The Story of Brazilian Commerce 245
their colony a wise policy of liberty. Agriculture and indus-
try were free: a decree of 1591 restricted commerce to the
Portuguese merchants, with the royal approval, but there
were no vexatious measures, duties were small, taxes moder-
ate; there was great freedom of movement for individuals. The
system was well in advance of the general ideas of the time.
It has been repeated by historians that the granting of
captaincies or royal concessions with considerable political
power to captains-general or donatarios, was a feudal regime
applied to Brazil. Roberto Simonsen, however, has a differ-
ent point of view: instead of being based on a social class
division, it was an economic process of exploitation in a
modern society, with perhaps rather capitalistic features,
though the hereditary clause of the concession might have
been misleading.
Brazil had started her commercial life by sending to
Europe dye-wood, Indian slaves, and parrots. After 1520, the
sugar cycle of her history began, and by the end of the cen-
tury there were already 120 sugar mills in Brazil. Besides
the 40,∞0 tons of sugar of her annual exportation, she used
to send to Portugal tobacco, and import slaves from Africa.
By becoming a Spanish colony she provoked the hostility
of the Dutch. The monopoly system was implanted accord-
ing to its Spanish interpretation of mare clausum and gave
to the Dutch attempts the aspect of a fight for liberty and
mare liberum. For the year 1649 saw the establishment of
commercial exclusivism in favor of a private corporation
chartered in Lisbon, the CompanhiadeCommercio do Brasil,
which lasted until 1720.
III. ENGLISH TRADE WITH BRAZIL
Though England never insisted on breaking the monopoly
rule and having a direct trade with Brazil, for her merchants