Inequality In Brazil

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those that have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little” (Roosevelt, 1937). In countries that have an unequal distribution of wealth, the lower socio-economic class suffers and the wealthy flourish. Roosevelt is saying that a measure of a country is what they do to make up for this inequality, which in Brazil has not been much. Due to Brazil historically being run by elites, the current day economic pattern and its effect on the country shows that the elites hold the majority of the wealth within the country while the poor hold the minority of the wealth. This inequality leads to the unequal distribution of education, power, and health care.
Upon arriving, the Portuguese deemed the indigenous people in Brazil as having no apparent resources or skill sets (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2015, p. 624). This immediately created an idea of superior and inferior groups of people within the country. In an attempt to gain permanent control of Brazil, the Portuguese gave out land to people who could donate money to their new government in return for the pleasure of defending said land from foreign interest. (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2015, p. 624). Through this process the people within Brazil who had money, elites, were able to own land, thus giving them some power within the country. Meanwhile the people with little to no money were left with the land they had already owned with the lingering possibility that the government would take that from them in order to provide land to someone with money. Once the Portuguese had control of the land, they began cultivation in order to create capitol, thus allowing them to trade with other countries for goods. Upon discovering that they had all the land they needed, but they had no one to work the land, the Portuguese spent the next 300 years importing African slaves (3-4 million) to Brazil not only creating a larger black population than white but also the world’s first plantation export economy (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2015, p. 625). The profit created by the slaves went to the white elites who made
These minerals were discovered in the interior of Brazil, causing this to become the most populated area, later becoming the capital of the country. Through the trading of their goods, Brazil gained immense wealth. Although wealth is what the country was expecting, this caused all of Brazil’s goods to end up in European countries. This led the Portuguese to impose taxes, which in turn created an uprising in 1789 that was quickly stopped by the government who had control due to their wealth (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, 2015, p. 626). This newly found sense of national identity inspired Portugal to move their royal court to Brazil, making Brazil the official headquarters of the Portuguese empire. The King of Brazil, João VI eventually left the throne in Brazil in the hands of his son, Pedro I, making him the leader of Brazil’s independence movement. In September of 1822, Pedro declared Brazilian independence, writing an authoritarian constitution that contained a strong executive branch, giving the elitist government the majority of power within the country while relying heavily on British protection. (O’Neil, Fields, & Share, p.