Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:28:03.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Business and Government in Imperial Brazil: the Experience of Viscount Mauá

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Roderick J. Barman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On January 28, 1808, the ports of Brazil, hitherto restricted to Portuguese vessels, were thrown open to direct trade with all friendly nations. Two months later, the ban on manufacturing in the colony was lifted. In October the Banco do Brasil was authorized as a bank of issue designed to supply the government's credit needs and to foster internal and external trade. The most urgent financial needs of the Portuguese government, which in November 1807 had fled to its American colony in order to escape the invading forces of Napoleon I, were met by negotiating a loan in London, the leading market for capital in the Atlantic economy. Two years later, in 1810, the Portuguese government signed a treaty with Great Britain admitting British goods into Brazil at a standard duty of 17 per cent for the next fifteen years.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1981 , pp. 239 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Alberto, de Faria, Mauá, Irenco Evangelista de Souza, barão e visconde de Mauá, 1813–1889 (Rio de Janeiro; Paulo Pongetti, 1926, 2nd ed., São Paulo, Companhia Editora Nacional, 1927);Google ScholarLídia, Besouchet, Mauá e seu tempo (São Paulo, Anchieta, 1942; 2nd ed. rev., Rio de Janeiro, Nova Fronteira, 1978);Google ScholarAnyda, Marchant, ‘A New Portrait of Mauá the Banker’, Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 30 (1950), pp. 411–31;Google Scholar and Marchant, , Viscount Mauá and Imperial Brazil: A Biography of Irineu Evangelista de Sousa (1813–1889) (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1965).Google Scholar The only dissenting view has been that of Edgardo de Castro Rebello. His two works on the subject, Mauá–Restaurando a verdade (Rio de Janeiro, Universo, 1931) and ‘Mauá, de novo Mauá’, Revista do Brasil, 3a fase, ano V, nos. 46–9 (1942), were reprinted in Rebello, , Mauá e outros ensaios (Rio de Janeiro, São José, 1975).Google Scholar

2 Exposição do Visconde de Mauá aos credores de Mauá & C. e ao publico (Rio de Janeiro, Typographia de J. Villeneuve & C., 1878).Google Scholar Reprinted in Claudio, Ganns (ed.), Visconde de Mauá, Autobiografia (Exposição aos credores e ao público) seguida de O meio circulante no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Zélio Valverde, 1942; 2nd ed., Rio, Valverde, 1943) [hereafter Mauá].Google Scholar

3 See Faria, , Mauá, first published in 1926.Google Scholar

4 Harry, Bernstein, review of the second edition of Besouchet, Mauá e seu tempo, in the HAHR, Vol. 59 (1979), pp. 548–9.Google Scholar

5 For the history of the first three Bancos do Brasil, see Afonso, Celso de Melo Franco and Claudio, Pacheco [Brasil], História do Banco do Brasil, Vols. 1–4 (Brasília, Banco do Brasil, 1973). The first volume, the only one written by Melo Franco, was originally published in 1948 under the same title and with the subtitle, Primeira fase – 1808–1835. No further volumes were then published and volumes 2–4 arc in essence an independent continuation by Pacheco. The history of the second Banco do Brasil founded by Mauá is given in volume 2 of Pacheco, pp. 72–83.Google Scholar

6 By Decree No. 575 of January 10, 1849, in Collecção das Leis do Imperio do Brasil de 1849 (Rio de Janeiro, Typographia Nacional, 1850), Parte II, pp. 10–12. This series will be hereafter quoted as Leis with the year.Google Scholar

7 Pacheco, , op. cit., V. 2, p. 76.Google Scholar

8 Pacheco, , op. cit., V. 2, p. 74, and Decree 801 of July 2, 1851, Leis, 1851, Parte II, p. 180.Google Scholar

9 Pacheco, , op. cit., V. 2, pp. 78–9.Google Scholar

10 See the report of the bank's board of directors, dated July 11, 1853, published in the ‘A pedido’ section of the Jornal do Commercio [hereafter JC’, July 12, 1853.

