philip gunn

Paper produced for the 49ºICA

International Congress of Americanists

Pontoficia Universidad Católica del Equador

Quito, Equador, 6-12 July 1997

Summary:

The following paper is part of wider study on the role of Companies, Colonies and Co-operatives for Settlement Projects in Brazil´s Southern Region with a specific case study of the Batavo Dutch Colony Co-operative in the State of Paraná. Dutch migration to Brazil´s southern region has never reached the scale of other European sources such as the Germans or the Italians but this particular dutch experience which grew out of a Brazil Railway Company land settlement project in the initial decades of the 20th century raises key cultural and community questions involved in the Batavo co-operative movement. The co-operative and the colony can be seen as settlement instruments incorporating religious and ethnic cultural values as part of a local communal identity increasingly important as a marketing and as a defense mechanism in dealing with rapidly changing macro-economic conditions within a fluid regulatory context. These values indicate political and economic dimensions of the Batavo experience which did change with time but which required continuity based on migrant community values.

Resumo :

O trabalho a seguir faz parte de uma pesquisa mais amplo sobre o papel de companhias, colônias e cooperativos para projetos de assentamento no sul do Brasil e apresenta um estudo especifica sobre a colônia holandesa que gerou a cooperativo Batavo no Estado de Paraná. A emigração holandesa para o sul do Brasil nunca alcançou o mesmo escala de outros níveis nacionais como os alemães ou italianos mas esta experiência originou num projeto de construção de linhas ferroviárias no sul pelo Brazil Railway Company no começo de século e criou uma série de questões culturais e comunitárias abordados no trabalho. A colônia e a cooperativa podem ser vistas como instrumentos de assentamento incorporando valores culturais e religiosas num identidade étnica que também ficou usado como instrumento de marketing de produção local e um mecanismo de defesa frente as alterações bruscas de economia-politica em conjunturas econômicos distintos. Estes valores indicam dimensões políticas e econômicas que se alteraram com tempo mas que exigiram continuidade de valores comunitários que nascerem na experiência de migração e assentamento.

Illustrations:

table 1: Intercontinental Migration with Destinations to the USA, Canada, Argentina

and Brazil in the 19th and early 20th century.

table 2: Dutch Migration to Southern Brazil 1884-1939.

table 3: Population of the State of São Paulo and the States of Paranã, Santa Catarina & Rio Grande do Sul 1890-1940.

document 1 :Copy of the Brazil Railway Contract for the sale of Plots in Carambeí 1911.

table 4 : Brazil Railway Estimates of Gross Income and 10 year Instalment Payments Plan.

table 5 : Brazil Railway Company. Extract from Company accounts for the colonist Leendert Verschoor in 1911.

table 6 : Associates of the Dutch Co-operative Society of Dairy Products 1925 -1931.

table 7: Co-operative Milk Production and Prices 1925-1937.

table 8 : Products sold in the Co-operative Store Carambeí in 1932

table 9: The Batavo Dairy Co-operative entry conditions for new associates 1942.

table 10: Batavo Dairy and Grain production levels 1970 -1985.

Companies, Colonies and Cooperatives for Settlement Projects in Brazil´s Southern Region: a case Study of The Batavo Dutch Colony Cooperative.

philip gunn (fau-usp)

Immigration and Colonization in Brazilís Southern region.

The colonial roots of urbanization and agro-industrialization in Brazilís southern region go back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when an inter-regional trade in cattle, mules, horses and other animals, supplied from the southern parts of the portugues colony went to the gold and diamond mining areas of a region which became known as Minas Gerais. The founding of the current state capital of Curitiba, in the state of Paraná, was part of this trade route along with other towns such as Lages and Registro. The subsequent beginnings of european migration to southern Brazil in the eighteenth century have been described as part of the late modernizationí of Portugalís colonial possessions by the Marquis de Pombal. In the states of ParanáUm Brasil Diferente: Ensaio sobre fenômenos de aculturação no Paraná, 2ºed.Ed.T.A.Queiroz, São Paulo, 1989. and southern Santa Catarina the first German colonists arrived in the 1820ís.Altas Histórico do Paraná Liv.do Chain ed., Curtitiba, 1986. Later in the 1840s other German and Italian colonies were established in all the southern provinces. The new colonies included attempts to set up a french utopian Fourier inspired familistere near Saí in Santa Catarina in 1842 and 1842 Fourier: Utopia e Esperança ma Península do Saí, Ed.Furb/Ed.UFSC, Blumenau,Florianópolis, 1995as well as german agricultural colonies in the valley of Jataí with settlements including the colony of Dr BlumineauA Sociedade Colonizadora Hanseática de 1897 e a Colonização do Interior de Joinville e Blumenau, Ed daUFSC/EddaFURB, 2ºed, Florianópolis, 1992.near the Dona Francisca colony at Joinville A Colônia Dona Francisca no Sul do Brasil, Ed da UFSC/FCC, Florianópolis, 1992.and many other ventures.

In the second half of the century the introduction of the telegraph, the building of railroads and the long european recession from 1873 to 1893 all contributed to a rising level of immigration and colonization in Brazilís Southern region. This increasing tide can be seen in the Brazilian statistics presented by CamargoCrescimento da População no Estado de Sãp Paulo e seus aspectos econômicos Fipe-Usp, São Paulo, 1981.. While the United States continued to be the main target for inter-continental migration, Brazils participation in the arriving flows increased especially in the 1880ís when campaigns for the end of slavery increased the pressure to find alternative sources of labour especially for the São Paulo coffee economy. As can be seen in table 1 the last decade of the 19th century was the highpoint of foreign immigration. During this decade the population of the State of São Paulo grew by more than one miliion. see table 3.In southern Brazil there were notable contributions from German and Italian immigrants. Another surge in immigration was also registered in the years immeadiately preceeding the first world war when smaller but more numerous migrant contingents from central europe complementes the Italian, German and Iberian flows. In this second wave, which began after the severe recession in the coffee economy at the beginning of the century, a new flow of asian immigrants included particulaly important flows from Japan.

