This chapter assesses the abrupt privatization of subsoil property rights in 1891. Privatization offered a third strategy for mineral development, after earlier attempts that relied variously on state participation or the importation of foreign capital and technology, proved unsatisfactory. Legal change occurred at the same time that the interest in minerals shifted from deriving the immediate wealth of precious minerals to the utilitarian metals that provided inputs for an industrial economy. The chapter considers the patterns of mining regulation and the willingness to prospect and mine. It explores the subsequent renationalization of subsoil rights in 1934 in the context of the evolution of the goals for minerals. By examining the commonly accepted proposition that privatization was unsuccessful, the chapter presents the limitations on developing industrial-scale mining derived from a complex mixture of ancillary institutions. It also finds that the change in ambitions for the mining sector transformed institutional inconsistency from a problem for private actors into a national imperative.

The Constitution of 1891 implemented the first fundamental change in Brazilian mineral rights since early Portuguese rule in 1603. Property was redefined to attach the subsoil to the surface. This action privatized the subsoil by removing it from federal sovereign domain. With the intention of liberalizing both economic governance and access to resources, the framers of the Constitution hoped that the private ownership of assets would create an incentive for mineral extraction, although mining engineers were skeptical (see Chapter 2).