The Gold Rush Transforms Minas Gerais
Paulista bandeirantes strike gold in the interior and a mining boom pulls the colony inland
Quick facts
- Gold discovered
- Between 1693 and 1695, by Paulista bandeirantes
- Minas Gerais population by 1709
- About 30,000 people
- Enslaved people by 1735
- 100,141 (tax records)
- Gold to Portugal by 1711
- Almost 15,000 kg a year
What happened
The discovery of gold by Paulistas, the frontier explorers known as bandeirantes, in various parts of what is now Minas Gerais probably occurred between 1693 and 1695, though word spread slowly at first. Then the rush came. By 1709 some 30,000 people were in Minas Gerais, and by 1735 tax records showed 100,141 slaves in the mining district, many of them Indigenous. World History Encyclopedia records that by 1711 the annual amount of Brazilian gold legally shipped to Portugal had risen to almost 15,000 kilograms, later peaking above 30,000 kilograms a year. The boom drew population and wealth from the coast into the interior and made Rio de Janeiro, the nearest port, the colony's new center of gravity.
Why it matters
Gold shifted colonial Brazil's economy and geography away from the northeastern sugar coast toward the southeastern interior and Rio de Janeiro, which became the colonial capital in 1763. The mining economy, like the sugar economy before it, ran on enslaved labor, and the taxes Portugal levied on Brazilian gold would later fuel colonial resentment.
How we know
The dates of discovery, the population and slave figures for Minas Gerais, and the volume of gold shipped to Portugal are documented verbatim in the Library of Congress country study and World History Encyclopedia.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Portuguese Brazil · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Library of Congress, Country Studies (Federal Research Division). Brazil: The Gold Rush and Minas Gerais (Country Studies) · General sourcecountrystudies.us · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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