The Formation of Vila Rica
Discovery and Settlement
Donald Ramos

 

This is a general background to the origins of Vila Rica. All footnotes have been removed.

The Search for Gold

After one hundred and fifty years of dreaming and searching, the Portuguese finally found significant deposits of gold in 1695.  Ironically they found the gold more or less where they had expected it - along the same latitude as Potosí, the fabulous silver mining area of Spanish America.

Enticed by the legends of Vupabussu and Sabarabussu, the Portuguese had organized exploration parties as soon as 1551.  In fact, Portuguese expeditions had crossed through the area where gold would be discovered during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  But it was only in 1695, that an exploration party or bandeira, led by Bartolomeu Bueno de Siqueira, following up on  discoveries made in 1693 by another bandeira, demonstrated clearly the existence of the long-sought-after treasures. Siqueira was himself killed by native warriors but some of the gold was given to the acting governor Sebastião de Castro Caldas.  Caldas sent the first news of the discovery to the king in a letter dated March 1, 1695.

As soon as news of the discovery reached the outside world, the gold rush was on.  It precipitated an unprecedented migration of hundreds of thousands of people, initially from São Paulo but soon from other areas of Brazil and then from Portugal and Africa.  The early years of this major demographic transformation were to be marked by conflict and violence - originally between residents of São Paulo and Taubaté, two of the communities in the forefront of exploration, and then between these and all other newcomers. 

These conflicts spurred the making of new discoveries.  It is remarkable how quickly the major gold fields would be discovered.  This process was encouraged by the provisions of the mining code in effect.  Enacted in 1603 and amended in 1618, the code amply rewarded new strikes.  A discoverer received two claims, datas: the first was 80 by 40 varas and the second 60 by 30.  To qualify as a new strike, the discovery had to be at least half a league from any established one.  This was strong encouragement for constant explorations.

Siqueira's bandeira was quickly joined by another led by  Miguel Garcia de Almeida e Cunha.  A conflict between residents of Sao Paulo town and those from Taubaté led to the formation of a third bandeira comprised of residents from Taubaté.  It was the latter, under the leadership of Manuel Garcia Velho, which discovered the gold field called Ouro Preto.   Once news of this major find spread, a mining camp, of the same name, formed in a heavily wooded area nestled in a narrow valley surrounded on three sides by formidable mountains cut by streams and deep gorges. 

Again, disputes led to the formation of another bandeira to explore other areas.  Led by Antonio Dias de Oliveira, a taubatino, this bandeira crossed the Santa Quitéria Mountain and found gold along the Sobreira Stream.  The camp which sprang up was called Antonio Dias in honor of the bandeira's leader.

From either Ouro Preto or Antonio Dias, a new bandeira was organized by Padre João de Faria Fialho.  A native of São Sebastião in the captaincy of São Paulo, Padre Faria had come to the area as chaplain of the one of the very first bandeiras from Taubaté.  Faria discovered gold east of Antonio Dias, just beyond the Santa Efigenia Mountain.  This camp also would adopt the name of its discoverer.

At about the same time, another strike was made west of Ouro Preto by Antonio Rodrigues de Medeiros in an area given the name Tripuí.  Medeiros was a paulista, a native of São Paulo, whose Tupi nickname was Tripuí.  The gold in this area was mainly alluvial and the area never attained great prominence except as a pasture for cattle brought in to feed the voracious miners.

Within two years of the initial discovery, the geographic configuration of Vila Rica had been defined.  Tripuí marked the western-most point and Padre Faria the eastern.  Between them was a trail, later to be the Rua Direita, which ran through Ouro Preto and Antonio Dias. 

In short order, other strikes were made in the vicinity of this core.  Francisco Bueno da Silva, cousin of Bartolomeu Bueno de Siqueira, probably during 1698

climb[ed] the mountain, called today the Morro de Vila Rica..., mother and source from which flows these rich streams already discovered, and turning westward...discovered the stream called Ouro Bueno and [then] that of Rio das Pedras [both] with gold of extremely good quality.