Sonia Luyten has described Dutch migration in the context of these great trans-oceanic waves of migrants in the 19th and early 20th century.Comunicação e Aculturação: A Colonização Holandesa no Paraná, Ed.Loyola, São Paulo 1981. includes a special study on Carambeí pp.15-17The available literature on Dutch migration to Brazil includes reviews of migration to individual statesA Colonização Agrícola Holandesa no Estado de São Paulo Inst.de Geografia-USP, São Paulo, 1991. and many biographical studies of particular immigrant families.Memórias de uma família de immigrantes Holandeses Ed.autor, São Paulo, 1975. In an historical account of Dutch migration - other destinations, as well as Brazil, also included South Africa with the Boer settlements and with the arrival of the burghersí in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon)A Emigração holandesa para diversas partes do mundo Ed.Especial 50anos de emigração holandesa para o Brasil Ano IV (31). In the thirty years between 1860 e 1890 Brazil received over 800 thousand migrants, less than ten percent of the volume arriving in the USA. After 1890 and up to 1915, the proportion of european migrants, arriving in Brazil as compared with the USA increased although the USA still received over six times the number of immigrants as Brazil. In this general context the number of Dutch migrants to Brazil was very limited with some six thousand in a total of almost one million immigrants up to 1939.

According to the data presented by Luyten and while accepting the evidence about the reduced scale of the the migrants from Holland, it a peak of migration is still evident in the years between 1904 and 1913. This places the high point of early Dutch migration as occurring after a peak in italian, spanish and portugues migration to Brazil, but before the surge of Japanese migration up to 1915. As will be shown in the course of this paper, this peak of early Dutch migration was associated very closely with Dutch immigration to the southern region state of Paraná, where a new São Paulo-Rio Grande rail-link was being constructed by the Brazil Railway Company. Following this introduction which attempts to provide some quantative evidence on the dutch migratory experiance, the following part of the paper describes the founding of the dutch colony at a location called Carambéi in the first half of the 20th century, and emphasises the important role of the Brazil Railway Company´s land colonization projects in initiating agricultural settlement in the midwestern part of the state of Paraná shortly before the first world war. The beginnings of a rural cooperative in this colony settlement after this war are then described.

In the third part of the paper which begins with the changes in the Carambéi colony and cooperative in the 1940ís, a new and wider context appeared for cooperative activity. In the case of Brazil, Hack has suggested that dutch migration was spontanious up to 1940 and afterwards was planned in groups.Dutch Group Settlement in Brazil, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, 1959 p.18. This view polarizes perhaps unduely the historical reality of the settlement which was always more complex. But the post-war experience of dutch settlement did manage to create a sophisticated multi-level hierarchy of cooperative organization always occurring in the formation of a wider territorial network of local, central and then industrial production units.

In this final part of the paper there is a consideration of some of the key cultural and community questions involved in the Batavo experience. The cooperative and the colony can be seen as settlement instruments incorporating religious and ethnic cultural values as part of a local communal identity increasingly important as a marketing and as a defense mechanism in dealing with rapidly changing macro-economic conditions within a fluid regulatory context. These values indicate political and economic dimensions of the Batavo experience which did change with time and which can be seen with shifts in generations, in outlooks and in the representation of religious and ethnic beliefs.

table 1: Intercontinental Migration with Destinations to the USA, Canada, Argentina

and Brazil in the 19th and early 20th century.

table 2: Dutch Migration to Table 3 . Population of the State of São Paulo and the Southern

Brazil 1884-1939 States of Paranã, Santa Catarina & Rio Grande do Sul 1890-1940.

source: Luyten, 1981. Source: Camargo 1981 p.64

A Company Beginning for the Dutch Carambeí Colony in Paraná.

The first immigrants from Holland arrived in Carambeí in march of 1911.Carambeí 75anos 1911-1986, Ed.Autor, Carambeí, 1986.p.7 The roots of the dutch colony in Carambeí may be described in terms of three inter-related sources including the building of the Brazilian Railway rail link between São Paulo and the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, an unfortunate experience with another colonization project in the State of Paraná in the local municipal area of Irati, and by events during the previous decade in Holland itself.

At the level of the federal government in the first decade of the century there was an explicit policy of attempting to build an internal rail network throughout the south and southwest of the country. Since the 1860ís during the war with Paraquay, Brazilian dependence on international transport routes through the River Plate to its western territory, had led to many projects for building western and southern internal rail corridors from São Paulo and the port of Santos to Mato Grosso in the west and to Rio Grande in the south. During the presidential period of Affonso Pena in Brazilís First Republic, the federal government undertook the building of the Northwest Railway from Bauru, on the São Paulo rail network, through the western part of the state of São Paulo, across the Paraná river and throughthe state of Mato Grosso to the Pantanal in the western border with Paraquay.

The initial phase of the Northwestern line, within the state of São Paulo, became the site for extensive land colonization projects within the concession area of the railway company. Many of these colonization projects became the main sites of incoming Japanese migrants in the west paulistaí after 1910.

