Slave revolts in Brazil
The institution of slavery was essential to the export agriculture and mining industries in colonial Brazil, its major sources of revenue.[1] A gold and diamond boom in the interior of Brazil in the mid-eighteenth century precipitated a significant increase in the importation of African slaves.[12] However, due to the demands of the landowning class who depended on slave labor and whom was more powerful compared to in Spanish-America, this view was oftentimes not adhered to in colonial policy.[13] Jesuit Priest Padre Antonio Vieira's sermons reflect these views, suggesting that enslaving Indians who were not captured in this manner was a sin and that they should be paid a wage.[23] Although almost all the slave rebellions had been designed and executed through the quilombo community, the more preeminent threats they presented in the view of colonial officials included that they "endangered towns, disrupted production, and cut lines of communication of travel" as well as attracted those who were currently enslaved, thus threatening the institution of slavery itself.[24] Colonial officials viewed these as serious threats given Brazil's economic dependence on slaves and took measures to mobilized Indians and free blacks to destroy these settlements, re-enslaving or killing its inhabitants.Many weapons were confiscated from the house, such as: four hundred arrows, a bundle of rods to be used as bows, piles of rope, knives, and one shotgun.Reis argues that if you bring these numbers into today's times, with Salvador being 1.5 million, over twelve thousand people would be sentenced to some form of punishment.In 1778, José da Lisboa wrote, “Because of the obvious benefits accruing from male labor over female, there are always three times as many males as females among the slave population, which perpetuates the pattern of their failure to propagate as well as their failure to increase in number from generation to generation.”[30] Native born slaves populations was slightly higher women to men, 100:92, where as the Africans that were not born in Brazil were a little less 100:125, women to men.