POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION: SUGAR, TOBACCO AND CATTLE

After the expulsion of the Dutch in 1654 Brazil faced a huge task of post-war reconstruction. Almost a generation of conflict had devastated the country's plantations, particularly in Pernambuco. By as early as the late 1630s up to half the Pernambucan sugar mills had already ceased producing. Then, when the uprising against the WIC broke out in Pernambuco in 1645, the Portuguese governor-general in Salvador ordered the insurgents to abandon the captaincy's mills and burn its cane-fields. To what extent this was actually done is unclear; but destruction wrought during the uprising was certainly extensive, and the impact was later compounded by several years of drought. In the late sixteenth century Pernambuco had easily been Brazil's leading sugar captaincy, responsible for 60 per cent of the country's output. But at the end of Dutch rule this former front-runner could manage only a mere 10 per cent. Bahia had replaced it as the largest producer – and remained so for the rest of the colonial period.

For years the post-war reconstruction of Pernambuco was hindered by disputes over ownership of mills and land. These disputes mostly pitted former owners, who had fled to Bahia during the Dutch occupation, against persons who had acquired ownership under the WIC – but had also, in many cases, later played important roles in the 1645 revolt.