Towards the end of the first decade of this century the second internal inter-regional rail link from São Paulo to Rio Grande was being constructed by a company with the same name (Estrada de Ferro S.Paulo-Rio Grande). The moving force behind this second rail link was a parent company Brazil Railway, controlled by the American businessman from Philadelphia, Percival Farquar. In Brazil, Farquar was particularly known for the long political dispute over his control of the important iron ore deposits at Itabira in the state of Minas Gerais. In São Paulo, Farquar was known for his setting up of various innovative investment projects which included the cityís first industrial meat-packing plant and a hotel project opening up the new Guarujá tourist resort on the São Paulo coast near Santos. But Farquarís reputation was also built on the basis of an enourmous entreprenurial venture which was the dream of a Latin American railroad stretching from Central America, going through the Amazon and down to southern Brazil on its way to Patagonia in the southern region of Argentina. Hundreds of workers died from malaria and from other tropical deseases while building a small length of this projected rail-link in the Brazilian Amazon with the work of a subsidiary company the E.F.Madeira-Marmoré. Within the south-eastern region in São Paulo, Farquarís Brazil Railway leased the government owned Sorocabana railway company which had a line to the southern limit of the state of São Paulo with the state of Paraná. From there the Brazil Railway company created the Estrada de Ferro São Paulo-Rio Grandeí to build the rail-link through the States of Paraná and Santa Catarina and then to the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Two other subsidiary companies were also created to exploit other aspects of the rail road concessionary area. One was the Brazil Lumber timber company and there was an additional Land Colonization company.

Land colonization projects were seen as an integral part of the concession exploration. On the Northwest rail line in the western zone of the state of São Paulo one initial project was developed near the Cafèlandia (former Pres.Affonso Pena) rail station by japonese migrants led by Umpei Hirano who gave the colony its name as the Hirano Colony in 1914 and 1915.Another initial colonization project on the Northwest was the Hachiro Miyazaki colony located at the settlement at Biriguí. Both of these projects were organized by the Northwest Railway through their São Paulo Land Colonization and Timber Company with its local english manager and engineer, James Mellor.

During these same years colonization projects were being organised along the Brasil Railway line from São Paulo to Rio Grande and preference for being given to small immigrant groups such as the Dutch, at Carambeí, in Paraná and the polish settlement near União de Vitória in Santa Catarina. In the second case there was a local armed conflict in 1913 and 1914 when work on the southern rail link was halted at the beginning of the First World War. Resistance to the colonization plans of Brasil Railway came from from the pre-existing expelled inhabitants and from the three thousand odd assembly of unemployed construction workers families. With a messianic religious lidership and their Army of Saint Sebastianí the expropriated inhabitants built seven temporary settlements in an area with a contested territorial boundary between the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina. The war with federal and state government forces lasted three years and involved the destruction of the Brasil Railwayís lumber company installations at the Calmon settlement on the 5th of september 1914. The rebels also attempted to expel the Brasil Railway colonization settlement at São João. There the recently arrived Polish immigrants learned that their new colony was subject to rebel attacks and that part of the agricultural equipmentí provided by the ícompanyíí had military defense applications. According to Auras (1995) the new colonists provided a heroic resistance against the rebel attacks and were victorious in their military encounter. Perhaps it was a phyric victory since the experience led many colonists to abandon the area and move to other Polish settlements in Paraná and São Paulo.Guerra do Contestado: A Organização da Irmandade Cabocla, Ed daUFSC, Florianópolis, 2ºed 1995, p.111

In Paraná, although the new dutch immigrants arriving at the Carambeí settlement had no military encounters with pre-existing inhabitants, their own fortunes were mixed. Some settlers came from other colonies where initial settlement failure had occurred. Many of the initial settlers came from the Gonçalves Juniorí colony located near the town of Irati, another of the many immigrant colonies in the state of Paraná.

document 1 :Copy of the Brazil Railway Contract for the sale of Plots in Carambeí 1911. (original in German)

BRAZIL RAILWAY COMPANY

Abteilung Landbau und Colonisation, Carambehy

Regulation 7-9-1911

I

The Brazil Railway Company, referred to in this regulation as the íCompanyíí, places at he dsposition of the colonist settling in this place immediately after arrival, a plot of land, a house, a team of transportation oxen and cart and three milk cattle. At the moment when the direction of the Colony has defined the colonists production capacity to maintain catle the Companyí will increase the number of milk cows up to 9the number of milk cows up to 9. The Companyí will also provide seed and fertilizer for the initial planting of part of the plot, to be planted satisfactorally according to the opinion of the Director of the Colony.

II

The íCompanhiaíí is obliged, to buy the colonists produce at market prices, in the case where the colonist desires this.

III

The colonist is oblidged to repay to the íCompanyíí the debt arising from the purchase of the plot and from the material provided as indicated In the first clause, in the following form: For ten years of the colonists production the Companyí will deduct a certain anual sum, which can never be more than half the the gross production of cattle and milk.

IV

When the total of the milk produced and delivered to the creamary does not provide a satisfactory result, less than the medium value of outher colonists in Carambehy, the direction of the colony has the right to extend the contract for a period where the total volume of milk deliverd arrives at the medium norm of delivery.

V

The income from the harvest of corn, oats,, alfafa etc; belong to the colonist from the first day of his settlement on the plot.

VI

In the eleventh year, the lease-holder becomes the proprietor of the plot, cattle, house as well as the agricultural equipment and receives at the same time the deeds of the property from the Companyí.

