Slavery in Brazil
Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement was established in 1532, as members of one tribe would enslave captured members of another. Colonists were dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy, natives were captured by expeditions called bandeiras; the importation of African slaves began midway through the 16th century, but the enslavement of indigenous peoples continued well into the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Atlantic slave trade era, Brazil received more African slaves than any other country. An estimated 4.9 million slaves from Africa were brought to Brazil during the period from 1501 to 1866. Until the early 1850s, most enslaved Africans who arrived on Brazilian shores were forced to embark at West Central African ports in Luanda. Slave labor was the driving force behind the growth of the sugar economy in Brazil, sugar was the primary export of the colony from 1600 to 1650. Gold and diamond deposits were discovered in Brazil in 1690, which sparked an increase in the importation of African slaves to power this newly profitable mining.
Transportation systems were developed for the mining infrastructure, population boomed from immigrants seeking to take part in gold and diamond mining. Demand for African slaves did not wane after the decline of the mining industry in the second half of the 18th century. Cattle ranching and foodstuff production proliferated after the population growth, both of which relied on slave labor. 1.7 million slaves were imported to Brazil from Africa from 1700 to 1800, the rise of coffee in the 1830s further enticed expansion of the slave trade. Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery. By the time it was abolished after years of campaigning by Emperor Pedro II, in 1888, an estimated four million slaves had been imported from Africa to Brazil, 40% of the total number of slaves brought to the Americas; the Portuguese became involved with the African slave trade first during the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula through the mediation of the Alfaqueque: the person tasked with the rescue of Portuguese captives and prisoners of war.
Slaves exported from Africa during this initial period of the Portuguese slave trade came from Mauritania, the Upper Guinea coast. Scholars estimate that as many as 156,000 slaves were exported from 1441 to 1521 to Iberia and the Atlantic islands from the African coast; the trade made the shift from Europe to the Americas as a primary destination for slaves around 1518. Prior to this time, slaves were required to pass through Portugal to be taxed before making their way to the Americas; the Portuguese first traveled to Brazil in 1500 under the expedition of Pedro Álvares Cabral, though the first Portuguese settlement was not established until 1532. Long before Europeans came to Brazil and began colonization, indigenous groups such as the Papanases, the Guaianases, the Tupinambás, the Cadiueus enslaved captured members of other tribes; the captured worked with their new communities as trophies to the tribe's martial prowess. Some enslaved would escape but could never re-attain their previous status in their own tribe because of the strong social stigma against slavery and rival tribes.
During their time in the new tribe, enslaved indigenes would marry as a sign of acceptance and servitude. For the enslaved of cannibalistic tribes, execution for devouring purposes could happen at any moment. While other tribes did not consume human flesh, their enslaved were still put to work, used as hostages, killed mercilessly. After the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil, the Native Americans started to trade their prisoners, instead of using them as slaves or food, in exchange for goods, but the enslavement of Europeans could occur, as happened with Hans Staden who, after being set free, wrote a book about the customs of the Native Americans. The colonization effort proved to be a difficult undertaking on such a vast continent, indigenous slave labor was turned to for agricultural workforce needs. Aggressive mission networks of the Portuguese Jesuits were the driving force behind this recruitment, they mobilized an indigenous labor force to live in colonial villages to work the land; these indigenous enslaving expeditions were known as bandeiras.
These expeditions were composed of bandeirantes, adventurers who penetrated westward in their search for Indian slaves. These adventurers came from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, including plantation owners and members of the military, as well as people of mixed ancestry and captured Indian slaves. In 1629, Antônio Raposo Tavares led a bandeira, composed of 2,000 allied índios, "Indians", 900 mamelucos, "mestizos" and 69 whites, to find precious metals and stones and to capture Indians for slavery; this expedition alone was responsible for the enslavement of over 60,000 indigenous people. African slavery became more common in Brazil during the mid 16th century, though the enslavement of indigenous people continued into the 17th and the 18th century in the backlands of Brazil. In the first 250 years after the colonization of the land 70% of all immigrants to the colony were enslaved people. Indigenous slaves remained much cheaper during this time than their African counterparts, though they did suffer horrendous death rates from European diseases.
