Throughout the 19th century, the Atlantic world, especially its western portion, was going through a period of readaptation of the slavery institution in view of a new expansive industrial world, since the previous century. The plantation...
moreThroughout the 19th century, the Atlantic world, especially its western portion, was going through a period of readaptation of the slavery institution in view of a new expansive industrial world, since the previous century. The plantation economy, due to the increased demand for essential goods in the universe made by the international capitalism, has been reinvigorated to produce cotton for clothing, sugar for food and coffee to keep workers awake. In the midst of such a scenario, all economies, regardless of their background, from subsistence to “industrial” agro-exporters or industrial manufactories, sooner or later adopted the transport technology which Britain defined as the hegemonic model to be adopted from the 1820s onwards. Railways/railroads spread globally and, in each economy, assumed a role that could be the modernization of road infrastructure – with multiple internal and external implications – or, also, industrial rail modernization – with multiple implications, internal and external. The central thesis of this work lies in the phenomena that started in the 1830s, in which the northeastern United States of America developed a particular railroad culture, in contrast to European culture, led by Great Britain. In this context, the Empire of Brazil, as an agro-export economy and subsistence of the domestic market and for the productive plantation environment, assumed the role of importer of engineers and capital goods mainly from the United States to build its railroad network.