Expansion of Coffee Cultivation in the Northern Paraíba do Sul Valley in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Abstract

The present article addresses the expansion of coffee production in the northern and northwestern regions of the Province of Rio de Janeiro during the second half of the 19th century. Generally, when we speak of coffee cultivation in Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century, we think of the traditional Paraíba Valley in the south, widely covered by historiography. We will demonstrate that in the second half of the century, even losing its production hegemony to other provinces, coffee continued to expand into other agricultural frontier regions in Rio de Janeiro, without giving up enslaved labor. We argue that in the second half of the 19th century, there was no decrease in commercial coffee production across the entire territory of Rio de Janeiro, but rather a shift in the main producing regions.