VII

On his arrival at the Carambehy Colony , the colonist should possess enough resources in money with a minimum sum of (1.0000,000 Mil réis) equivalent to 1.350,00 marks, an amount which should allow the colonist to survive until the first harvest since the íCompanyíí will not provide food supplies to the colonist. The colonist can only buy food supplies in the store with company control of prices and product quality. In addition the colonist should make a down payment to the íCompanyíí of 200,000 mil réis, equivalent to 270,00 marks in order to guarantee his contract.

VII

The colonist is obliged with the signature of his rental contract, to fulfill the following obligations:

1º Never sell, rent or dispose of in any other manner the stock inventory as provided for in the contract received from the ícompanyíí, before the full amortization of the contract, or in other cases only with the written approval of the íCompanyíí.

2º To promptly follow the technical directions of the Company so as to allow the efficient management of the crops, their planting, seeding fertilization etc.

3º The colonist is oblidged to supply all his production of milk to the Company Creamery during the time of his contract and will receive the market price for milk used for butter production in São Paulo. The Colonist is allowed to retain 3 liters of milk for his domestic consumption. IX

The colonist is oblidged to concede land for the construcion of roads on his plot by the Company. In this case the company will deduct from the colonists debt, the value of the land appropriated.

X

The íCompanyíí allways has the right to inspect the colonists house, cattle and equipment from time to time.

XI

In the case of a new building, the colonist is obliged to provide the ícompanyíí with a construction plan and budget. Buildng work can only commence after the approval and written authorization by the ícompanyíí director.

XII

In the case of disobediance of the regulations by the colonist, the director has the right to end the contract. In this case the ícompany will only pay the colonist leaving the market price for the uncolllected harvest.

The Director. source: Kooy,p.28-31

table 4 : Brazil Railway Estimates of Gross Income and 10 year Installment Payments Plan

Several of the Dutch settlers included migrants with government assisted passage. Among those forced by necessity to leave Holland there were many workers from the Port of Rotterdam who could not find employment after the major port strike of 1905. Kooy (1986) mentions a rise in dutch migration to Brazil particularly during the years of 1908 e 1909. An interview cited by the same source contains the views of an initial colonist, Keimpe van der Meer, on the failureí of the Gonçalves Junior colony :

íPerhaps it would have worked out if a large part of the migrants had not been composed of dock-workers from the Port of Rotterdam, instead of rural labourers. The men from the docks know nothing about agriculture and even arrived at the point of planting cooked beans (according to some sources). In any case they left their plots to the care of the women, who also knew nothing about the matter, and went and worked on the roads, living six days a week in sheds, drinking a lot of pinga sugarcane alchohol to forget the misery and fighting afterwards to let off a little steam, creating in this way, a new miseryíí

Not all the ex-striking dockers went on the roads and other types of misery appeared. The women remaining in the Gonçalves Junior colony were subject to malaria and other deseases to the degree that the colony became known as íthe ladies cemetaryíí. For those who stayed and attempted to plant corn and grain there was also a new type of misery which appeared in 1911 when crops were devastated by grasshoppers. Their work was then completed by wild boars from the neighbouring forests. It was in these circumstances that news arrived in Irati of a new colony being developed by the Brazil Railway company, further west near the regional town of Ponta Grossa in the local authority area of Castro on what is know as the second Paraná plateaux. The new company colony offered plots to be paid for on a long term installment plan. see document 1. Following the grasshopper devastation many initial colonists including the families Verchoor, Vriesman and Smouter moved from Irati to the new Brazil Railway colony at Carambeí beginning at the end of March 1911. While the Smouter family would later return to Irati other members of the Verschoor family returned to Holland to attract more immigrants including the De Geus family in november of the same year. In the history of the Batavo Cooperative the de Geus family in its many generations would appear as the colonies ífirst familyíí.

An interview with the Carambeí colony resident, Dirksje Bezemer, as published by Kooy, provides one of many immigrant accounts of arrival in the Americasí on the way to southern Brazil. The account provided by Bezemer describes the journey on the Hollandia passanger ship which left Holland with the De Geus family and the accompanying Voorsluijs family at the beginning of november 1911. The immigrants arrived at the immigrant reception center of Flower Island in the bay of Rio de Janeiro where the surprise of eating bananas was apparently not appreciated by the arriving immigrants. Bezemer also provides an account of the journey further south by sea to the port of Paranguá and then by train to the Paraná state capital Curitiba and on to the regional center of Ponta Grossa before arriving in Carambeí. The jouney from Holland took slightly more than one month. Other inicial Carambeí colonists including the families Harms e Los, would follow this route in 1912 to the colony where they received their plots of land with a section already under the plough, house and cattle according to the terms of the Brazil Railway contract with its optimistic estimates of colonists production and income. see table three. According to Miss Bezemer, the colony supervisor, a swiss Dr.Hornzwand, was not only the ícompanyíí authority but also the lawyer, interpreter, councellor and often doctor, for the new immigrants. All the houses were made of timber, including the roof tiles and were suspended above the foundations.The house plans were all the same with four rooms, a kitchen and a veranda in front. See photo 3. In 1912 Carambeí was a colony still without a shop, bakery, butcher, doctor, newspaper or school and it was in this year that Arie De Geus opened Carambeíís first store. By 1914 the Dutch population in Carambeí had arrived at 52 migrants. The colony also inluded a smaller number of German settlers.

The Founding of the Batavo Cooperative in the Dutch colony at Carambeí.

