German colonization in Rio Grande do Sul

The German colonization in Rio Grande do Sul was a large-scale and long-term project of the Brazilian government, motivated initially by the desire to populate the south of Brazil, ensuring the possession of the territory, threatened by Spanish neighbors.

Within the rural colonies, urban centers were soon being formed, gathering the first schools, churches, administrative buildings, party halls, and a series of workshops, stores, small industries and manufactures.

[1][2] At the beginning of the 20th century, a large Germanic community had already formed in the state, with significant political, cultural, economic, and social expression, but this same empowerment was the cause of friction with the Portuguese-Brazilian population.

[1] In colonial Brazil a productive system based on latifundia was built, where natural resources such as lumber were exploited, export monocultures such as sugarcane and coffee were developed, and cattle were raised extensively.

After the installation of the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro in 1808, the royal house and liberal politicians began to develop plans to colonize the demographic voids in the south with free foreigners, who would be given small farms for the agricultural production of basic commodities, supplying the precarious domestic market.

This population would also serve to swell the army in case of a border conflict with the neighboring Platinos, at a time when the Iberian powers' disagreements about the relations and limits between their American colonies had not yet been solved.

[12] In this first stage of colonization, São Leopoldo and Hamburgo Velho were the most prosperous centers, favored by their proximity to Porto Alegre, the provincial capital, and by the control of an important network of land and river transport.

In a few decades, these centers had become dynamic villages with well-structured commerce, an expressive rural production concentrated on maize, beans, manioc, and tobacco, as well as several manufactures and small industries.

At the end of this period, all the valleys of the rivers Caí, Taquari, Pardo, Pardinho, Sinos, and part of Jacuí were occupied by Germans and their economy was expanding and diversifying, to the satisfaction of the government, which saw its long efforts rewarded.

According to Olgário Vogt,[14] "traveling through several cities and regions of Rio Grande do Sul, in 1871, the English journalist Michael Mulhall, established in Buenos Aires since 1858, found that in the province agriculture was, at that time, almost exclusively the responsibility of German settlers.

Quickly, the Rio Grande do Sul plateau was transformed into a colonial zone due to the attracted by the possibilities of exploiting the land trade and obtaining easy profits.

He to whom it has infected dreams of the idealized country during sleep and wakefulness, at work and rest; he clings to prospectuses and pamphlets dealing with his favorite subject, giving them the greatest credit.

[20][21][22] In 1850, Martin Buff, director of the Santa Cruz do Sul colony, wrote in his report: "For the people who come from Europe it is very difficult to get used to the bush in the early days, so they are always uncomfortable and sick.

In the rural colonies, small urbanized nuclei were soon formed, where the settlers scattered throughout the lots met and held their fairs to exchange products and experiences, their collective festivities, and their sports competitions.

In these villages, chapels, schools, cemeteries, party halls, workshops in blacksmithing, cooperage, carpentry, and metalworking, as well as pottery, mills, tanneries, stills, breweries, tailoring, shoe repair, and other commercial establishments began to appear.

[22] However, for the mentality of the time, from which the Germans did not escape, nature could be fascinating and generous, but it was also a barbaric and potentially dangerous element that needed to be dominated and disciplined so that it could serve man's purposes.

[20][27] In Argemiro Brum's analysis,[20] "the small property and the large family forced an intense use of the soil, which caused a rapid depletion of its natural fertility, in many cases reaching near exhaustion.

[...] The high population density that accompanied the process of occupation of the bush lands by farmers' families represented a decisively influential factor in the dynamics of rural development.

[31] Soon after, Pedro Weingärtner was acclaimed as the greatest painter of his generation in the state,[32] and business families such as the Renners, Gerdau, Bins, Johannpeter, Neugebauer, Möller, and others were beginning their heyday.

[33] This Germanic elite was a major financier of a cycle of architectural renovation in Porto Alegre, building a series of residential palaces and imposing bank and business headquarters.

The positivist government stimulated this development, being itself engaged in a renovation and urban beautification of the central area of the city, in order to make it the "business card" of the state, eager to present itself as civilized and progressive and to gain more political space on the national scene.

[7] In the earliest historiography of immigration, the transformation of the threatening jungle into prosperous and civilized cities by the valiant arm, steady heart, and high spirit of the settler was a common depiction.

If until then the Germans had been favored – and had been the preferred people for the government in all settlement projects – now their empowerment generated fears among both the ruling elites and the population at large, and they came under suspicion as different right-wing currents vied for power.

With Brazil's entry into World War II in 1942, alongside the Allies, the danger becomes 'military and ideological'"[30] From 1942 on there were acts of violence against individuals and depredation in several cities, particularly Pelotas and Porto Alegre, against German establishments.

The more prosperous and industrialized German cities swelled with large waves of immigrants from different parts of the state and the country, many of them exiled from the countryside by the crisis in the agricultural sector, who arrived in search of job opportunities.

[7][29] A resumption in the affirmative discourse occurred during the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of colonization in 1974,[36] when many cities erected monuments and promoted festivities and publications, occurring at the same time a true explosion in the academic bibliography on immigration, in which many old myths were overthrown and other aspects were reinterpreted, But since then the maintenance of the sociocultural identity of the German descendants, as well as the recovery of their historical heritage, their oral memory and their material patrimony, have been complex processes, negotiated with difficulty among the different sectors of the society, today very different from what it was in the 19th and 20th centuries.

"[39] Despite these gaps, a significant number of cultural centers, museums, and archives seek to study, preserve, and disseminate the German legacy, with several historical buildings in colonial cities having been listed.

[43] The Romantic Route includes 13 municipalities of German tradition, counting with an expressive heritage, monuments, museums, festivals, and other attractions related to the history and popular culture of the region.

[45][46] According to Lúcio Kreutz, "the studies that deal with German immigration in Rio Grande do Sul are practically unanimous in pointing out some aspects to which this ethnic group gave special attention.

[67] Rio Grande do Sul has the largest number of schools with German teaching, and several actions being developed to promote the language, including theater, film, radio programs, meetings, documentaries, literary contests, and others.