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Beef was the major source of animal protein for residents of Salvador. Not that they shunned pork, fish, whale meat, chicken, or eggs, but they hoped to eat red meat daily. The city consumed 350 to 600 head of cattle per week in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.1 Although this number is moderate on a per capita basis, the symbolic importance of beef in this society must not be underestimated . A dearth of meat stood for danger and insecurity. City authorities took seriously their responsibility to ensure its supply at an affordable price, and the subject occupied a great deal of their time, not to mention the reams of paper used to keep track of the cattle and meat trade. In assuming this responsibility the city council drew on ancient law and counted on the backing of the colonial governor and other royal representatives.2 In the 1780s, reflecting the Portuguese government’s new enthusiasm for rational organization, the city’s control of the business extended still further and became more systematic. An examination of the physical arrangements and legal provisions of the meat business reveals a vigorous commercial network of central importance to the life of Salvador. public control The city’s cattle came first of all from the arid interior of the province, especially the northwest, from the town of Jacobina and from along the middle São Francisco River, but also from the area directly north of Salvador along the Itapicuru River and from Sergipe (see Map 4.1). Secondarily, but importantly, cattle were driven from more distant places, especially from the provinces of Piauí and Goiás.3 These are far-off points: 200 miles to Salvador just from the town of Jacobina, Chapter 6 the cattle and meat trade Graham-final.indb 107 Graham-final.indb 107 6/30/10 10:32:38 AM 6/30/10 10:32:38 AM 108 getting and selling food a principal gathering place because of its extensive pastures, and at least 600 miles from ranches in Goiás. Every Wednesday in colonial times a “great Cattle Fair” was held at Capuame (present-day Dias d’Ávila), a town of some 300 houses in 1785, about 30 miles from Salvador (see Map 1.1). All cattle destined for the Recôncavo region were legally required to pass through it, even those going not to the city but to plantations or villages in the district. The Cattle Fair superintendent, a public employee, lived in a building set aside as a registry. The site also included a place for drovers to eat and sleep. The corrals, built as a stockade with heavy posts sunk vertically into the ground side by side, were numerous enough to keep each owner’s cattle separate. From this stockyard, cattle were driven down the Estrada das Boiadas (Cattle-Drive Road) to the city slaughterhouses, and from there the beef was delivered to the butchers (see Map 1.2).4 Until the 1780s the city council auctioned off the right to use the publicly owned butcher shops in each section of town, no other ones being allowed, and the successful bidders were then entitled to buy cattle at the fair, process them at their slaughterhouses, and in this way hold—aside from the ranchers themselves—a monopoly on both the wholesale and retail meat trade. In exchange, these traders had to sell their meat at or below a price set by the council.5 Occasionally no bids were tendered, and the council itself ordered the cattle bought and slaughtered at its own expense. More commonly just a few cattle dealers offered bids. Then a single man bid up all the city’s butcher shops and created, it was said, a false scarcity to pressure the city council into raising the allowed maximum price of meat.6 In early 1783 the city council debated likely reasons for meat’s continual short supply. Although some argued that the causes were beyond control and could be traced principally to the “severe droughts” in the interior, others blamed the cattle dealers who, they said, created artificial shortages. In September the council discovered, to its dismay, that there were only enough cattle in the city for two days’ consumption. At this point they raised the maximum price of meat, resulting, said the council, in an increase in the number of head brought to market. Widespread dissatisfaction continued, and complaints poured into the governor general’s office.7 In response...

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