to be available in this world for authorship, whereas Mr. Da Silva, happily, avoided not only a calamitous intimacy, but was even permitted to view the culinary preparations relating to the absorption of less favoured individuals, and himself could have joined the feast, had he possessed the stomach for it.