The Indian zebu in Brazilian lands

In this article we will examine the history of Brazilian cattle breeding in the early twentieth century, focusing on the transitional period of intensification of production, when the racial standardization of cattle began to be considered key to industrializing breeding practices. To this end, we consider the initiatives of a group of farmers from the far east of Minas Gerais (Mineiro Triangle), who travelled to Northern India between 1913 and 1917 to acquire bulls and cows of the zebu breed. Retracing the routes of their voyages to India thanks to the diaries and letters between these farmers in Brazil and India, we attempt to understand the role that Indian bovine cattle played in Brazil. The first farmers to make this trip moved in the sphere of the influential elites of the oligarchic Republic that was established in Brazil in 1889. This article argues that these farmers were driven by diverse factors, which could not be reduced to the single issue of an increase in economic productivity. In truth, there were political interests mainly related to the strengthening of personal prestige and the construction of a class character as “innovative cattle farmers” in a context of intra-oligarchic disputes over exerting influence in the Republican state.