Although the average African slave lived to only be twenty-three years old due to terrible work conditions, this was still about four years longer than Indigenous slaves, which w
Angola
Angola the Republic of Angola, is a west-coast country of south-central Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda. Although inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, what is now Angola was molded by Portuguese colonisation, it began with, was for centuries limited to, coastal settlements and trading posts established starting in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior; the Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century because of resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. After a protracted anti-colonial struggle, independence was achieved in 1975 as the Marxist–Leninist People's Republic of Angola, a one-party state supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The civil war between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and the insurgent anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, supported by the United States and South Africa, lasted until 2002. The sovereign state has since become a stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world since the end of the civil war. Angola's economic growth is uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. Angola is a member state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Southern African Development Community. A multiethnic country, Angola's 25.8 million people span tribal groups and traditions. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, in the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church; the name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola, which appeared as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter.
The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo, but was seeking greater independence in the 16th century. Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations; the Khoi and San peoples hunter-gatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, most of whom originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain. Hendese Bantu established a number of political entities, it established trade routes with other city-states and civilisations up and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo.
Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south; the Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617; the Portuguese established several other settlements and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for Brazilian plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe; this part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s. Despite Portugal's territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country's vast interior was minimal.
In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of wars. Life for European colonists was progress slow. John Iliffe notes that "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years. During the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch West India Company occupied the principal settlement of Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples to carry out attacks against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de Sá retook Luanda in 1648. New treaties with the Kongo were signed in 1649.
Ratamahatta
"Ratamahatta" is Sepultura's ninth official single, the last of three to be taken from the album Roots, released in 1996. It is the last Sepultura single to feature founding frontman Max Cavalera; the song remains a concert staple to this day. A music video was created for the song using stop-motion animation which explores the themes of the song; this video can be found on the VHS Sepultura: We Are What We Are, released on DVD as part of Chaos DVD. The song features guest appearances from Carlinhos Brown on vocals and Korn drummer David Silveria on percussion, it is amongst Sepultura's most percussive and tribal songs the most so of any of the singles. The song appears in live form on the band's live release Under a Pale Grey Sky; the artwork is a painting. Featured on the sleeve is Zé do Caixão; the single was released on 7" vinyl. The first CD was presented in a card foldout digipak case, while the second was in a standard slimline jewel case. Early copies of the digipak version were embossed with a stamp of the band's thorned ‘S' logo.
The vinyl was a limited edition. CD1 Ratamahatta War Slave New World Amen/Inner Self CD2 Ratamahatta War Dusted Roots Bloody Roots 7” Vinyl Ratamahatta Mass Hypnosis Note that all of these B-Sides except for "Mass Hypnosis" and "Amen/Inner Self" would be collected on Blood-Rooted. Slave New World" and "Amen/Inner Self" were recorded live in Minneapolis, MN in March 1994 Soulfly covers the song live. A recording of this can be found on The Song Remains Insane. Brazilian fighter Thiago Silva used this as his entrance song at UFC 102, UFC 108 and UFC 125. Max Cavalera - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar Carlinhos Brown - Vocals Igor Cavalera - Drums David Silveria - Percussion Andreas Kisser - Lead Guitar Paulo Jr. - Bass Produced by Ross Robinson and Sepultura Recorded and engineered by Ross Robinson Mixed by Andy Wallace Assistant Engineer: Richard Kaplan Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
Brasília
Brasília is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located atop the Brazilian highlands in the country's center-western region, it was founded on April 1960, to serve as the new national capital. Brasília is estimated to be Brazil's 3rd most populous city. Among major Latin American cities, Brasília has the highest GDP per capita. Brasília was planned and developed by Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Joaquim Cardozo in 1956 to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a more central location; the landscape architect was Roberto Burle Marx. The city's design divides it into numbered blocks as well as sectors for specified activities, such as the Hotel Sector, the Banking Sector and the Embassy Sector. Brasília was chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its modernist architecture and uniquely artistic urban planning, it has been named "City of Design" by UNESCO in October 2017 and has been part of the Creative Cities Network since then. All three branches of Brazil's federal government are centered in the city: executive and judiciary.
