Camargo and her associates have produced a valuable book on Brazilian political history. It is one of several oral history projects that Camargo and her staff at the Center for Research and Documentation of Contemporary History (CPDOC) have been publishing from its vast archival collection of taped interviews.
The work is an oral memoir of an important northeastern politician, poet, writer, journalist, and social critic. José Américo de Almeida personified his home state of Paraíba and the Northeast at large over six decades (from the 1920s to the 1970s). His son. General Reynaldo de Almeida, told the interviewers that his father was a “frustrated” politician who never felt that he had done enough. History will judge that José Américo was often a lone voice of reason and a courageous spokesman for his beloved Northeast, when many dared not speak out. Based on 8 interviews with the principal, 27 with his contemporary allies and foes, as well as with members of his family, the book is full of information, some new and some already known. The words of José Américo were transcribed without editing; hence, the book tells stories without a central thesis. It is a kind of story that a grandfather would tell his grandchildren.
José Américo tells us that Washington Luís denied the João Pessoa government much needed credit, while giving material support to the governor’s enemies in the backlands. We are told that Getúlio Vargas was a moody, introspective, and much reserved man. Once called in for a political discussion, José Américo was then completely ignored by the dictator as if he did not exist. In the final days of Vargas’s power (August 1954), José Américo, minister of public works for the second time, was a loner; his relations with Vargas’s advisers worsened as the president’s technocrats collided with the Paraiban politician on policy matters. In the end, José Américo became a firm advocate for Vargas’s renunciation of the presidency. He also tells us that it was not Eurico Dutra who insisted on abolishing the Brazilian Communist party; it was the congress.
Age contributes to faulty memory and, at times, lessens the ability to concentrate. For example, a congressional investigative committee on Francisco Julião’s Peasant Leagues interviewed José Américo in 1961, not 1964 as he remembers (p. 345). Asked if the politicians of the 1970s were about the same as those of his time, José Américo responds vaguely that “the Brazilian does not know how to judge; he judges badly, often with passion,” Finally, the Paraibano tells us that during his lifetime, there was only one honest election, in 1933 (p. 285).
The author of the second book is a career diplomat, who passionately seeks causes for the regional backwardness of the Northeast, or the “North” in the nineteenth-century lexicon. A persistent thesis in the book is that whatever progress the North/Northeast made came about in spite of the malaise of Brazilian politics. The book is divided into six chapters, ranging from interprovincial slave trade to refinery building to immigration, thus covering the major aspects of economic modernization of North Brazil. It draws principally on a thorough reading of parliamentary sources, particularly the anais of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, but not on the rich historical archives of the legislature. The book is much shaped and influenced by the materials used and hence its thrust is decidedly political.
From time to time. Melo presents new perspectives, while much of the book recasts existing views. He argues that the main reason for the failure of Brazil’s immigrant policies in the North was the racism of the government elite. This outlook also forced the south-central coffee planters to prefer European colonos to Brazilian freedmen (p. 92). After the refineries (engenhos centrais) were founded, foreign capitalists speculated on and made profit from the venture; in the process, they set Brazil’s sugar industry back two decades in its modernization efforts. When the Pernambucan Prime Minister João Alfredo wanted to correct “the English abuses and Brazilian business greed,” it was too late (p. 171).
By adopting uncritically the existing theses. Melo missed opportunities to present balanced new perspectives. On the northern immigration question, he could have expanded on the conservatism of the “sugarocracy” and the economic decay that had been in the offing as deterrents against attracting colonos. On the engenhos centrais question, he could have looked at what the Bahian planters and merchants did without the participation of foreign capital at the onset of the modernization. He could even have looked into the experiences of Rio province. In other words, there are different and more balanced stories to tell.
Both books offer something unusual yet increasingly popular in historical research. The first gives us access to rare sources such as José Américo, his family, and his friends and foes, all willing to be interviewed. The second book, through Melo’s skillful use of parliamentary sources, sheds light on a legislature’s thinking, rather than on the executive branch of which historians are generally aware. Both are built using official sources, one written and the other oral. Yet many ideas and plans told by José Américo and revealed in the anais were never put in effect, and are therefore not “official.” The value of these works lies precisely in this area of the untold and unimplemented side of history that is recounted so vividly by José Américo and hidden in the dusty pages of the anais.