In his travels Silva had unknowingly crossed the richest gold bearing area in the region and probably in all of Minas Gerais.  But the major discovery on the Morro de Vila Rica was made in 1700 by Tomás Lopes de Camargo.  The various settlements which developed on the mountain were seen as part of the town and were completely integrated into its economy and social and political life.

Further out from the original core of four settlements would be a number of communities which also would come within the municipal boundaries of Vila Rica.  Two, Itatiaia and Ouro Branco were settled very early.  Itatiaia, Tupi for light colored gold, was probably founded in 1698.  It is located about thirteen kilometers to the southwest of Vila Rica.  Like Itatiaia, Ouro Branco was on the path taken by the bandeiras approaching Ouro Preto and Antonio Dias.  It is eighteen kilometers southwest of Ouro Preto.

Congonhas, twenty-three kilometers to the southwest, was the westernmost settlement within the future municipality of Vila Rica.  The earliest reference to this settlement is found in a land grant, sesmaria, made to Captain Domingos Martins Pacheco in 1711, which identifies Congonhas as his residence since 1704.  One contemporary reported that Congonhas was one of the earliest discoveries made in Minas Gerais.  This settlement was fortunate to have good farmland as well as gold.  Late in the eighteenth century it would also become a major religious pilgrimage center - a status it still holds.

To the northwest of Ouro Preto were located three important settlements.  São Bartolomeu, about eight kilometers north-northwest of Ouro Preto, was founded by Dionisio da Costa, a native of São Vicente.  Five kilometers west of São Bartolomeu, Santo Antonio do Campo, later known as Casa Branca, would be founded.  Its founder is not known.  Twelve kilometers northwest of Ouro Preto was Nossa Senhora de Nazareth dos Campos de Minas or Cachoeira do Campo.  It was made a parish in 1709 indicating an early and substantial settlement.

These three settlements evolved in a similar fashion.  While each had some alluvial gold deposits, these were soon exhausted and the areas became agricultural and pastoral producers of great importance to the urban marketplace. 

Itabira do Campo, later Itaubira and then Itabirito, was the most distant of the settlements, about thirty kilometers northwest of Ouro Preto.  This was a major gold field which would produce wealth copiously into the nineteenth century.

These, Itatiaia, Ouro Branco, Congonhas, São Bartolomeu, Casa Branca, Cachoeira and Itaubira, were the major settlements within the municipal jurisdiction of Vila Rica.  Within a very short period, the geographic configuration of the region had been defined.  Besides being politically subordinate to Vila Rica, they were all involved in a symbiotic relationship with the urban core.  Many members of the elite would come to own property in both town and country, thereby reinforcing this link.  Also many of these communities played an essential role in producing food to be consumed in town.

The Gold Rush Is On

The early settlers flooded into the mountains of the interior, attracted by the stories of fantastic wealth which no doubt were exaggerated each time they were repeated.  Reports circulated of the discovery of a single gold nugget weighing over 150 oitavas, (1 1/2 pounds troy), and of streams from which three arrobas were extracted in one month.  The paulistas defined a "good" stream as one which yielded two oitavas of gold in each panning-the equivalent of a daily wage for a skilled artisan.

The Italian Jesuit Joao Antonio Andreoni writing under the name Andre Antonio Antonil reported that within fifteen years after the first discovery, thirty thousand people were working in the mining zones.  Another contemporaneous account put the population of the region at 50,000 in 1705.   Still another contemporary described this rush in graphic terms:

Each year many Portuguese and foreigners come in the fleets to go to the mines.  From the cities, towns, suburbs, and backlands of Brazil go whites, pardos, blacks, and Indians....The mixture includes people from all walks of life: men and women, young and old, poor and rich, nobles and plebeians, laymen and clerics, and religious of all institutions, many of
whom do not have monasteries or houses in Brazil.

