Brazil and Her People of To-day: An Account of the Customs, Characteristics, Amusements, History and Advancement of the Brazilians, and the Development and Resources of Their CountryWinter, Nevin O. (Nevin Otto)
History
Brazil and Her People of To-day: An Account of the Customs, Characteristics, Amusements, History and Advancement of the Brazilians, and the Development and Resources of Their Country
Winter, Nevin O. (Nevin Otto)
Brazil
The governments of several different states are endeavouring to
induce immigrants to come in. The efforts of São Paulo have been most
successful, and their methods are copied by other states. This state
maintains a splendid immigration office in the city of São Paulo, which
is strictly up to date. The immigrants upon landing at Santos are taken
by special train to this station, and here they are kept for a week or
ten days at government expense. During this time they are housed in
excellent quarters, given good food, and kept under the supervision of
doctors. Many have had their entire expenses from their homes paid by
the government. In these buildings are offices where immigrants are
secured employment on the various _fazendas_. A record is kept of each
_fazendero_ to see if he carries out his contracts. Notices are posted up
where labour is wanted on _fazendas_ or railroads. Written contracts are
made and signed between employer and employee in legal form. The wages
generally received are from $.90 to $1.25 per day for such labourers.
Interpreters are kept who are able to converse in the many languages that
will be required. The labourer is then forwarded to his destination in
the interior at government expense. It is far different from the way they
are received in our own land, and I only wish that a few hundred thousand
of those seeking the shores of the United States each year would turn
their steps down this way. They would be better off there than they are
in our own great cities.
When I visited this immigration station there were about nine hundred
immigrants there who had just been landed. Of this number four-fifths
were Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Russians, Poles, Austrians,
Hungarians and Italians. A few days later I saw a couple of hundred
more of the same varied nationalities landed at Santos, and loaded on a
special train for São Paulo. I always pity these poor immigrants who come
to a new country with no money, few clothes, many children, and nothing
else but a big hope of something, or faith in somebody, in their breast.
The total number of immigrants reaching all Brazil in the past year, the
excess over those leaving, would not exceed eighty thousand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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