11 Mauá, pp. 231–2.Google Scholar

12 A representative statement of these views can be found in Mauá's letter to Ricardo José Ribeiro [manager of Mauá's banking agency in the town of Rio Grande do Sul], Rio de Janeiro, July 23, 1860, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro [hereafter IHGB], Lata 513, Documento 10. They are given a full development in Mauá's O meio circulante do Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Typographia Villeneuve, 1878), reprinted in Mauá, pp. 311–34.Google Scholar

13 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, August 22, 1860, IHGB, L.513, D.10.

14 Evening supplement to JC, August 12, 1853, and Articles 70 and 71 of the new bank's statutes published with Decree 1223 of August 31, 1853, in Leis, 1853, Parte II, p. 316.Google Scholar

15 Letter published in the ‘Communicados’ section and signed ‘B.M.’ JC, August 9, 1854. That ‘B.M.’ was Mauá is shown in fn. 57.

16 Pacheco, , op. cit., V. 2, p. 83.Google Scholar The Banco Comercial, authorized by Decree 187 of June 23, 1842, could issue ten-day notes of credit up to one-third of its capital, Leis, 1842, Parte II, pp. 336–50.Google Scholar

17 Pacheco, , op. cit., v. 2, p. 124, and JC, July 5 and July 12, 1853.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., V.2, pp. 110–13.

19 The creation of a ‘national’ bank was proposed in the Speech from the Throne of May and the necessary bill introduced in the Senate on May 13, 1853 (Pacheco, , op. cit., v 2, pp. 92–4).Google Scholar The law, sanctioned on July 5, 1853, simply established the bank and made no mention of any absorption of the two existing banks: see Law No. 683, Leis, 1853, Part 1, pp. 15–18.Google Scholar Rodrigues Torres first mentioned the idea of fusion in a speech on June 20 (Pacheco, , V. 2, pp. 114–15) and his plans to discuss the proposal with the two banks was mentioned in the ‘Commercio Retrospecto Mensal’ section of the Jornal do Commercio written on July 1 (JC, July 5, 1853). The summons issued on July 2 by the directors of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá) to the semi-annual meeting makes clear that informal discussions had already taken place (JC, July 3, 1853). On July 6, the day after the creation of the new Bank, Rodrigues Torres sent a formal notice to both banks, requesting that they obtain formal authorization from their stockholders to negotiate the fusion; see advertisement headed ‘Banco Commercial’ in JC, July 10, 1853.Google Scholar

20 The authorization given to the directors to negotiate was passed unanimously at a special meeting on July 12, 1853 (JC, July 13, 1853). The proposal was more controversial among the stockholders of the Banco Commercial who took two meetings on July 15 and 22 to approve such authorization (see JC, July 15, 16 and 23).

21 JC, July 12, 1853, and the summary of the parliamentary debates on the relief bil given in Pacheco, , op. cit., v. 2, pp. 114–25.Google Scholar

22 Arquivo Histórico do Itamarati [hereafter AHI], Arquivo do Visconde do Cabo Frio, Arquivo I, Gaveta I, Maço 2, João Cândido do Amaral to Joaquim Tomás do Amaral, future Viscount Cabo Frio, n.p. [Rio de Janeiro], October 13, 1853.

23 AHI, Arquivo Visconde do Rio Branco, Manuel Moreira de Castro [an editor of the Jornal do Commercio] to José Maria da Silva Paranhos, future Viscount of Rio Branco, n.p. [Rio de Janeiro], June 13, 1853. The italicised words are in French and English in the original.

24 AHI, Arquivo Visconde do Rio Branco, L. 320, no maço, Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Viscount [and future Marquis of] Paraná to Paranhos, n.p. [Rio de Janeiro], May 12, 1853. The sum of 800:200$000 was worth in 1853 £90,000 or US$405,000.

