War of the Mascates

War of the Mascates, a battle between native Brazilian planters and Portuguese immigrant merchants in 1709–1711. The onset of Brazil's so-called Golden Age led to the swarming of Portuguese to the littoral and interior of Brazil. Their arrival triggered anti-Portuguese nativist sentiment in several parts of Portugal's most vital colony. One center of such sentiment was the northeastern sugar-producing captaincy of Pernambuco, where persistent bitter feelings existed between the indebted sugar-planting self-proclaimed aristocrats who controlled the political life of the capital, Olinda, and the merchants and clerks who lived in the port town of Recife. The planters considered the merchants, whom they termed mascates (peddlers), their social inferiors and blamed them for their indebtedness. The merchants and their allies resented the pretensions of the planters and their opposition to the incorporation of Recife as an independent town.

A series of clashes between the two groups led to the flight of two governors, a prolonged but ineffective siege of Recife, a surprise uprising by Recife's garrison, an early call for regional independence, and a severe repression undertaken by newly arrived governor Felix José Machado de Mendonça (1711–1715). Although there were surprisingly few casualties, the Pernambucan disturbances produced enduring resentments that would find expression in later revolts, especially those of 1817 and 1824.

See alsoPernambuco; Recife.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C. R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (1962), chap. 5 and sources cited therein.

Additional Bibliography

Mello, Evaldo Cabral de. A fronda dos mazombos: nobres contra mascates, Pernambuco, 1666–1715. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995.

                                        Dauril Alden