"A factory for Europe"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Caio Prado, "The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil" (U. of Cal. 1967):

"The actual situation that existed under the colonial regime corresponded
effectively to the legal situation; this is easy to understand. The
population at the end of Brazil's colonial history was still made up of
that same heterogeneous aggregate: On the one hand, there was a small
minority of white, or quasi-white, colonists; they were true promoters, in
collusion with the mother country, of colonization and owners of the land
and all its wealth. On the other hand, there was the great mass of the
population, slaves, or little better than slaves, who were simply the
working machines with no other role in the system. Thus, by the very nature
of such a structure, Brazil could not have been other than what it had been
hitherto--a factory for Europe, a mere supplier of tropical products for
her trade."

Louis Proyect

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