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The following is an effort to provide some cultural
background which may be helpful in understanding
the business environment of Brazil and, consequently,
in minimizing risks. It is my firm belief that MBA
programmes today not only fail disgracefully in this
regard, but rather make matters much worse in
promoting the `cowboy' business ethics, according
to which profit at all costs is the basic cannon as well
as the ultimate truth and exclusive end of society.
Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese 500 years
ago, on 22 April 1500, when a fleet of thirteen ships
commanded by navigator Pedro AÂ lvares Cabral arrived
in the shores of what is now the state of Bahia. His
expedition represented the official claim by Portugal
of the lands apportioned to it by the Treaty of
Tordesillas of 7 June 1494, mediated by Pope
Alexander VI, that allocated rights of the discoveries
between Spain and Portugal. Spain was to receive the
territories west of the Tordesillas line, as long as
Portugal would acquire the lands to its east. In 1500,
the population of Portugal was only approximately
1 100 000 people or 280 000 households. The
country's human resources were already over-extended
by the impact of the discovery by Admiral
Vasco da Gama of the naval route to India in 1498 and
the need to man trading stations in Africa, in India, in
Malaga and subsequently in China and Japan. It has
been estimated that in the first half of the sixteenth
century, 80 per cent of Portugal's male population
was in colonial or trade service abroad.
Portugal had become a nation state and a separate
kingdom since 1139, with the Frenchman Henry of
Bourgogne as its first king, had already expelled the
moors from its territories in 1239, and successfully
fought off Spain's attempts of domination. Conversely,
Spain only began to be a nation state at the end
of the fifteenth century and expelled the Moors only
in 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. This
situation determined the attitude of the two countries
towards their new colonies: whereas the Spaniards
continued the ruthless military campaign against the
infidels, supported by a very militant Catholic Church,
the Portuguese adopted an official policy of racial
miscegenation.
When the Portuguese arrived, in 1500, Brazil was
inhabited by approximately five million native Brazilians,
of numerous different indigenous peoples, who
spoke languages now classified into four main groups.
Upon disembarkation, the Portuguese were promptly
met by waiting friendly Tupinikins. The predominant
language group, also spoken by the Tupinikins, used
in most of the coast areas and deep into the interior up
to the Amazon and what is now Paraguay, Uruguay
and parts of Argentina was the Tupi-Guarani, known
in some areas in this language as `nhenhen-gatu', or
general language. The indigenous tribes called their
land pindorama or land of the palm trees. They were
basically hunter-gatherers, but also cultivated some
basic crops, such as manioc, peanuts and cotton. They
had a profound knowledge of and respect for the land,
knew cartography, navigation by the sun and by the
stars and had numerous musical instruments. The
basic artistic manifestations were plumery art and
body painting. Their botanical knowledge was profound.
The native Brazilians were in constant warfare. It
was speculated by contemporary European travellers
that this was necessary as a means of population
control. When the Portuguese arrived in Pindorama,
the Tupi-Guarani Indians were asserting control of the
coastal regions of the country. They had their own
legal system, evidenced by extant terms in the Tupi-
Guarani vocabulary for lawyer, court, court-house,
defence, sentence and other terms indispensable for
the functioning of a legal society. Violence within the
tribes was practically non-existent. When it occurred,
the aggrieved, or their families, would be authorized to
redress the damage in the same manner as it was
inflicted. Property was communal. The tribes were
nomads, so as not to exhaust the land, and thus there
was no accumulation of riches. The ultimate sanction
was a social penalty: exclusion from the tribe.
Prisoners of war would be normally integrated into
the tribes as labourers, but not warriors. In many
tribes, the bravest prisoners would be subject to ritual
cannibalism.
The Portuguese settled along the coastline of the
country, which they initially called the Land of True
Cross. After approximately 20 years, the country
began to be called Brazil, after its main produce, the
Brazil wood, used as a red dye. The origin of the name
comes from the Italian Verzino through the French
Bre sil. Early on the Portuguese tried to impose their
culture, including religion and laws, on the native
population, as well as attempting to enslave it to be
put to economic use. The natives almost immediately
started a movement of civil resistance against the new
order, by moving further inland. They resisted slavery
to such extent that they did not hesitate to commit
suicide in great numbers immediately after capture.
There are many extraordinary written accounts of how
native Brazilians would die in such circumstances,
including various after pronouncing the formula `I die'
three times. By this movement of civil resistance, the
Brazilian indigenous people not only refused the
unjust law or practice of slavery, but also declined to
accept the artificial frontiers imposed by alien powers.
On both accounts they ultimately prevailed. 1
Simultaneously, the Portuguese proceeded with
understandable delight with their policy of miscegenation.
There are accounts of some who had as
many as 60 wives, which gave them enormous
political power. This is so because Brazilian indigenous
peoples also had a policy of social co-optation. 2
ISSN 0256±6060±Unisa Lat. Am. Rep. 16(2) 2000 37