The citizens of the São Paulo state , Paulistas, never
tire of saying that their state is Brazil's economic powerhouse,
and they produce a mountain of statistics to sustain the boast. The
state's forty million inhabitants represent about a quarter of
Brazil's total population, yet the state contributes forty percent
of the federal tax revenues, and consumes sixty percent of the
country's industrial energy to produce two-thirds of its industrial
output. A highly capitalized agricultural sector produces eighty
percent of Brazil's oranges, half of its sugar, forty percent of
its chickens and eggs, and a fifth of its coffee. Yet while
Paulistas crow that without their muscle Brazil's economy would
collapse, other Brazilians feel that São Paulo has developed at
their expense. The state, it is argued, attracts capital away from
the other regions, which are basically seen as sources of cheap
labour and as guaranteed markets for São Paulo's products.
This economic pre-eminence is a relatively recent phenomenon. In
1507, São Vicente was founded on the coast near present-day
Santos , the second-oldest Portuguese settlement in Brazil,
but for over three hundred years the area comprising today's state
of São Paulo remained a backwater. The inhabitants were a hardy
people, of mixed Portuguese and Indian origin, from whom - in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - emerged the
bandeirantes : frontiersmen who roamed far into the South
American interior to secure the borders of the Portuguese Empire
against Spanish encroachment, capturing Indian slaves and seeking
out precious metals and gems as they went.
Not until the mid-nineteenth century did São Paulo become rich.
Cotton production received a boost with the arrival of Confederate
refugees in the late 1860s, who settled between Americana
and Santa Bárbara d'Oeste , about 140km from the then small
town of São Paulo itself. But after disappointing results
with cotton, most of these plantation owners switched their
attentions to coffee and, by the end of the century, the state had
become firmly established as the world's foremost producer of the
crop. During the same period, Brazil abolished slavery and the
plantation owners recruited European and Japanese immigrants to
expand production. Riding the wave of the coffee boom, British and
other foreign companies took the opportunity to invest in port
facilities, rail lines, power and water supplies, while textile and
other new industries emerged, too. Within a few decades, the town
of São Paulo became one of South America's greatest commercial and
cultural centres, sliding from a small town into a vast
metropolitan sprawl.
If the thought of staying in the city of São Paulo doesn't
particularly appeal to you, the state does have other attractions.
Though crowded in the summer, the beaches north of Santos,
especially on Ilhabela , and around Ubatuba , rival
Rio's best, while those to the south - near Iguape and
Cananéia - remain relatively unspoiled. Inland , the
state is dominated by agribusiness, with seemingly endless fields
of cattle pasture, sugar cane, oranges and soya interspersed with
anonymous towns where the agricultural produce is processed. To
escape scorching summer temperatures - or for the novelty in
tropical Brazil of a winter chill - make for Campos do
Jordão , São Paulo's main mountain resort.