GERMAN INFLUENCE IN LATIN AMERICA 143 



accident or an adventurer. In no case are either of these immigrants 

 such representatives or instruments of an advanced civilization as their 

 countrymen at home may properly imagine them. At their best, they 

 are the simple agents of commercialism; and in Latin America, as at 

 home, they leave their neighbors to that liberty in their pursuits, 

 opinions, methods and manners which they claim and exercise for 

 themselves. 



To Brazil, as to Chile and to Argentina, have been presented lower 

 classes of Germans, who have taken to agriculture and have grouped 

 themselves in colonies, from which some of the more intelligent have 

 escaped to the towns and cities, where they have entered the pursuits 

 of the mechanic arts or trade. 



The European economist, quoted by the American Bureau of Sta- 

 tistics, estimates that " German capitalists have invested $50,000,000 

 in Mexico and $225,000,000 in South America, of which $150,000,000 

 are in Brazil alone, in the southern provinces of which several great 

 German colonization societies have long had powerful influence. Land 

 may be bought there at half the price of government lands in the 

 United States, and land that produces several crops a year in agreeable, 

 healthy climates." 



As shown by the figures, while only 51,000 Germans are settled 

 among the states of the continent, outside of Brazil, the 1,000,000 in 

 that country are colonized in five states. 



In Parana, with 80,000 inhabitants, covering 6,000 square miles. 



Santa Catarina, with 110,000 inhabitants, covering 24,000 square miles. 



Rio Grande do Sul, with 300,000 inhabitants, covering 99,000 square miles. 



Sao Paulo, with 540,000 inhabitants, covering 121,000 square miles. 



Minas Garaes, with 1,300,000 inhabitants, covering 220,000 square miles. 



These states with 2,330,000 inhabitants living over an area of 470,000 

 square miles contain 1,000,000 Germans, living among a people of 

 whom only one sixth are whites of self-governing ability. Generally 

 these immigrants are farmers, save, as already mentioned, laborers, 

 who have been sent to the mining regions of Minas Garaes by the home 

 colonization companies for work in the mines and the production of 

 supplies for the mining operations. 



It may also be noted that Central America is a favorite point for 

 the German leaving home. But it should be said here that few, if not 

 the more wealthy and cultivated among them, go to those states, where 

 they are having a very important influence on commerce, the arts and 

 every department of civilization. So important have these interests 

 become that the German government has lately established there its 

 first salaried consulate, where also are about a score of consular agents 

 receiving their pay in fees. Their commercial interests, especially in 

 Guatemala, have so developed that they have now in the five little 

 republics $6,000,000 invested in real estate, industrial enterprises and 



