Engenho (Portuguese pronunciation: [ẽˈʒẽɲu]) is a colonial-era Portuguese term for a sugar cane mill and the associated facilities. In Spanish-speaking countries such as Cuba and Puerto Rico, they are called ingenios. Both words mean engine (from latin ingenium). The word engenho usually only referred to the mill, but it could also describe the area as a whole including land, a mill, the people who farmed and who had a knowledge of sugar production, and a crop of sugar cane. A large estate was required because of the massive amount of labor needed to yield refined sugar, molasses, or rum from raw sugar cane. These estates were prevalent in Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and other countries in the Caribbean. Today, Brazil is still one of the world's major producers of sugar. Sugarcane cultivation has resulted in deforestation and environmental devastation of Brazil's Atlantic Forest since the onset of colonization.
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👉 Engenho in the context of Fazenda
A fazenda (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɐˈzẽdɐ, fa-]) is a plantation found throughout Brazil during the colonial period (16th–18th centuries). They were concentrated primarily in the northeastern region, where sugar was produced in the engenhos, expanding during the 19th century in the southeastern region to coffee production. Nowadays fazenda denotes any kind of farm in Brazilian Portuguese and occasionally in other Portuguese varieties as well.
Fazendas created major export commodities for Brazilian trade, but also led to intensification of slavery in Brazil. Coffee provided a new basis for agricultural expansion in southern Brazil. In the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and then São Paulo, coffee estates, or fazendas, began to spread toward the interior as new lands were opened. By 1850 coffee made up more than 50% of Brazil's exports, which amounted to more than half of the world's coffee production.
Engenho in the context of Colonial Brazil
Colonial Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil Colonial), sometimes referred to as Portuguese America, comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal. During the 300 years of Brazilian colonial history, the main economic activities of the territory were based first on brazilwood extraction (brazilwood cycle), which gave the territory its name; sugar production (sugar cycle); and finally on gold and diamond mining (gold cycle). Slaves, especially those brought from Africa, provided most of the workforce of the Brazilian export economy after a brief initial period of Indigenous slavery to cut brazilwood.
In contrast to the neighboring Spanish possessions, which had several viceroyalties, the colony of Brazil was settled mainly in the coastal area by the Portuguese and a large black slave population working on sugar plantations and mines.
Engenho in the context of Brazilian sugar cycle
The Brazilian sugar cycle, also referred to as the sugar boom or sugarcane cycle, was a period in the history of colonial Brazil from the mid-16th century to the mid-18th century. Sugar represented Brazil's first great agricultural and industrial wealth and, for a long time, was the basis of the colonial economy.
The cycle began in 1530, when sugarcane was introduced on the island of Itamaracá, off the coast of Pernambuco, by the colonial administrator Pero Capico. With the creation of the hereditary captaincies, Pernambuco and São Vicente rose to prominence in sugar production, the latter being overtaken by Bahia after the establishment of the general government. In 1549, Pernambuco already had thirty sugar mills; Bahia, eighteen; and São Vicente, two. Sugarcane farming was prosperous and, half a century later, the distribution of the engenhos totaled 256.