During these early years, the rush was slowed although hardly stopped by the difficulties of travel and by several famines.  The trip was very long: forty days from Rio de Janeiro and sixty from São Paulo and arrival did not spell the end of the problems for the weary traveller.  As often happens in such situations, there was not enough food and what was available came at exorbitant prices.  A contemporary document recorded some of these prices and in the process revealed something of the early mineiro cuisine:

1 alqueire (about 14 quarts) of corn grain... 20 oitavas

1 alqueire of beans.................................... 30 oitavas

1 small plate of salt ....................................  8 oitavas

1 chicken ................................................. 12 oitavas

1 little dog or cat ...................................... 32 oitavas

The result was extreme suffering as "many died of hunger without recourse, and there were those who killed their companions in order to take a grain of corn from them."  Governor Artur de Sá e Menezes reported that "necessity reached such a point that they ate the most unclean animals and lacking [even] these to sustain life, they ran into the woods with their slaves to live on the fruits of the forest...."

The first major famine occurred in 1698-1699, and it was quickly followed by another in 1700-1701.  Prices during this second famine doubled those of the earlier one.  Many gold-struck prospectors left the mining zones to await the harvest season.

            The problem for those who left was that their claims were deemed abandoned and could be taken over by others.  This appears to have happened to Tomé de Camargo Pimentel, a member of the São Paulo elite and a royal official.  Pimentel lost his claim to the Portuguese-born Pascoal da Silva Guimarães.  The extent of Pimentel's lost claim on the Morro de Vila Rica is clear from the fact that, by 1711, Guimarães has some 300 slaves working the claim.   The famines and consequent claim jumping added to the chaos and violence of the first years after the discovery.

But the difficulties in the mining zone extended far beyond these.  The gold strikes had been by individuals beyond the reach of royal authority.  The first royal official who entered the area, Rodrigo de Castelo Branco, had been assassinated.  If the crown was to get maximum profit from the discovery of gold, law and order had to be established and an atmosphere created in which the royal taxes could be collected. 

Immediately after the discovery, royal power was entrusted to the chief supervisor of mining claim, guarda-mor geral.  This official had responsibility for distributing mining claims as well as very limited judicial powers for resolving disputes over claims, and, very probably, over criminal matters.  This was a tentative and largely inadequate response to the magnitude of confusion which reigned in the mining zone.

 

Imposing Royal Order and Control

Part of the problem was that the crown was not made aware of the full extent of the discoveries until 1699 and then it would became paralysed by an internal debate over how best to exploit the discoveries.  The governor of Rio de Janeiro, in whose jurisdiction the discoveries were, was also responsible for the defense of southern Brazil and this distraction kept him from personally visiting the mining area until 1699 - four years after the news of the strikes had been reported.  Governor Menezes would spend most of 1699-1701 in the mining zone and only after that visit did the extent of the gold fields begin to become clear in Lisbon.

            The motivation driving royal policy can be seen in Menezes' creation of a series of tax collecting offices and staffing them with paulistas.  The problem was, of course, that these positions assumed that law and order existed and that people would quietly pay their taxes.  Nothing was further from the truth.  The miners proved from the beginning to be unruly and disrespectful of royal authority as wielded by appointed officials.

Menezes returned to the coast on orders from the crown that "he should consider more the defense and conservation of [Rio de Janeiro] which is of the foremost importance, than the convenience which might accrue from the increase of the royal fifth."  No governor would re-enter the mining district until 1709.  This left authority in the hands of the superintendent, a position created by the Portuguese crown in an effort to centralize administrative authority. 

Under the superintendent, Dr. José Vas Pinto, militia units began to be organized and officers appointed.  It appears that the first officer named for the Ouro Preto district was Felix de Gusmão Mendonça e Bueno, a native of Rio de Janeiro.  On December 1, 1703, he was named sargento-mor da ordenança das Minas.   The capitão-mor, captain-major, of the Ouro Preto district was named in 1706.  He was Francisco do Amaral Gurgel.  His standing orders, regimento, demonstrated the importance of the militia structure as a force for the imposition of law and order.  The captain-major, beside his military role, was given judicial and police functions, authorized to collect the royal fifth and to supervise the guardas-mores.

