The revenge which followed was frightful.A vast host of half-savage coloured people assembled in the retired creeks behind Para, and on a day fixed, after Vinagre's brother had sent a message three times to the President demanding, in vain, the release of their leader, the whole body poured into the city through the gloomy pathways of the forest which encircles it.Acruel battle, lasting nine days, was fought in the streets; an English, French, and Portuguese man-of-war, from the side of the river, assisting the legal authorities.All the latter, however, together with every friend of peace and order, were finally obliged to retire to an island a few miles distant.The city and province were given up to anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American residents.The mistaken principals who had first aroused all this hatred of races were obliged now to make their escape.In the interior, the supporters of lawful authority including, it must be stated, whole tribes of friendly Indians and numbers of the better disposed negroes and mulattos, concentrated themselves in certain strong positions and defended themselves, until the reconquest of the capital and large towns of the interior in 1836 by a force sent from Rio Janeiro-- after ten months of anarchy.
Years of conciliatory government, the lesson learned by the native party and the moderation of the Portuguese, aided by the indolence and passive goodness of the Paraenses of all classes and colours, were only beginning to produce their good effects about the time I am speaking of.Life, however, was now and had been for some time quite safe throughout the country.Some few of the worst characters had been transported or imprisoned, and the remainder, after being pardoned, were converted once more into quiet and peaceable citizens.
I resided at Para nearly a year and a half altogether, returning thither and making a stay of a few months after each of my shorter excursions into the interior, until the 6th of November, 1851, when I started on my long voyage to the Tapajos and the Upper Amazons, which occupied me seven years and a half.I became during this time tolerably familiar with the capital of the Amazons region, and its inhabitants.Compared with other Brazilian seaport towns, I was always told, Para shone to great advantage.It was cleaner, the suburbs were fresher, more rural and much pleasanter on account of their verdure, shade, and magnificent vegetation.The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.At the same time the Para people were much inferior to Southern Brazilians in energy and industry.
Provisions and house rents being cheap and the wants of the people few--for they were content with food and lodging of a quality which would be spurned by paupers in England--they spent the greater part of their time in sensual indulgences and in amusements which the government and wealthier citizens provided for them gratis.
The trade, wholesale and retail, was in the hands of the Portuguese, of whom there were about 2500 in the place.Many handicrafts were exercised by coloured people, mulattos, mamelucos, free negroes, and Indians.The better sort of Brazilians dislike the petty details of shop-keeping, and if they cannot be wholesale merchants, prefer the life of planters in the country, however small may be the estate and the gains.The negroes constituted the class of field-labourers and porters;Indians were universally the watermen, and formed the crews of the numberless canoes of all sizes and shapes which traded between Para and the interior.The educated Brazilians, not many of whom are of pure Caucasian descent--for the immigration of Portuguese, for many years, has been almost exclusively of the male sex--are courteous, lively, and intelligent people.They were gradually weaning themselves of the ignorant, bigoted notions which they inherited from their Portuguese ancestors, especially those entertained with regard to the treatment of women.Formerly, the Portuguese would not allow their wives to go into society, or their daughters to learn reading and writing.In 1848, Brazilian ladies were only just beginning to emerge from this inferior position, and Brazilian fathers were opening their eyes to the advantages of education for their daughters.Reforms of this kind are slow.It is, perhaps, in part owing to the degrading position always held by women, that the relations between the sexes were, and are still, on so unsatisfactory a footing, and private morality at so low an ebb, in Brazil.In Para, I believe that an improvement is now taking place, but formerly promiscuous intercourse seemed to be the general rule among all classes, and intrigues and love-making the serious business of the greater part of the population.That this state of things is a necessity depending on the climate and institutions I do not believe, as I have resided at small towns in the interior, where the habits, and the general standard of morality of the inhabitants, were as pure as they are in similar places in England.
