Precedents of mass migration: Policies, occupations, and the sorting of foreigners in São Paulo, Brazil (1872)

This paper studies the distribution of foreigners across counties of the province of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1872. The analysis stresses the historical importance of policies that fostered immigration in the nineteenth century by discussing the two main migratory strategies pursued in Brazil by the 1870s, namely the recruitment of foreign bonded labourers to the plantations and of settlers to rural colonies. The empirical approach studies the sorting of foreigners according to the economic, institutional, demographic, and geographic characteristics of the counties. Results show that the number of foreigners in 1872 was positively correlated with the ease of access to a region and with contemporaneous immigrant networks. The number of foreigners in 1872 also correlated negatively with the free, non-white, population, suggesting a degree of substitutability in local labour markets in a period before mass immigration to the region. Finally, the economic structure of the counties influenced the allocation of foreigners. Agricultural employment was associated with less immigrants, while manufacturing and trade-related activities were linked with a larger number of foreigners.