In the beginning the new colonists did not yet have the Fresian milk cattle from Holland and there were many difficulties in obtaining the milk from the cows supplied by the company. In an account given by Kooy, Jacob Van Wilpe has provided a detailed account of the initial problems of a town-boyí, not necessarily a Rotterdam docker, in learning to handle the small but difficult calves who had to accompany the cows in order to begin the flow of milk.Despite this the volume of milk production was thought to be unviable and the dutch colonists managed to negotiate the purchse of one hundred additional milk cows from the Brazil Railway Company. The purchase was managed through the agency of Aart Jan de Geus, alegedly using gold bars which he had brought as a financial reserve from Holland.In 1912 the company also provided a bull, imported from Holland, for the colonists to begin breeding a strain of dutch fresian cattle with the distinctive black and white markings for which Carambeí would be known afterwards.

The new colonists, however, became quickly disenchanted with the way in which the railway companyís management of the colony was processing and distributing the milk supplied by them. For this reason the dutch colonists asked and received permission to process their own milk supplies. The knowledge of cheese and butter production in Holland, particularly by the founding colonist Jacob Voorsluijs, was extreamly usefull. The first cheese making creamery in Carambeí was opened by this colonist in 1914. The new dutch cheese was then sold in Ponta Grossa. Voorsluijs formed a business with the De Geus family and the firm De Geus & Voorsluijs inicially bought the other producers milk for processing. Soon another colonist, Los, was also making cheese while the Braisman family were making butter. With the beginning of the First World War the difficulties of marketing the cheese increased considerably but by 1916 the firm De Geus & Voorsluijs was selling the cheese in São Paulo using the Brazilian Railway line to transport their products. For the bulk of the colonists, however, the continuation of the world war meant increased competition in the Ponta Grossa milk market with increased competition and a climate of everyone for himselfí.

In 1916 the Brazil Railway Company decided that its work in founding the colony had finished and decided to sell its remaining land holding in the colony, involving some 3.400 hectares. The land was located on a low ridge known as the end of Pilatusí which makes up the greater part of the 5000 hectares of central urbanized area of the Carambeí settlement today. The land was sold to Aart Jan de Geus generating further stories in the founding myths of the colony about the famous De Geus gold bars.

During the first world war and post war years there were many difficulties for the Carambeí colony and many left to seek work in other parts. The Los family moved to the Primaveira Colony in Palmeira and would only come back to Carambeí during the thirties. No new families were incorporated into the colony up to 1920. For many migrants the situation of the colony became more and not less difficult with the withdrawal of the company. The milk supply situation for the three cheese factoriesí of De Geus & Cia, Gerrit Los e Leendert Verschoor gave rise to much competition and many disagreements. These became accentuated particularly in summer when the milk supply increased. It was in these circumstances that the proposal to form a cooperative for the colony began. The cooperative was finally established in July 1925 with the name Sociedade Cooperativa Hollandeza de Laticiniosíalso descibed as the successors to the firm De Geus & Cia. of Carambehy Paraná.mixed production and consumption cooperative in Brazil many Carambeí residents considered their cooperative to have been the first production cooperative in the country. see Kooy op.cit p.67.

In 1928 the brand name Batavo was proposed as the name of the cooperatives products by the colonist Sr.Berkhout. This was the name which began to be known for the cheese produced by De Geus & Cia before the formation of the cooperative. The three main cheese making families in the colony De Geus, Los e Verschoor came from the same part of Holland which had been inhabited by the Batavo people in antiguity and this was then the name suggested for use by the coopertative. From 1925 onwards the colonist Jan Vriesman became the official cheese maker for the cooperative and Jacob Voorsluijs became responsible for the cooperatives administration.

Immigration from Holland was at a low level during the latter years of the twenties and the sale of plots from the final Brazil Railway parcel of land went slowly with new families arriving from Holland mainly during the years 1928-1930. During these years the colonists began work on the cooperatives first cheese making factory financed by a loan from an ex-mayor of Ponta Grossa, one Juca Preto.

In many senses the end of the twenties was a turning point in the history of the colony and its inicial attempts to set up a cooperative organization. The death of Aart Jan de Geus indicated marked the beginning of a shift in generations. The economic situation for the colonists production did not improve and the early thirties proved to be a particulay difficult time. As well as the world-wide recession and the failure of the coffee economy in Brazil, the political upheavel of Brazilís revolution in 1930 had immediate effects on the cooperatives fortunes, particularly when the rail-link to the main São Paulo market was interrupted. Unsuccessful attempts were made to send the cheese by lorry along the hundreds of kilometers of unpaved roads in unrefrigerated conditions. By the time the cooperative produce arrived in São Paulo all the cheese had melted during the journey. This failure led to disputes and disagreements and a severe fall in individual committment to the cooperative. During the thirties after the return of the Los family to Carambeí and its cooperative, Jan Los and another seven producers stopped their supplies of milk . The worst years as regards milk prices were from 1932 to 1934, as can be seen in table 6. Jan Los then opened a butchers business dealing in the production of salted meat called charqueí.

After 1934 there was a small gradual improvement in milk prices but continued turbulance in cooperative affairs. A dispute between german and dutch cooperative members in 1937 led to the return of many dutch producers to the cooperative. A reafirmation of dutch control of the cooperative was also associated with the influence of the new protestant pastor the Rev Vincent Muller, in the colony. Pastor Muller, who had arrived in 1935 was an american of Dutch decent and also a person aquainted with recent agricultural practise in the United States. Other new arrivals for the Carambeí colony in the late thirties included former settlers from the dutch East Indies. These new colonists, including the Vermeulen family, arrived with personal capital and provided a reinforcment of dutch influence in the cooperative. Pastor Muller developed a plan for cooperative activities with the creation of new agricultural as opposed to purely dairy activities and there was a further diversification into poultry and egg production. In 1940 and 1941 during the second world war there was a further change in the marketing arrangements of the cooperative. Jan van Wilpe substituted Arie de Geus in the cooperatives sales outlet in Ponta Grossa and the cooperatives representation in the state capital of Curitiba was taken from the firm Gastreich and given to the firm of David Wiens in 1941.

