Abstract
We analyze the annals of the 1878 Agricultural Congresses held in July in Rio de Janeiro and in October in Recife. We compare the different types of call for these events. We then analyze the discussions about the lack of capital available to the plantations, as well as the suggestions to stimulate the supply of credit to the planters. Finally, we point out similarities and differences of position between the planters in the “South” and the “North”, such as the participation of the state in financing the plantation economy. Understood by the majority of congressmen as indispensable, this participation was seen, in “the North”, as the due payment of a historical debt. From the perspective of “the South”, where coffee production predominated, the plantation was understood as “the patient seeing the doctor” and the Government “the doctor who must diagnose the disease and prescribe the remedy.”
Keywords:
Agricultural Congresses of 1878; Credit policy in II Empire; Currency and banks in II Empire; Sugar economy; Coffee economy