25 Mauá, pp. 144–5 and Arquivo Nacional, Seção de Arquivos Pessoais, uncatalogued papers of Eusébio de Queirós Matoso Câmara, Mauá to Eusébio de Queirós, Rio de Janeiro, May 15, 1857. In the letter Mauá bemoaned the fact that the reduced subsidies endangered ‘so important a portion of my fortune’.Google Scholar

26 Mauá, p. 232.Google Scholar

27 By Article 70 of the statutes 50,000 shares were to be distributed to the stockholders of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá); 30,000 shares to those of the Banco Commercial; and, by Article 71, 30,000 to investors in Rio de Janeiro. However, by Article each 20 shares carried one vote up to a maximum of 15 votes on 300 shares. Leis, 1853, Part II, pp. 304–18.Google Scholar

28 Luis, Pinheiro de Siqueira, These (Rio de Janeiro, 1852), dedication page [medical thesis of the Rio de Janeiro Medical School, consulted in the Academia Nacional de Medicina, Rio de Janeiro].Google Scholar

29 Mauá could count not only on his own but the votes of João Inácio Tavares, Militão Maximo de Sousa and George Gracie (directors and manager of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá)). Bernardo Ribeiro de Carvalho was a shareholder and in July 1853 had been elected to the accounts committee of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá). Antônio Alves da Silva Pinto Júnior was associated with Mauá on the Companhia de Niterói. These two directors may have been favourable to Mauá. On the Banco Commercial side were Francisco Xavier Pereira, Diogo Duarte Silva, Joaquim José dos Santos Júnior, João Francisco Emery, Baltasar Jacomé de Abreu e Sousa, José Justino Pereira de Faria, and José Carlos Mayrink (all directors or executives of the Banco Commercial). João Pereira Darrigue Faro had close links with the Banco Commercial, which acted for his insurance company, the Fenix Fluminense. The last director, Teófilo Benedito Otôni, had links to both sides. See Almanack Laemmert para 1854 (Rio de Janeiro, 1854), pp. 283–7 and JC, July 7, 1853, November 8, 1853, and November 13, 1853.Google Scholar

30 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, IHGB, L.513, D.11.

31 See the ‘Communicados’ section of the JC, July 14, 1854. On August 24, 1854, the directors of the Banco do Brasil decided to announce that the liquidation of the old banks was virtually complete although the winding-up was not concluded until April 5, 1855; see Pacheco, , V. 2, pp. 174 and 177. On the formation of Mauá, MacGregor e C., see JC, July 26, 1854.Google Scholar

32 Mauá, p. 235.Google Scholar

33 Pacheco, , op. cit., v. 2, pp. 149 and 156. At the sixth meeting of the directors on December 30, 1854, a committee on branches was established. See pp. 151, 174 and 179.Google Scholar

34 Melo, Franco, op. cit., pp. 133–219.Google Scholar

35 Mauà, p. 233.Google Scholar Each bank note of the new Banco do Brasil had to be initialed by the President and signed with their full names by two Directors! It was the delays in preparing and signing notes that held up the opening of the bank itself and of its branches; Pacheco, , op. cit., V. 2, pp. 150, 154 and 179.Google Scholar

36 Marià, p. 237, fn. 152, and JC, September 1, 1854.Google Scholar

37 A partial list of the principal investors in Mauá, MacGregor e C. is given in Mauá, op. cit., p. 237, fn. 152, derived from Claudio Gann's inspection of the records in the cartório of notary Penafiel. This list is not only incomplete but some of the names have clearly been miscopied, when comparison is made with the names of shareholders and officials of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá) and Mauá, MacGregor e C. mentioned in JC, 1853–4.Google Scholar

38 Mauá, op. cit., p. 235.Google Scholar

39 Leis, 1849, Parte II, pp. 10–12 and Leis, 1850, Parte I, pp. 107–8.Google Scholar

40 Augusto Teixeira de Freitas writing in the ‘A pedido’ section of JC.

41 Freedman, Charles E., Joint-Stock Enterprises in France, 1807–1867 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1979) p. 15.Google Scholar

42 JC, July 26, 1854.

43 Freedman, , op. cit., pp. 13–14 and 55.Google Scholar

44 MacGregor was British and a registered money broker in Rio de Janeiro; he would serve as head of the London office of the banking house. Tavares was a substantial Rio merchant and a former director of the Banco do Brasil (Mauá). Almanack Laemmert para 1854, pp. 398 and 414.