Brasília hosts 124 foreign embassies. The city's international airport connects it to all other major Brazilian cities and many international destinations, is the third busiest airport in Brazil. Brasília is the most populous Portuguese-speaking capital city, it was one of the main host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and hosted some of the football matches during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. The city has a unique status in Brazil, as it is an administrative division rather than a legal municipality like other cities in Brazil. Although Brasília is used as a synonym for the Federal District through synecdoche, the Federal District is composed of 31 administrative regions, only one of, the area of the planned city called Plano Piloto; the rest of the Federal District is considered by IBGE to make up Brasília's metro area. From 1763 until 1960, Rio de Janeiro was Brazil's capital. At this time, resources tended to be centered in Brazil's southeast region near Rio de Janeiro and most of its population was concentrated near to the Atlantic Coast.
Brasília's geographically central location fostered a more regionally neutral federal capital. An article of the country's first republican constitution dating back to 1891 stated the capital should be moved from Rio de Janeiro to a place close to the country's center; the plan was conceived in 1827 by José Bonifácio, an advisor to Emperor Pedro I. He presented a plan to the General Assembly of Brazil for a new city called Brasília, with the idea of moving the capital westward from the populated southeastern corridor; the bill was not enacted because Pedro I dissolved the Assembly. According to legend, Italian saint Don Bosco in 1883 had a dream in which he described a futuristic city that fitted Brasília's location. In Brasília today, many references of Bosco, who founded the Salesian order, are found throughout the city and one church parish in the city bears his name. In 1955 Juscelino Kubitschek was elected president of Brazil. Upon taking office in January, 1956, in response to his campaign pledge, he initiated the planning and construction of the new capital.
In 1957 an international jury selected Lúcio Costa's plan to guide the construction of Brazil’s new capital, Brasília. Costa's plan was not as detailed as some of the plans presented by other architects and city planners, it did not include land use schedules, population charts or mechanical drawings, however, it was chosen by five out of six jurors because it had the features required to align the growth of a capital city Even though the initial plan was transformed over time, his plan oriented much of the construction and most of its features survived. Brasília's accession as the new capital and its designation for the development of an extensive interior region inspired the symbolism of the plan. Costa used a cross-axial design indicating the possession and conquest of this new place with a cross described by some as a dragonfly, an airplane or a bird. Costa's plan included the Monumental Axis and the Residential Axis; the Monumental Axis was assigned political and administrative activities and is considered the body of the city with the style and simplicity of its buildings, oversized scales, broad vistas and heights, producing the idea of Monumentality.
This axis includes the various ministries, national congress, presidential palace, supreme court building and the television and radio tower. The Residential Axis was intended to contain areas with intimate character and is considered the most important achievement of the plan; the urban design of the communal apartment blocks was based on Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse of 1935 and the superblocks on the North American Radburn layout from 1929. Visually, the blocks were intended to appear absorbed by the landscape because they were isolated by a belt of tall trees and lower vegetation. Costa attempted to introduce a Brazil, more equitable, he designed housing for the working classes, separated from the upper and middle-class housing and was visually different, with the intention of avoiding slums (f
Jorge Ben
Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes, is a Brazilian popular musician, performing under the stage name Jorge Ben Jor since the 1980s, though known by his former stage name Jorge Ben. His characteristic style fuses samba, funk and bossa nova with lyrics that blend humor and satire with esoteric subject matter, his hits include "Chove Chuva", "Mas Que Nada", "Ive Brussel" and "Balança Pena", have been interpreted by artists such as Caetano Veloso, Sérgio Mendes, Miriam Makeba, Marisa Monte. Ben's broad-minded and original approach to samba led him through participation in some of Brazilian popular music's most important musical movements, such as bossa nova, Jovem Guarda, Tropicália, with the latter period defined by his albums Jorge Ben and Fôrça Bruta, he has been called "the father of samba rock", by Billboard magazine. According to American music critic Robert Christgau and his contemporary Gilberto Gil were "always ready to go further out on a beat than the other samba/bossa geniuses". Born Jorge Duilio Lima Menezes in Rio de Janeiro, he first took the stage name Jorge Ben after his mother's name but in the 1980s changed it to Jorge Ben Jor.
