Peopling for Profit in Imperial Brazil: Directed Migrations and the Business of Nineteenth-Century Colonization

by José Juan Pérez Meléndez

Overview

Peopling for Profit provides a comprehensive history of migration to nineteenth-century imperial Brazil. Rather than focus on Brazilian slavery or the mass immigration of the end of the century, José Juan Pérez Meléndez examines the orchestrated efforts of migrant recruitment, transport to, and settlement in post-independence Brazil. The book explores Brazil's connections to global colonization drives and migratory movements, unveiling how the Brazilian Empire's engagement with privately run colonization models from overseas crucially informed the domestic sphere. It further reveals that the rise of a for-profit colonization model indelibly shaped Brazilian peopling processes and governance by creating a feedback loop between migration management and government formation. Pérez Meléndez sheds new light on how directed migrations and the business of colonization shaped Brazilian demography as well as enduring social, racial, and class inequalities. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009281850
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/07/2025
Series:	Cambridge Latin American Studies , #132
Pages:	426
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

José Juan Pérez Meléndez is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean who specializes in nineteenth-century Brazil and world history. He serves as Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction; What is Colonization?; Part I. Colonization's Statecraft: 1. Peopling as strategy: appeasement and preemption in the Joanine court; 2. Marching to the homestead: colonization in the crosshairs of the long post-independence; Part II. Colonization Companies and the Colono Trade: 3. Shareholder oligarchies: the first homegrown companies; 4. Palatial diplomacy: colonization at the hand of the emperor's cabal; 5. Brazil's great transformation; Part III. Disentangling Companies and State: 6. Cabinets and companies: testing the limits of the state; 7. The dregs of war: emigrant sweeps at a time of global turmoil; 8. Coolies and scandals: skullduggery, bankruptcy, and the coolie question after the free womb law; Part IV. Peopling the Country of the Future: 10. At the doorstep of mass migrations; Conclusion: the afterlives of a nineteenth-century paradigm; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

‘This is a critical and multi-dimensional study of colonization in the nineteenth century, appearing at a time of renewed mass immigration. Of impressive breadth and nuance, Pérez Meléndez situates regional developments in global terms.’ Celso Thomas Castilho, Vanderbilt University

‘Peopling for Profit exposes the business behind colonization in the foundational years of state-building, economic and technological transformations and attacks on the slave trade and slavery. This masterly researched and gracefully written book reshapes our understanding of the politics and economics behind the massive influx of Europeans in nineteenth-century Brazil, a pivotal change that shapes contemporary Brazil as much as the ending of the transatlantic slave trade and slave emancipation.’ Beatriz Mamigonian, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil

‘A masterly inquiry into the interplay of international migration, the commerce of colonization, and state policy in a context of slavery. It offers an innovative take on the kaleidoscopic peopling of Brazil and broader insights that can take the study of settler colonialism beyond its present Anglocentric confines.’ José C. Moya, Barnard College, Columbia University

‘Pérez Meléndez has marshalled a remarkable amount of evidence to demonstrate that politically connected members of the emerging Brazilian elite built fortunes from a wide variety of colonization schemes in the nineteenth century. Going a step further, he shows how the profit motive shaped ‘directed migration,’ often outweighing other factors to which historians have given much greater attention, thereby challenging many of our longstanding assumptions about postcolonial nation-building projects.’ Barbara Weinstein, New York University

‘… well-written and thoroughly researched … This book is a gem for 'Brazilianists' and scholars of colonization in North America.’ Carlos Haag, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

‘In this well-researched and clearly written book, [the author] offers well supported, revisionist analyses about the significance of voluntary migration to Brazil in the nineteenth century. … Peopling for Profit promises to be an essential reference work for advanced students and scholars in the field of imperial Brazil and recommended reading for those interested in the dynamics of global migration.’ Judy Bieber, Hispanic American Historical Review

From the Publisher