During the war years another major stimulous for change came from the Brazilian federal and state governments attempts to regulate cooperative activity. Sanitary inspection of the Batavo creamery installations by Paraná State government officials led to a campaign for the building of a larger and more permanant building for cheese production. A local architect Francisco Pinnow de Curitiba was contracted in November 1939 and he drew up the plans for the new facility. On the 16th of november 1940, with the plan approved by the Paraná authorities, the cooperative began the building of the new creamery which was completed in 1941. During the initial war years the cooperative was prohibited from selling its products in the state of São Paulo due to the lack of official recognition of the cooperative. For this reason the cooperative was re-registered on the 1st of august 1941 with its official name Sociedade Cooperativa de Laticíneos Batavoí. Ancilliary outhouses for the creamery were to be added in 1943, the same year in which Carambeíís first telephone line arrived in the house of Leendert de Geus and the year when the cooperative opened its first bank account in the town of Ponta Grossa. With increased rail traffic in 1944 the railway post Boqueirãoí aquired the status of a Railway Stationí.

In 1944 on the 18th of july the cooperatives was once again changed its name to conform to new government regulations. The Batavo Cooperative now became known as the Mixed Cooperative Batavoí since its production activities were now complemented by consumer activities in foodstocks and domestic products. Production improved and the number of cooperative associates increased in 1945 including, once again, Jan Los and his sons who rejoined the cooperative in this year. Carambeíís first tractor, with the makers name Internacionalí also arrived after the war and was later to be known as OPAí or Grandad.

table 8 : Products sold in the Cooperative Store Carambeí in 1932

table 9: The Batavo Dairy Cooperative entry conditions for new associates 1942 ref. Kooy p.124

The Batavo Cooperatives and the post-war Dutch Colonies

In 1946 the cooperative organized a project for the importation of Fresian bulls, at a time when the delivery of milk to the Batavo Creamery exceeded 1 million liters for the first time.The problem of foodstock supplies for the Carambeí cattle depended upon the government controled emission of distribution certificates which were very difficult to obtain and only in the capital of São Paulo. There the Batavo cooperative obtained the active assistance of a Sanbra director Sr Gutheim in trying to obtain milled cotten seed foodstock permits distributed by the paulista government. At this time, the local Batavo Cooperative participated activly in cooperative organisation in the state of Paraná. In 1947 a Batavo member was elected secretary of the new Central Agricultural Cooperative of Paraná, known as the CCAP, which was to centralize and improve the receipt of foodstocks and the marketing of local cooperative produce.

While the Batavo cooperative activly participated in the new venture, the Batavo dairy produce was not included in the new arrangement because of the existing commercial contract with the David Wiens firm in Curitiba.By this year the number of local Batavo Cooperative members had grown from 39 to 52. Participation in the CCAP now allowed increased supplies of cattle foodstocks. At the local level within the Castro municipality, in the immediate post war situation the dutch colony was also participating in preparing a new wave of dutch immigration. Brazil was one of the few post-war countries which allowed group migration and in post-war Holland there were a number of religious groups facilitating group emmigration. One was the C.E.C - the protestant Christian Emigration Center and another was its Roman Catholic equivalent.

From 1947 onwards Pastor Muller set about organizing a local commission for immigration in a new colony project within the same municipality of Castro. Two Batavo directors Klass Dijkstra e Henk Kooy were included in the commission. Various contacts were maintained with state government authorities and with farm owners in Castro. For unknown reasons the government disapproved of a site at the Fazenda Arião but at another site in the same municipal area, some 5,000 ha of land were aquired, sufficient for 50 families. In 1949 there was an inspection visit by J.S.Biesheuvel from the C.E.C. in Holland, accompanyed by a staff member of the Dutch legation in Brazil, Mr .Van Schwarzenau. The inspectors were to review the immigration potential of projects in São Paulo and in Brazilís southern states of Paraná, Santa Catarina as well as Rio Grande do Sul. The southern states were chosen for dutch protestant rural groups while the state of São Paulo was considered apt to receive the dutch catholic migrant groups at a site near Campinas. Batavo director Kooy spent some five months at the Monte díLeste farm and the Riberão farm near Campinas, preparing for the arrival of the new catholic colony which was to be named Holambra. For a new protestant colony, the inspectors favoured the Castro project organised by Rev.Muller who was to become the new colonies first pastor.In 1949 a new Castrolandia Cooperatve was initiated by Rev.Muller in order to buy the land required for the installation of the new immigrants.

In the original local Batavo cooperative at Carambeí there was an improvement in the quality of milk supplied the cooperative because of the importation of fresian cattle and bulls. The importance of improving foodstocks for the cattle was also recognised and new foodstock warehouses were constructed for the Carambeí local cooperative. The cooperative also facilitated the purchase of new tractors for its associates. In 1951 an agronomist promised by the dutch government arrived and during his six month stay in Carambeí suggested many improvements in cooperative practice. The services of a new director of dairy production Gerit Biesheuvel were contracted in Holland.