Another institutional support for the imposition of order in these early years was the Catholic church which, ever attentive to opportunity, acted more quickly to respond to the gold discoveries than did the state.  The initial question was whether the district fell under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Bahia or the bishop of Rio de Janeiro.  When the first ecclesiastical visitor-general from Rio de Janeiro arrived in the district, he found a representative from Bahia already there.  Despite precedence, through argument and threat the representative from Rio de Janeiro carried the day and most, although not all, of the mining district would become a part of the diocese of Rio de Janeiro until a bishopric was created in the mining region in 1745.   With territorial jurisdiction resolved, the bishop, Frei Francisco de São Jerónimo, sent out addition inspectors in 1701 and then again in 1703, initiating a practice which lasted throughout the eighteenth century.

Bishop São Jerónimo also moved to regularize internal church organization.  Initially he established a flexible way of dealing with the transitory nature of many of the mining camps.  He sent

sufficient priests so that divided among the [camps] an adequate distance apart, they should set up their portable altars and administer the sacraments to the [residents, treating them] as Parishioners,...and the residents [were to] contribute to the just maintenance of the priests and when some of them moved from one stream to another they should tear down the altars.

This was, however, only a temporary solution to the problem of dealing with the peripatetic miners.  By 1705 a permanent solution had been found in the creation of regular parishes.  In that year, Father Francisco de Castro was named as the parish priest of Ouro Preto.  The first references to the parish of Antonio Dias date from 1707 and indicate that Father Marcelo Pinto Ribeiro was the parish priest.  Doubtlessly, these mining camps were selected as the seats of the parishes because of their size and importance.

These two parishes met along a line which divided the Mountain or Morro of Santa Quitéria.  The parish of Ouro Preto included the camps and settlements of Ouro Preto, Caquende, Cabeças, the Arraial dos Paulistas, Passadez and Tripuí.  That of Antonio Dias included Antonio Dias, another Arraial dos Paulistas, Padre Faria, many of the settlements on the Morro de Vila Rica, and Bom Sucesso. 

These two parishes constituted the future town of Vila Rica.  Vila Rica was, from its incorporation, a union of two separate communities.  This led to conflict and competition between the two, which, with wildly varying degrees of intensity, has continued to the present day.

Prior to 1709, the church had managed to regularize its control over the mining district through the imposition of parishes and the use of inspectors.  The state lagged behind as it sought to resolve internal divisions over how to deal with the discoveries.  The result was a political vacuum which the unruly miners had no difficulty filling.  It was the religious jurisdiction which left its imprint on the spatial structure of Vila Rica on the eve of the War of the Emboabas.  But it would be the response to the political vacuum which would force the Crown into firmer measures to impose its authority.

Often cited as an early manifestation of nationalist fervor, a precursor of independence, the Wars of the Emboabas were a relatively bloodless conflict involving a mixture of issues none of which can be called nationalist, either incipient or full-blown.  The ramifications of the fighting, however, far exceeded the level of the fighting.  Not only did the conflict force royal authorities to create a more coherent administrative structure for the mining district but it shaped the future of the district both in terms of who would profit from the riches to be found and the very form which development would take.

 Essentially, the conflict was between two differing views of the way in which the gold fields were to developed.  A view which can be called "closed" was articulated by the paulistas who when faced by a common enemy forgot their own differences.  This view was stated clearly by the Sao Paulo municipal council, on April 16, 1700:

[We] petition the Captain‑General Artur de Sá e Menezes, Governor of the fortress of Rio de Janeiro and the rest of the division that the lands of the territory of Minas Gerais das Cataguazes as well as the plains, with arable lands, by right belong to the Paulistas in that they own them by grants of His Majesty since it was they who conquered the said lands and are the discoverers of the gold mines which they presently work....They did this at the cost of their lives and fortunes, without expense to the royal treasury and it would be unjust to grant the said lands to the residents of Rio de Janeiro who never took part in the conquests or in the discovery.

