Germans
by Giralda Seyferth

The first group of German immigrants arrived in Brazil shortly after the country became independent, as part of a settlement programme devised by the Brazilian Government to develop agriculture and ensure settlement in the southern tip of the country. The first German community in Brazil was founded at São Leopoldo in Rio Grande do Sul State in 1824. It was established on public property in the Sinos River valley. Previous attempts to establish colonies of German immigrants in the Northeast region had failed. The year 1824 thus marks the beginning of the influx of immigrants hailing from several German states. Over a period of little more than 100 years, roughly 250,000 German immigrants arrived in Brazil. There was a steady trickle of them entering the country every year. German immigration peaked in the 1920s at the height of the social and economic crisis in the Weimar Republic.

Throughout the main immigration period (1824 to 1937), German immigrants were constantly involved as pioneers in rolling back the agricultural frontier - a role shared with other European immigrants, especially Italians - which led to the formation of a class of peasant smallholders. The Germans and their descendants helped to occupy public lands in the three southernmost states of Brazil by founding a wealth of small farming communities concentrated in the valleys of the rivers Sinos, Jacuí, Taquari, Caí and Itajaí, in the northwest of Santa Catarina State, in the northern plateau of Rio Grande do Sul stretching to the River Uruguay and the Paraná plateau. The best-known settlements are those that have developed economically through a process of industrialization (e.g. Blumenau, Joinville and Brusque in Santa Catarina, São Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo and Ijuí in Rio Grande do Sul). Groups of German immigrants also settled and founded communities in the States of Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and São Paulo, none of which made much headway. On the other hand, some immigrants - principally in the aftermath of the First World War - moved to big cities in the region such as Porto Alegre, Curitiba and São Paulo.

The concentration of German immigrants in the southern region coupled with the fact that they maintained their language and cultural traditions, besides establishing a Germanized press, schooling system and a clutch of associations, paved the way for the emergence of a Teuto-Brazilian ethnic identity. The immigrants and their offspring thus generated a sense of belonging, first and foremost, to an ethnic group characterized by its German origin. This attitude led to a long series of conflicts with the rest of Brazilian society culminating in the nationalization campaign sponsored by Getúlio Vargas' Estado Novo régime (1937-1945) to speed up the process of assimilation. The ideals underpinning the German community's sense of ethnic identity, though toned down somewhat, did not entirely fade after World War II. Indeed, it is still perceptible in the areas predominantly settled by Germans in Brazil.

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