Brazilian Gold Rush (1690s): The Discovery of Minas Gerais Gold

The Brazilian gold rush began in the 1690s, when explorers from São Paulo found rich deposits of gold in the mountainous interior that became known as Minas Gerais. It was the first great gold rush of the Americas. Within a few decades it had drawn hundreds of thousands of migrants, vastly enlarged the transatlantic slave trade to Brazil and made Portugal, for a time, one of the richest monarchies in Europe.

Background

For two centuries after Pedro Álvares Cabral’s landing in 1500, colonial Brazil was mostly a coastal society built on sugar plantations in the northeast. The Portuguese crown had long hoped for silver or gold like that found in Spanish America, but searches came to little.

The men who finally found it were the bandeirantes of São Paulo. These were armed expeditions, often of mixed Portuguese and Indigenous descent, that pushed deep into the interior to capture Indigenous people as slaves and to prospect for precious metals. By the late 17th century, with the sugar economy in decline, the crown actively encouraged their searches.

The discoveries

The exact sequence of the first finds is debated, but by about 1693–1695 paulista expeditions had found alluvial gold, metal washed into streams and riverbeds, in the region of the Rio das Velhas and the hills to the south. Antônio Rodrigues Arzão is often credited with an early discovery around 1693. In about 1698 a party linked to Antônio Dias found especially rich gold near the black-crusted rocks that gave Ouro Preto (“black gold”) its name.

News spread fast. Mining camps grew up along the rivers, and towns such as Sabará, Mariana and Vila Rica (later Ouro Preto) emerged within two decades. In the 1720s diamonds were also discovered near Tijuco, now Diamantina, and the crown made the diamond district a closely guarded royal monopoly.

The rush

People poured in from the coast, from the sugar zones and from Portugal itself. Estimates suggest that several hundred thousand Portuguese emigrated to Brazil in the 18th century, perhaps 400,000 to 600,000 in total, enough to worry the crown about depopulation at home. Food shortages and famine struck the early camps, where prices soared.

Rivalry between the original paulista discoverers and the newcomers, whom they called emboabas, erupted in the War of the Emboabas of 1707–1709. The newcomers won, and the crown moved to assert direct control. It created the captaincy of São Paulo and Minas do Ouro in 1709 and a separate captaincy of Minas Gerais in 1720, with Vila Rica as its capital.

Enslaved labour

The gold economy rested on slavery. Enslaved Africans did most of the panning, river diversion and later hillside mining, often in harsh and dangerous conditions. Demand from the mines pushed up the number of people shipped across the Atlantic to Brazil, especially from West Central Africa and the Bight of Benin, and drew enslaved people away from the sugar plantations. By the mid-18th century enslaved people made up a large share of the population of Minas Gerais.

Some enslaved miners were able to buy their freedom, and free people of colour became a significant part of mining society. Runaways also formed quilombos, communities of escaped slaves, in the hills, continuing a tradition seen earlier at Quilombo dos Palmares.

Effects on Portugal and Britain

The crown claimed a fifth of all gold, the quinto, and experimented with different collection methods, including smelting houses and head taxes on enslaved workers. Much gold was nonetheless smuggled. The wealth that did reach Lisbon funded the lavish court of John V and projects such as the vast palace-convent of Mafra.

Much of the gold did not stay in Portugal. Under the Methuen Treaty of 1703, Portugal imported British woollen cloth in exchange for favourable terms for its wine, and it paid for many of its imports in gold. Large quantities of Brazilian gold therefore flowed to London, strengthening Britain’s coinage and credit in the 18th century.

The rush also moved Brazil’s centre of gravity south. In 1763 the colonial capital was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, the main port for the mining region. After about 1760 output declined as easily worked deposits ran out, and rising tax demands contributed to the Inconfidência Mineira, a conspiracy against Portuguese rule in Minas Gerais that was discovered in 1789. A few decades earlier, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 had shown how dependent Portugal had become on colonial revenue for its rebuilding.

Timeline

• c. 1693–1695: Paulista expeditions find alluvial gold in the interior of Brazil.
• c. 1698: Rich deposits are found at Ouro Preto.
• 1703: The Methuen Treaty links Portuguese and British trade.
• 1707–1709: The War of the Emboabas between paulistas and newcomers.
• 1711: Vila Rica (Ouro Preto) gains the status of a town.
• 1720: Minas Gerais becomes a separate captaincy.
• 1720s: Diamonds are discovered near Tijuco (Diamantina).
• 1763: The colonial capital moves from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro.

Why it matters

The Minas Gerais gold rush reshaped Brazil, opening its interior, enlarging its population and deepening its reliance on slavery. Its wealth helped finance Portugal and, indirectly, Britain’s rise as a financial power. Its baroque churches, especially those of Ouro Preto, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, remain its most visible legacy.