Jorge Ben obtained his first pandeiro when he was thirteen, two years was singing in a church choir. He took part as a pandeiro player in the blocos of Carnaval, from eighteen years of age, he began performing at parties and nightclubs with the guitar given to him by his mother, he was given the nickname "Babulina" after his enthusiastic pronunciation of rockabilly singer Ronnie Self's song "Bop-A-Lena". Was introduced to Tim Maia by Erasmo Carlos, it was in 1963 at one of those clubs. One week Jorge Ben's first single was released; the hybrid rhythms that Jorge employed brought him some problems at the start of his career, when Brazilian music was split between the rockier sounds of the Jovem Guarda and traditional samba with its complex lyrics. However, as that phase in Brazilian pop music history passed and bossa nova became better known throughout the world, Ben rose to prominence. Holdings both television programs O Fino da Bossa and Jovem Guarda from Rede Record, after being reprimanded by the production of "O Fino da Bossa", chose to participate in the Jovem Guarda, soon after, joined the program Divino, Maravilhoso from TV Tupi, presented by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
Jorge Ben's first public appearances were in small festivals organised by his friends, where bossa nova and rock and roll predominated. As with most musicians of the time, Ben was influenced by João Gilberto though he was quite innovative in his own right; the aforementioned song, "Mas Que Nada", was his first big hit in Brazil, remains to this day the most played song in the United States sung in Portuguese. Outside of Brazil, the song is better known in cover versions by the Tamba Trio; the song has been reinterpreted by jazz luminaries such as Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Al Jarreau. His musical work has been vastly sampled by music producers and DJs, covered by many bands in a variety of genres such as heavy metal, rock, jazz and bass, house music and more. Ben's 1963 debut album Samba Esquema Novo was met with great acclaim from fans, encouraged Philips to capitalize on the success with immediate follow-up albums; the label pressured Ben to hastily record songs imitative of his debut, along with cover songs, resulting in the three albums within the span of 18 months and a strain on the singer's relationship with Philips.
He left the label after his 1965 album Big Ben. In 1969, Jorge Ben released his self-titled album amid the excitement of the cultural and musical Tropicália movement; the album featured Trio Mocotó as his backing band, who would go on to launch a successful career on the back of their association with Ben. The album was noted for "País Tropical", one of his most famous compositions, although it would be Wilson Simonal who would take his recording of the song to the top of the charts in Brazil that same year. Instead, the song "Charles, Anjo 45" from the self-titled album, would become Ben's biggest self-performed chart hit of the year. Jorge Ben released his most esoteric and experimental albums in the 1970s, most notably A Tábua de Esmeralda in 1974 and Solta o Pavão in 1975; the following year he released one of his most popular albums, África Brasil, a fusion of funk and samba which relied more on the electric guitar than previous efforts. This album features a remake of his released song "Taj Mahal", from which Rod Stewart's 1979 hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? was plagiarized.
In 1989, Jorge changed his recording label as well as his artistic name. At the time, it was said. In 2002, Jorge Ben contributed to the critically acclaimed Red Hot + Riot, a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, which raised money for various charities devoted to raising AIDS awareness and fighting the disease, he collaborated with fellow hip-hop artists Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Bilal to remake Fela Kuti's famous song
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in west central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo as well as the southernmost part of Gabon. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south; the kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the Manikongo, the Portuguese version of the Kongo title Mwene Kongo, meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Loango and Matamba, the last two located in what is Angola today. From c. 1390 to 1857 it was an independent state. From 1857 to 1914 it functioned as a vassal state of the Kingdom of Portugal. In 1914, following the Portuguese suppression of a Kongo revolt, Portugal abolished the titular monarchy; the remaining territories of the kingdom were assimilated into the colony of Angola and the Protectorate of Cabinda respectively.