The paulistas felt that the 1694 grant of concessions buttressed by Crown efforts to limit access roads, to enforce the use of passports, and the outlawing of the migration of some occupational groups showed royal support for their view.

Equally important, the paulistas were in actual control of most of the mining camps, even Caeté which had been founded by Bahians.  This de facto control was given royal blessing by the appointment of many paulistas to administrative posts.  Governor Menezes' appointments for the Rio das Velhas area, north of Vila Rica, in April, 1701 are typical.  Of the four officials named to this area, which was the first to be inundated by non‑paulistas, two were born in Sao Paulo and a third was a Portuguese who had lived in São Paulo for many years.  The place of birth of the fourth is not known.  In combination with paulista guardas‑mores, these officials were in a position to maintain the hegemony of their compatriots, especially given the absence of disinterested royal officials.

This power and feeling of precedence quickly produced a haughty attitude on the part of the paulistas.  João Alvares de Oliveira, a Portuguese-born resident of Rio das Mortes, later noted, for example, the difficulty that the outsiders, or emboabas as non-paulistas were called, had in forming their own settlements.  More shattering was the general attitude of the paulistas -- "valuing the life of an emboaba as much as that of a dog."  The more formal Portuguese also objected to being referred to in the informal second person singular, vos, "as though they were slaves or inferiors."     

The 'open' or emboaba position was best stated by one of their leaders, Bento do Amaral Coutinho, a native of Rio de Janeiro and descended from a noble family from Portugal.  In a letter to the governor dated January 16, 1709 from "Arraial Ouro Preto", Coutinho emphasized the provocations of the paulistas and described the emboaba response as defensive, using such emotionally charged terms as "oppressed" and "liberty".  The emboaba goal was liberty from the paulistas and not from the king who would not tolerate such oppression if he but knew the truth.  While pledging his allegiance to the king, Coutinho promised to continue defending the emboaba cause.

Predictably the crown vacillated in the face of the entreaties made by these opposite attitudes especially because this conflict raised profound issues within Portuguese ruling circles over the appropriate way to respond to the emerging situation.  Viceroy Joao de Lencastre identified these issues as the necessity of maintaining a small population in order to avoid rebellions and in order to suppress them, if they occurred, more easily.  Furthermore, freedom of access would increase gold production causing the disruption of the Brazilian economy, especially hurting the sugar and tobacco industries of the Northeast by drawing away slaves and increasing, generally, the price of slaves.  Lencastre wished to limit access to "virtuous men with some capital, businessmen, merchants, or their agents."  These were views whose general tenor were echoed by the paulistas who saw themselves as deserving of the favor of the king.

However, this similarity of views was coincidental. Local royal officials were not always sympathetic to the paulista cause.  In 1704, Superintendent José Vaz Pinto urged that the prerogatives granted to the paulistas be rescinded since they encouraged new discoveries to the detriment of the full exploitation of the old ones.  Pinto favored more intensive working of a few sites over the paulista practice of extracting the easiest alluvial gold and leaving the subsoil deposits untouched.  Vaz Pinto's suggestions were approved by the Overseas Council.   Probably under paulista pressure, however, the concessions were never revoked and Vaz Pinto himself was forced to leave Minas Gerais after a conflict with several important paulistas.

