The Golden Age of Brazil. From Overseas Colony to Thriving State. 1695—1750

The British historian, Yale University professor Charles Boxer in this study describes the development of Brazil, which was a huge colony of Portugal in the first half of the 18th century, fundamentally influencing the growth of the American state's economy.... The labor of enslaved Africans brought from West Africa allowed for the cultivation of tobacco and the production of sugar in the colony, the development of cattle ranching, and the discovery and subsequent exploitation of gold and diamond deposits led to significant changes in the lives and occupations of the people of Portuguese America and the merging of three races — European, African, and Indigenous. All of this served as the foundation for the formation of Brazilian independence as a distinct people and allowed the time to be called the golden age of Brazil.