In the early fifties there were many visits being made to Carambeí and Castro and the guest-house run by Johanna Harms (which preceeded the later Hotel Klomp) was always busy while arrangements for the new immigrant families continued to be made. In 1951 the Castrolandia colony was officially founded and many families arrived in the following years. The Rev.Muller moved from Carambeí to become pastor in Castrolandia and helped set up the new local cooperative. Many questions had to be resolved in relation to the integration of production by the local cooperatives, with a division of responsibilities between the two colonies in the form of an association of capital or a new central cooperative, the siting of industrial facilities etc. The overall interation of the colonies was decided in terms of a new Central Cooperative which would use the brand name Batavo and on the 1st of march 1954 the Cooperativa Central de Laticinios de Paraná Ltdaí was founded with the Rev.Muller as president . H.Kooy became the secretary and Sr. Biesheuvel became its technical director. The previous visits by J.S.Biesheuvel and Mr .Van Schwarzenau facilitated the importation of machinary for the CCLPL installations and also helped to arrange the arrival of two new dutch pastors Moesker e Van Lonkhuizen for the colonies at Carambeí e Castrolandia.

During these years a dutch colony was set up in the land of the Monte Alegre farm owned by the giant paper company Industrias Klabiní in the local authority area now known as Telemaco Borba. In 1949 Pastor Muller founded a church for the Article 31í followers of the Dutch Reformed Church. With the accelerated urbanization of the Klabin company town this dutch colony actually no longer exists as a distinct entity today. But in the fifties this and other settlement ventures widened the territorial area of dutch influence.

Kooy has also registered the arrival, in 1953, of a group of dutch catholic migrants coming to the Fazenda São Antonio near the town of Tronco, still in the local authority area of Castro. This was a case of re-migration which remembers the move of initial dutch colonists from Irati coming to Carambeí. Now, it was a group of families coming from the Holambra settlement in São Paulo after its initial difficulties and partial failures. After their arrival, the new families became associated with the Batavo Cooperative. When their milk production attained a certain volume new arrangements were made in extending the Castrolandia milk collection service and accepting the Fazenda São Antônia contribution in Castro for transportation to the creamery in Carambeí. According to Kooy a certain degree of rivalry and competition in milk production standards grew up between the different dutch settlements.

In 1955 the growth in milk supplies required the construction of yet another new creamery for the central CCLPL. At the same time the cooperative brought electrification to Carambeí in 1956 with a high tension line of 14 kms from the Cia Prado generation station which supplied the near-by town of Ponta Grossa. Transportation conditions also improved, although the journey to São Paulo still meant a 19 hour trip by steam engined train to the Sorocabana terminal Júlio Prestes in that state capital. During the later part of the fifties and early sixties there were further improvements in cattle stock. From 1955 onwards the local Batavo cooperative had set up an artificial insemmination service. At this time, the dutch government had provided an agronomist who was placed at the disposition of the Carambeí and Castrolandia colonies for a period of three years. Many colonists bought land for the introduction of grain production beginning with the commercial growing of rice. In 1956 Leendert Barth, together with a dutch firm, bought the Fazenda Areião with some 5.000 ha of land some of which was sold as plots for incoming migrants. Jan H.de Geus also bought the Fazenda Pereira with some 1400 ha at a distance of 20km from the center of Carambeí. With the development of a new dry rice strain, S.Greidanus e B.Aardoom opened a rice grain processing plant which was later bought by the cooperative in 1960 when Batavo began the commercial sale of rice. At this time the foodstocks warehouses were reorganized to include the building of a local sales outlet and offices for the cooperative.

The early sixties were a prosperous period for the cooperative with expansion of milk, eggs and pork products. In Castrolândia, Pastor Muller once again began to produce new plans for immigrant settlements with a request for a loan of US$ 200.000 from the Development Loan Fund in the United States. In 1960 the dutch community leadership founded the Cooperativa Central de Imigraçãp e Colonização do Brasil Meridional e Centralí in order to buy land intended for the new immigrants. Some 5000 ha of land at the Fazenda Bela Manha were acquired near the small town of Arapoti, in the following year. At the same time in Carambeí the cooperative bought some 2000 ha at the Fazendas Santa Cruz e Tabatinga which had been considered by Japanese colony groups but which were now retained under dutch control.í In the new Central de Immigration Cooperativeí the new land at Arapoti began to be cultivated but the initial experience of rice planting produced inferior results to those in Carambeí. Eventually it was decided that Arapoti would serve better for milk production and the CCLPL facilities were expanded to receive this production. New silos were also incorporated for grain and for cattle foodstocks in 1962.

Little by little, there was a gradual process of differentioation between individual cooperative associates and between the different colonies of Castrolandia, Arapoti and Carambeí and even between different production sectors. The poultry sector grew quickly in the early seventies. The CCLPL constructd the new poultry abatoir in 1972 and a new specialization of poultry batteries for the rearing of egg hens was integrated with poultry meat production. All settlements produced milk but pig production grew more in Castrolandia and Arapoti than in Carambeí. A refrigerated store facility for pork products was built in 1978. Animal food stocks and forage now became the root sector for many cooperative sectors. In Carambeí a new class of medium and large sized farmers began to emerge. In 1977 a new generation of De Geus family members began in the cooperative leadership when Dick Carlos de Geus became a director of the CCLPL . Inter-sectoral commercial relations dominated cooperative activities since one sector could not grow at the expense of others.

