Brazilian cotton cycle

The cotton cycle refers to the period when this product had great prominence in the Brazilian economy, especially in Maranhão and Pernambuco, between the mid-eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, being responsible for strong economic growth in the region. In the colonial period, cotton was also developed in the Captaincy of São Vicente, from where the product was exported to Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. Other regions produced it for local consumption and to manufacture cloth for slaves.

This cycle developed in the context of an economic crisis in the colony with the end of the gold cycle and the competition of the sugar production in the northeast with the production in the Antilles, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the War of Independence of the United States (main supplier of the product to England).

Predecessors

In 1621, the Philippine dynasty created the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, comprising the present territories of Maranhão, Ceará, Piauí, Pará, and Amazonas, directly subordinated to the Portuguese crown. The main economic activities of this region were sugar production, tobacco cultivation, cattle raising (for the export of hides), and cocoa collecting. Most of the population lived in conditions of extreme poverty, surviving on gathering, fishing, and subsistence agriculture.

From the middle of the 17th century, the state of Maranhão faced an economic crisis, as since the expulsion of the Dutch from the Northeast region of Brazil, the regional sugar company could not afford the high costs of importing African slaves and began to face the competition of sugar from the Antilles. In this context, the action of Father António Vieira (1608–1697) was important. In the 1650s, as Superior of the Jesuit Missions in the state of Maranhão, he established the bases of missionary action in the region: Preaching, baptism, and education, in the molds of Portuguese culture and the rules established by the Council of Trent (1545–1563).