45 Leis, 1850, Parte 1, p. 112, Articles 313 and 314.Google Scholar

46 Leis, 1850, Parte I, p. 108, Article 301.Google Scholar

47 Mauá, p. 237.Google Scholar

48 Paraná, who died in 1856, left no record, if any were made, of the conversations, or at least none is to be found among his few surviving papers in the IHGB. Since no ‘conflict of interest’ law forbade investment by ministers in commercial enterprises, Paraná's refusal to invest personally was perhaps due to caution and a desire – expressed to Mauá in respect to the River Amazon Navigation Company – that ‘I do not want it said that, because we are friends, I am ready to grant you what you want.’ Mauá, p. 145.Google Scholar As noted in fn. 37, no complete list of the original shareholders in Mauá, Mac-Gregor e C. is readily available. However, a news item in the JC of December 26–7 identified Paraná's relatives who invested: Jerônimo José Teixeira (brother-in-law), Dr Constantino Pereira de Barros (son-in-law), Dr Jerônimo José Teixeira Júnior (nephew and son-in-law), Nicolau Neto Carneiro Leão (half-brother), João de Figuciredo Pereira de Barros (brother of son-in-law), and Major Sebastiāo Antônio José Ribeiro (relationship not established). Mauá's list of these relatives is not entirely accurate but the discrepancy is not important. Mauá, p. 237.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., pp. 237–8.

50 Evening supplement to JC, August 6, 1854.

51 Leis, 1850, Partl, pp. 105, 107 and 109.Google Scholar

52 A leading politician and lawyer, Bernardo de Sousa Franco, claimed that he had since 1853 recommended this form of capital organization to several limited partnerships. JC, August 29, 1854.

53 A ‘Communicado’ signed ‘T.’ in JC, August 11, 1854. From internal evidence and from the style, this and other articles by ‘T.’ were written by Rodrigues Torres.

54 JC, September 9, 1854.

55 JC, August 23, 1854.

56 JC, August 26, 1854.

57 See the evening supplement to JC, August 14, in which a contribution signed ‘B.M.’ contains the phrase: ‘In 1851 when, seeing capital unemployed, we created, aided by some worthy citizens, the Banco do Brasil today in liquidation.’

58 JC, August 26, 1854.

59 JC, August 27, 1854.

60 ‘Communicados,’ JC, December 21, 1854.

61 Mauá, p. 238.Google Scholar The passage continues: ‘by which I have knowledge of the strong opposition of someone who enjoyed a position of the greatest influence in the councils of the government.’ Mauá was referring, as will be clear from the text, to Rodrigues Torres and not to the Emperor Pedro II, as Ganns claims in his preface in Mauá, p. 86.Google Scholar

62 Leis, 1854, Part II, p. 384. Decree of 1487, although dated December 13, 1854, was not published until December 19 (JC of that date).Google Scholar

63 Mauá, p. 236.Google Scholar

64 JC, August 27, 1854.

65 ‘Communicados’, JC, December 26 and 27, 1854.

66 ‘Communicados’, JC, August 24, 1854.

67 Mauá, p. 240.Google Scholar

68 JC, September 1, 1854, and January 13, 1855.

69 Mauá to Ribeiro, n.p., n.d., IHGB, L.513, D.11. Internal evidence dates the letter late 1857 or early 1858 and its contents are confirmed by Relatório apresentado aos ‘comnzanditarios’ da socicdade bancaria Mauá, MacGregor e C. em 5 de dezembro de 1866, pelo socio solidario barão de Mauá (hereafter Relatório of 1866) published in JC, December 9, 1866.

70 João, Carlos de Sousa Ferreira, ‘Visconde de Mauá (Esboço biographico)’, Revista do Instituto Historico e Geographico Brasileiro Tomo 62, Part 11(1900), pp. 123–4.Google Scholar

71 See Relatório of 1866 and Mauá's letters to Alexander MacGregor and Henrique Reynell de Castro of Manchester, England, quoted in Marchant, , Viscount Mauá, pp. 127–30 from the copiador now in IHGB, L.516, D.7.Google Scholar

72 Lithographed copy of Mauá to Francisco Inácio de Carvalho Moreira [future Baron Penedo], np., n.d. [early 1858]; same to same, Rio de Janeiro, July 9, 1858; and M. I. Collins to same, London, February 5, 1858, AHI, Arquivo Penedo, 2, Gaveta 2, Maço 2. On the Rothschilds' attitude to Mauá, MacGregor e C., see Mauá to Henrique Reynell de Castro, Rio de Janeiro, May 8, 1861, IHGB, L.516, D.7.