In 1972 when more Carembei residents began to settle in Tibagi, the Batavo Cooperative negotiated the buying of a warehouse from the Cooperativa Mista Agrícola de Ponta Grossa located in Tibagi. This warehouse was used to receive cereal crops from cooperative associates. In 1974 the Batavo Cooperative also set up a sales and warehousing facility for associates in the town of Ponta Grossa. New cooperaitive associates at these centers were few at first, sometimes due to difficulties in adapting to Batavo metods of production but according to Kooy in the mid-eighties there were many more brasilian producers joining the cooperattive. At the local level in Carambeí In the eighties the cooperative continued to emphasis its basic activities of milk production and in 1986 the cooperative bought over 1000ha of land in the Fazenda Santo André. In 1986 the preeminance of the De Geus family in the Batavo Colony and Cooperative history reasserted itself again when Sr.Willem de Geus left the presidency of the CCLPL in the hands of the new president Dick Carlos de Geus. According to Kooy this change in the Presidency ídid not happen without certain diffcultiesíí. The growth of production in recent decades has generated an increased number of ancillary industrial, comercial and service employment in the cooperative based urban centers of Carambeí, Castrolândia and Arapoti. The dutch migrant origins can now be seen in many of the local firms including the transport company ARDO which handled the Cooperatves production, or the drainage firm Drenmaq which handled much of the cooperatives construction work.

table 10. Batavo Dairy and Grain production levels 1970 -1985

In recent years the Batavo cooperatives face similar problems to others in Brazilís southern region. The 1994/5 agricultural harvest was abundant in this region but with low agricultural prices while the 1995/6 year registered an historic harvest failure mitigated by rising prices. More than 50% of the soya crop in Rio Grande do Sul was lost in ths year. In the cooperative movement in the southern states a high rate of financial debt compared with patrimonial value has meant a difficult business period for cooperatives adjusting to a post-inflation economy. The largest central cooperative in Rio Grande do Sul, for the milk producers there, called the CCGL was now without new financial debt and has shown respectable levels of gross profitibility. But together with its sister cooperative the Batavo CCLPL it has had heavy debt repayments and it has had to make substantial tax and social welfare arrangements which have turned net profits into a small loss in 1995.

Financial difficulties for the central cooperatives have occurred together with market share consolidation of major food industrial groups including the large multinationals Nestlé, Nabisco and Danone, all engaged in buying up many small and medium sized Brazilian firms. When faced with its difficult financial results the CCGL in Rio Grande do Sul has been negotiating its company participation in what was the cooperatives industrial branch the Laticínios CCGL S.A. company. The CCGL, five times larger than its Paraná sister cooperative, the Batavo - CCLPL central cooperative, had sales of more than US$325 millions in 1995 processing 1.5 million liters of milk. In April 1995 the CCGL sold 75% of its holding in the Laticínios CCGL S.A. company to the Avipal group of companies owned by Avívol S.A. in Porto Alegre. Gazeta Mercantil Balanço Anual para 1995 caderno jul 1996 III-3.

As yet this experience has not been followed by the Batavo Cooperatives. While the CCGL sale is in line with trends in industrial concentration in the food industries it also represents a partial dismantling of the hierarquical pyramid created by the cooperative movement in recent decades, whereby local cooperatives created a smaller number of central cooperatives who came together in certain industrial investments. As part of wide ranging changes in Brazilian agri-business the cooperatives now appear to be seeking production alliances with industrial partners, once again adjusting their cooperative practise to new market tendencies. While the Batavo Central Cooperative has also shown a recent net loss there is as yet no evidence of industrial processing plant sales to giant food industrial companies. To the contrary Batavo colonists again under a De Geus leadership are attempting new grain producing ventures in Balsas in the far northern state of Maranhão some 3000 km away. The search for new alternative cooperative activities continues.

Bibliographical Sources:

Abreu, Adilson Avansi deíA Colonização Agrícola Holandesa no Estado de São Pauloíí Inst.de Geografia-USP, São Paulo, 1991.

Camargo, J.F.de íCrescimento da População no Estado de Sãp Paulo e seus aspectos econômicosíí Fipe-Usp, São Paulo, 1981.

Cardoso,J.A. and Westphalen, C.M.ííAltas Histórico do Paranáíí Liv.do Chain ed., Curtitiba, 1986

Haveman, B.W. íA Emigração holandesa para diversas partes do mundoíí Ed.Especial 50anos de emigração holandesa para o Brasil Ano IV (31)..

Hack,H. í Dutch Group Settlement in Brazilíí, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, 1959 p.18.

Heil, Jeanette F.W.P.íMemórias de uma família de immigrantes Holandesesíí Ed.autor, São Paulo, 1975.

Kooy, Hendrick Adrianus íCarambeí 75anos 1911-1986íí, Ed.Autor, Carambeí, 1986.

Luyten, Sonia Maria Bibe í Comunicação e Aculturação: A Colonização Holandesa no Paranáíí, Ed.Loyola, São Paulo 1981. includes a special study on Carambeí pp.15-17

Martins, Wilson íUm Brasil Diferente: Ensaio sobre fenômenos de aculturação no Paranáíí, 2ed.Ed.T.A.Queiroz, São Paulo, 1989.

Penido, Antonio Nogueira Eng.º íO Arrendamento da E.F.Noroeste do Brasilíí, Conferência realizada no Clube de Engenharia do Rio de Janeiro, em 5 de abril de 1933, Tipo.íComercialí Rua Itaboca 74, Rio de Janeiro, 1933

Richter, KlausíA Sociedade Colonizadora Hanseática de 1897 e a Colonização do Interior de Joinville e Blumenauíí, Ed daUFSC/EddaFURB, 2ºed, Florianópolis, 1992.

Rodowicz-Oswiecimsky, Teodor (1849) íA Colônia Dona Francisca no Sul do Brasilíí, Ed da UFSC/FCC, Florianópolis, 1992

Thiago,Raquel S.,ííFourier: Utopia e Esperança ma Península do Saííí, Ed.Furb/Ed.UFSC, Blumenau,Florianópolis, 1995

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