This view of the limited exploitation of the gold fields was based on a perception that the fundamental nature of economies was agricultural.  Thus the limited manpower resources of Portugal were not to be driven by discoveries, whether ephemeral or not, of gold.  This was a view not limited to the early years of the century. They can be found throughout the eighteenth century.  In 1788, for example, the instructions issued to Governor Visconde de Barbacena emphasized that the royal interests were served by encouraging both mining and agriculture.   Throughout the century, there was an undercurrent of concern that mining merely deflected settlers from the real basis of wealth which was agricultural.  A pamphlet written late in the century summarized the list of criticisms of unlimited gold exploitation.  The anonymous author emphasized the centrality of agriculture, noting that "man can live without gold and even without clothes, witness the Indians of Brazil, but as no one can live without food, the Nation requires Agriculture."   The author described gold not as a necessity but as a means of facilitating trade.  It was agricultural production and not gold which was the mainstay of international trade.

But regardless of the views of the royal authorities, the decision to limit gold production in order to protect royal rights and further agricultural interests was not realistically in their hands.  The news of the discoveries provoked a gold rush which easily overcame the desires of royal advisors.

Constructing a Periodization for the 18th Century

This gold rush constitutes the beginning phase of this study - a study which carries the history of Vila Rica and its environs through to the years immediately after Brazil's independence.  But rather than adherent to a strictly chronological structure, I have chosen to build upon the economic history of the region.  It was gold which made this area attractive to Europeans and it is the economy which shapes the lives of its new residents.  In general terms the economic history of the region can be seen as comprising three distinct stages: expansion, stability, and decline.  Clearly there are dangers involved in such a definition but the advantages of using such a periodization as an analytical tool far outweigh the disadvantages.  Because of the importance of gold to the economic, social, and political life of the region, the fluctuation in gold production directly impacted the lives of the community and its residents.  Since much of the gold which dazzled the Portuguese monarchy was alluvial in nature, its rate of production was directly related to the number of workers available.  Gold production expanded rapidly, held rather steady, and then declined, slowly at first and then precipitously.  These changes occurred within the course of the eighteenth century.  Vila Rica, thusly, provides a unique case wherein economic, social, cultural and political changes occurred within three distinct periods of time.

The indicators most useful in defining the periodization being utilized are primarily economic and secondarily political.  The economic factors have the clearest impact on society; the political ones are less causal and more symbolic in their role.  Because of the prevalence of smuggling, it is impossible to obtain good information on gold production and indirect measures of economic activity must be used.  Among those which are available are taxes on gold production, taxes on imports into the mining region, and the income derived from farming out contracts for the collection of certain taxes.  In addition, the number of businesses in Vila Rica and the number of slaves is a useful indicator of the state of the economy. 

   The three separate phases of the history of eighteenth century Vila Rica are very distinct.  The first was the period of economic expansion. It saw the discovery of gold followed by the social chaos of the mining camps and conflicts over who was to exploit these discoveries.  As important, it was the period when royal authority was imposed on the unruly miners.  In little more than a quarter century, Vila Rica went from mining camp to the capital of the colony and the residence of the royal governor.   Socially, a new society and a new political elite were formed.  This phase covered the period from 1695 to 1726. 

The second phase covers the period approximately from 1726 to 1753.  This was the phase of economic stability.  Gold production had began to decline only slowly and the economy was generally stable.  The collection of the tax on gold production called the quinto, royal fifth, remained relatively constant with a slight decline after 1745 and a somewhat more precipitous decline after 1751.   Royal authority was not to be challenged although there were some disputes between the town council and the royal judge over jurisdictional issues.  The local elite responded to the curtailment of the boom phase by more precisely defining its composition and controlling entrance into its ranks through a series of mechanisms.  Social conflicts, especially those involving the slave population, increased in ferocity. 

The final phase, 1754 to 1804, witnessed the rapid decline of the economy and increasing conflicts over the resources still available.  These conflicts culminated in the Inconfidencia Mineira, one of the first efforts at independence by Brazilians. But equally importantly it saw the final step in the formation of comparatively rigid social classes with limited opportunity for social mobility.