The modern-day Bundu dia Kongo sect favors reviving the kingdom through secession from Angola, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon. Verbal traditions about the early history of the country were set in writing for the first time in the late 16th century, the most comprehensive were recorded in the mid-17th century, including those written by the Italian Capuchin missionary Giovanni Cavazzi da Montecuccolo. More detailed research in modern oral traditions conducted in the early 20th century by Redemptorist missionaries like Jean Cuvelier and Joseph de Munck do not appear to relate to the early period. According to Kongo tradition, the kingdom's origin lies in the large and not rich country of Mpemba Kasi located just south of modern-day Matadi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A dynasty of rulers from this small polity built up its rule along the Kwilu valley, its members are buried in Nsi Kwilu, its capital. Traditions from the 17th century allude to this sacred burial ground.
According to the missionary Girolamo da Montesarchio, an Italian Capuchin who visited the area from 1650 to 1652, the site was so holy that looking upon it was deadly. Seventeenth-century subjects of Mpemba Kasi called their country "Mother of the King of Kongo" in respect of the territory's antiquity. At some point around 1375, Nimi a Nzima, ruler of Mpemba Kasi, made an alliance with Nsaku Lau, the ruler of the neighbouring Mbata Kingdom; this alliance guaranteed that each of the two allies would help ensure the succession of their ally's lineage in the other's territory. The first king of the Kingdom of Kongo Dya Ntotila was Lukeni lua Nimi; the name Nimi a Lukeni appeared in oral traditions and some modern historians, notably Jean Cuvelier, popularized it. Lukeni lua Nimi, or Nimi a Lukeni, became the founder of Kongo when he conquered the kingdom of the Mwene Kabunga, which lay on a mountain to his south, he transferred his rule to this mountain, the Mongo dia Kongo or "mountain of Kongo", made Mbanza Kongo, the town there, his capital.
Two centuries the Mwene Kabunga's descendants still symbolically challenged the conquest in an annual celebration. The rulers that followed Lukeni all claimed some form of relation to his kanda, or lineage and were known as the Kilukeni; the Kilukeni kanda or "house" as it was recorded in Portuguese documents, ruled Kongo unopposed until 1567. After the death of Nimi a Lukeni, his brother, Mbokani Mavinga, took over the throne and ruled until 1467, he had nine children. His rule saw an expansion of the Kingdom of Kongo to include the neighbouring state the Kingdom of Loango and other areas now encompassed by the current Republic of Congo; the Mwene Kongos gave the governorships to members of their family or its clients. As this centralization increased, the allied provinces lost influence until their powers were only symbolic, manifested in Mbata, once a co-kingdom, but by 1620 known by the title "Grandfather of the King of Kongo"; the high concentration of population around Mbanza Kongo and its outskirts played a critical role in the centralization of Kongo.
The capital was a densely settled area in an otherwise sparsely populated region where rural population densities did not exceed 5 persons per km2. Early Portuguese travelers described Mbanza Kongo as a large city, the size of the Portuguese town of Évora as it was in 1491. By the end of the sixteenth century, Kongo's population was close to half a million people in a core region of some 130,000 square kilometers. By the early seventeenth century the city and its hinterland had a population of around 100,000, or one out of every five inhabitants in the Kingdom; this concentration allowed resources and surplus foodstuffs to be available at the request of the king. This made the king overwhelmingly powerful and caused the kingdom to become centralized. By the time of the first recorded contact with the Europeans, the Kingdom of Kongo was a developed state at the center of an extensive trading network. Apart from natural resources and ivory, the country manufactured and traded copperware, ferrous metal goods, raffia cloth, pottery.
The Kongo people spoke in the Kikongo language. The eastern regions that part known as the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza, were famous for the production of cloth. In 1483, the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão sailed up the uncharted Congo River, finding Kongo v
Brazil
Brazil the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, its most populated city is São Paulo; the federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers, it borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats; this unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; the ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Brazil is considered an advanced emerging economy. It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, eight and PPP measures, it is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country, with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great or a middle power in international affairs. On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power and a potential superpower by several analysts. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Union of South American Nations, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, it is that the word "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.
In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods; the official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross", but European sailors and merchants called it the "Land of Brazil" because of the brazilwood trade. The popular appellation eclipsed and supplanted the official Portuguese name; some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama"; this was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".
Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago; the pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 800 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people semi-nomadic who subsisted on hunting, fishing and migrant agriculture; the indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups. The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, there were many subdivisions of the other gro
