Sugar and Slavery in Portuguese Brazil

By:Kasey MoffittKrista Ezzelle

Christina Church

Facts to Know about The Engenho

• It is also known as a sugar mill.

• Related to the English word engine.

• It always combined agricultural and industrial enterprises.

• Among the most complex enterprise in America.

• The owners of sugar mills were only the privileged class.

• The operated on very small profit margins.

• Business was always high.

• It produced things like molasses and refined sugar.

The Engenho

The Search for Labor

• The peoples of Brazil were not sedentary cultivators.

• During the 1560’s smallpox and measles ravaged the whole Brazilian coast, making it difficult for Portuguese to find potential laborers.

Slavery

• The Portuguese Plantation managers imported slaves as early as the 1530’s.

• They had working conditions, mistreatment, tropical heat, poor nutrition and inadequate housing.

• It produced high rates if disease and mortality.

• Typically lost 5 to 10 percent of their slaves annually.

• The number of deaths in the slave population usually exceeded the number of births.

Slaves