Those indicators most useful to our understanding of the general economic situation of the mining district are those related to taxes and slaves.  Serial data reflecting the economic vitality of the region is extraordinarily difficult to amass.  It is, however, still possible to provide sufficient data to define the cyclical nature of gold mining.  Since most of the taxes were farmed out to individuals by auction, the data on taxes, of course, are only a measure of the perception of the ability to pay and not an accurate or immediate measure of production.  In the case of Minas Gerais this problem is further complicated by the changes in tax systems during Brazil's Golden Age.

Initially the royal fifth was paid on all gold with control posts on all major roads to insure that payment had been made.  This meant effectively that taxes were paid on the gold which left the mining district.  Then, from 1714 to 1725, the residents were required to pay a fixed amount and all gold in circulation was considered legal.  From 1725 to 1735, the royal fifth was paid at new mints which were established for this purpose.  From 1735 to 1751, the tax was levied on slaves and businesses.  After 1751, the fifth was again collected at the mint.        

    Thus taxes are but a very general indicator of prosperity.  Even so, this information permits an overall view which serves to provide a context.  During the years from 1700 to 1713, the royal fifth averaged slightly less than one arroba a year. From 1715 to 1735, the average was somewhat less than 30 arrobas.  From 1735 to 1751 it jumped to 130 arrobas, followed by a decline to only an average of 89.8 arrobas during the years from 1751 to 1777. During this last phase the highest taxes paid were in 1753.

Other taxes provide a similar perspective of the general economic climate in the mining district despite some specific differences.  Thus the tithe, dizimos, which was collected by the royal government through tax farmers, saw a steady increase in the years between 1704 and 1735, a generally steady phase between 1735 and 1752, and then a decline after that.

Import duties on goods and slaves entering the mining district also provide a measure of the state of the economy.  Income from import duties increased from 1718 to 1756 and then held relatively constant to 1765.  After 1765 there was a rapid decline.  The collection station on the main road supplying Vila Rica as well as other areas showed a rapid increase in income to 1724 followed by a period of gradual growth whose highest point was reached 1748‑1750; revenue then held relatively constant to 1756.  After 1756 the decline was precipitous.

The combination of these data demonstrates that the economic decline of Minas Gerais began at some point in the 1750s.  But this information is too general to permit an analysis of Vila Rica.  Fortunately there is some information which does permit a more precise definition of the downturn in the local economy.  First the regional situation can be shown through an examination of the size of the slave population of the municipality of Vila Rica.  In the period from 1717 to 1720, the slave population increased from 6,271 to 7,653.  By 1735, it had jumped to 20,683.  The slave population increased slowly to 21,673 in 1743 and then began a very gradual decline until 1749 when it had dropped to 16,893.   By the end of the colonial period the slave population had dropped even further to 5,331.   The changes in the number of slaves probably reflects very well the changes in gold production.

But perhaps an even better indicator of the economic vitality of the town itself is the number of stores and shops within its limits.  In 1718, there had been 312 stores and shops.  In 1753, the number had increased 436; in 1754, there number had declined to 402, and in 1755 to 376. Unfortunately, information on the years before 1753 is not available on a systematic basis.  It would appear, however, that the downturn began at the mid point of the century. Because this information is the most specific in nature, 1753 has been used as the highpoint of the vilarican economy.

    These three phases constitute the chronological and thematic structure of this study of the social history of Vila Rica.  They form its outline.  But they also constitute a reality which impacted on the very nature of the community.  It is hard to explore all the effects which the nature of the economy and its status had on the lives of vilaricans.  Some of the effects are more apparent than others.  But the broad shape of these changes is easier to discern.

It was gold which attracted thousands of people from Portugal, São Paulo, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and ultimately all parts of Brazil.  It was gold which sustained the merchant class which would rise to prominence.  It was gold which paid for the beautiful art and architecture which adorned the city.  It was gold which paid for the thousands of slaves brought from Africa to work the mines and then secondarily to till the soil and then to work in the towns.  And it was gold which produced conflict.