73 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, August 22, 1860, IHGB, L.513, D.10. The details of the confrontation are given in Mauá's letters to Ribeiro of September 22 and October 4, 1860.

74 Relatório of 1866 announcing losses from the crisis of 1,401 contos and Tabela No. 5 in Mauá, p. 509, showing that Mauá, MacGregor e C. borrowed 8,000 contos from the Banco do Brasil between September 10, 1865, and December 6, 1866, without making any repayment of capital.Google Scholar

75 The managers of the branch of the London and River Plate Bank in Montevideo ‘were dubious about its ‘Mauá y Cia.]. solidity in Montevideo almost from the beginning’; see David, Joslin, A Centuiy of Banking in Latin America (London, Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

76 Ibid., pp. 64–7.

77 Mauá to Ribeiro, London, April 22, 1865, IHGB, L.513, D.8.

78 Faria, , op. cit., pp. 257–8.Google Scholar

79 Leis, 1865, Parte II, pp. 403–4, Decree 3567.Google Scholar

80 Marchant, , Viscount Mauá, p. 136.Google Scholar Chapter V, ‘The Banker’, pp. 115–39, is a virtual reprint of Marchant, ‘A New Portrait’, which, on p. 431, makes the same allegation and adds that the supposed refusal ‘was the final triumph of the men of conservative beliefs in regard to banking who were in the Emperor's government.’ Marchant apparently based herself on an ambiguous statement in Faria, , op. cit., p. 258, even though Mauá, op. cit., p. 269 fn. 174, quotes the relevant decree.Google Scholar

81 Mauá to Ribeiro, London, April 22, 1865, IHGB, L.513, D.8. The question of losing control had worried some stockholders at the meeting of the London and Brazilian Bank Ltd., which was called to ratify the merger agreement. See Joslin, , op. cit., p. 71.Google Scholar

82 See Mauà to Ribeiro, London, September 22, 1865, January 22, 1866, and April 7, 1866, IHGB, L.513, D.7 and 8.

83 Mauá learned that he could not secure from the London directors the dismissal of John Goodair, their Inspector in Brazil, whose conduct Mauá found hostile; see Mauá, to Ribeiro, Lisbon, May 12, 1866, and London, June 22, 186, IHGB, L.513, D.7.

84 Joslin, , op. cit., p. 72.Google Scholar

85 Mauá to Ribeiro, Buenos Aires, November 7, 1866, IHGB, L.513, D.7.

86 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, December 6, 1866, IHGB, L.513, D.7. The open letter to the Chairman of the London and Brazilian Bank is reproduced in Mauá's Relatório of 1866.

87 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, December 6, 1866, IHGB, L.513, D.7.

88 Joslin, , op. cit., p. 74.Google Scholar

89 Relatório of 1866, which gives the provisions of the new partnership deed.

90 Relatório of 1866 and Mauá, op. cit., p. 272.Google Scholar

91 Barão, de MauáRelatório da liquidação da extincta socicdade MAUA McGREGOR & CIA. e da marcha da nova sociedade MAUA & CIA. nos primeiros tres annos sociacs apresentado aos respectivos comnianditarios a 14 de Feocreiro de 1870 pelo socio solidario (Rio de Janeiro, Typographia Lourenço Winter, 1870);Google Scholar and Mauá, pp. 272–3.Google Scholar

92 Mauà, pp. 273–4.Google Scholar

93 By an ironic twist of fate the directors of the London and Brazilian Bank Ltd. warned their managers in Brazil, early in 1874, against accepting Mauá's paper or his acceptances and endorsements. See Joslin, , op. cit., p. 78.Google Scholar

94 Mauá to Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro, May 25, 1873, IHGB, L.513, D.2.