Retail Feel and real time quotes to be main attractions

Futurtek the UK's leading original service parts distributors are on the eve of launching a new interactive website.

The new website is taking the concept of retail shopping to the distribution industry, with such features as online chat with your account manager and a record of all your purchases and quotes online.

Customers can access all this features by simply logging into their accounts. The concept is completely new to trade customers and according to managing director Tino Beltramo "will make easier to keep track of your recent purchases and quotes history". Adding " The ability to contact your account manager online, through the site will add efficiency and speed to the ordering and quoting process, meaning that any queries can be dealt with quickly and accurately".

Partners will also benefit from the ability to get real time quotes, without the need for phone calls or emails. "what this means is that our partners can check prices whilst attending to a customer."-Explains Mr Beltramo.

Futurtek's website should be online from mid Autumn 

Slavery In Brazil, It's Protagonists and Influence on Modern Brazil

Slavery shaped Brazil's social structure and ethnical landscap

During the colonial Period and for over six decades after the 1822 independence, slavery  was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining and sugar cane production.

Brazil obtained 35.4% of all African slaves traded in the Atlantic slave trade, more than 3 million slaves were sent to Brazil to work mainly on sugar cane plantations from the 16th to the 19th century. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves due to two main reasons:

1) The unenculturated indigenous peoples deteriorated rapidly, and became increasingly warier of the Portuguese, thus, obtaining new indigenous slaves was becoming harder and harder.

2) The Portuguese Empire, at the time, controlled some stages within the African slave trade's commercial chain, thus, providing the Brazilian landholders with the opportunity to import slaves from Portuguese trading posts in Africa. Portuguese, Brazilian, and African slave traders managed to profit even more from the increased demand.

During the 15th century, after realising the extension and importance of slave trading for the African economy, the Kingdom of Portugal's soldiers, explorers and merchants involved themselves in the trade in black African slaves along with other tradable itemsthrough the establishment of several coastal trading posts. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations they were developing in their newly-discovered colony of Brazil, once the European discoverers needed more human resources to use in the new continent, and the numbers of native indigenous peoples had declined. Although Portuguese Prime MinisterMarquês de Pombal abolished slavery in mainland Portugal on the February 12th, 1761, slavery continued in Portugal's overseas colonies, particularly in Brazil.

The African slaves were useful for the sugar plantations in many ways. They were less vulnerable to tropical diseases. Slavery was practice among all classes. From late 18th century to the 1830s, including by the time of the Rebellions in Bahia, slaves were owned by upper and middle classes, by the poor, and even by other slaves.

The benefits of using the slaves far exceeded the costs to the owners. After 2-3 years, slaves repaid the cost of buying them, and slave plantation owners began to make profits from them. Brazil's plantation owners made lucrative profits per year. The very harsh manual labour of the sugar cane fields involved slaves using hoes to dig large trenches. They planted sugar cane in the trenches and then used their bare hands to spread manure.

A national survey conducted in 2000 by the Pastoral Land Commission, a Roman Catholic Church group, estimated that there were more than 25,000 forced workers in Brazil. More than 1,000 slave-like laborers were freed from a sugar cane plantation in 2007 by the Brazilian Government.

Bandeirantes

From Sao Paulo the Bandeirantes, adventurers mostly of mixed Portuguese and Indian ancestry, penetrated steadily westward in their search for Indian slaves. Along the Amazon river and its major tributaries, repeated slaving raids and punitive attacks left their mark. One French traveller in the 1740s described hundreds of miles of river banks with no sign of human life and once-thriving villages that were devastated and empty. In some areas of theAmazon Basin, and particularly among the Guarani of southern Brazil and Paraguay, the Jesuits had organized their Jesuit Reductions along military lines to fight the slavers. In 1628, Antônio Raposo Tavares led a bandeira, composed of 2,000 allied Indians, 900 Mamluks (Mestiços or Mestizos-Mixed race) and 69 white Paulistanos, to find precious metals and stones or to capture Indians for slavery or both. This expedition alone was responsible for the destruction of most of the Jesuit missions of Spanish Guairá and the enslavement of over 60,000 indigenous people.

Quilombo

Escaped slaves formed Maroon communities which played an important role in the histories of other countries such as Suriname, Puerto Rico, Cuba, andJamaica. In Brazil the Maroon villages were called quilombos and the most famous was Quilombo dos Palmares. In the mid to late 19th century, manyAmerindians were enslaved to work on rubber plantations.

Jean-Baptiste Debret

Jean-Baptiste Debret, a French painter who was active in Brazil in the first decades of the 19th Century, started out with painting portraits of members of the Brazilian Imperial family, but soon became concerned with the slavery of both blacks and the indigenous inhabitants. During the fifteen years Debret spent in Brazil, he not only concentrated on court rituals but the everyday life of slaves as well. His paintings on the subject (two appear on this page) helped draw attention to the subject in both Europe and Brazil itself.

Brazil, the world's largest sugar producer

The Clapham Sect, although their religious and political influence was more active in the Spanish Latin America, were a group of evangelical reformers that campaigned during much of the 19th century for the United Kingdom to use its influence and power to stop the traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides moral qualms, the low cost of slave-produced Brazilian sugar meant that British colonies in the West Indies were unable to match the market prices of Brazilian sugar, and each Briton was consuming 16 pounds (7 kg) of sugar a year by the 19th century. This combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice, which it did by steps over three decades. To this day, Brazil still is the world's largest sugar producer.

Steps towards freedom

Brazil achieved independence from Portugal in 1822. José Bonifácio de Andrade e Silva is credited as the "Father of Brazilian Independence". Around 1822, Representação to the Constituent Assembly was published and addressed that not only the slave trade must end, but also for the gradual emancipation of slaves. However, since this point until the 1880s, the Brazilian demand for slaves was filled by a gigantic increase in the importation of African slaves.

In 1848, the Brazilian slave trade continued on considerable level growing rapidly during the 19th century, and during this time the numbers reached as much as 60,000 slaves per year. Portugal and its territories in Africa had already stepped down from slave trade activities, but in other African coast's ports the slave trade continued. In Brazil, the foreign slave trade was finally abolished by 1850, and there were new laws on slave traffickers and speculators. Then, by 1871, the sons of the slaves were freed. In 1885, the slaves aged over 60 years were freed. The Paraguayan War contributed to end slavery, since slaves enlisted in exchange for freedom.

Brazil's 1877-78 Grande Seca (Great Drought) in the cotton-growing northeast, led to major turmoil, starvation, poverty and internal migration. As wealthy plantation holders rushed to sell their slaves in the south, popular resistance and resentment grew, inspiring numerous emancipation societies. They succeeded in banning slavery altogether in the province of Ceará by 1884. (Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 88-90)

Princess Isabel

Slavery was legally ended nationwide on May 13 by the Lei Aurea ("Golden Law") of 1888, by a legal act of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil. In fact, it was an institution in decline by this time (since the 1880s the country began to attract European immigrant labor instead). Brazil was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. 

Most of this info is based loosely on Wikipedia.

What we're taught is similir to this, except it is sometimes edited to suit the powers to be. So many Brazilians would agree with what is written here.

Mining In Brazil

Brazilian Diamond Mines

Brazil's Diamond Route

After a two thousand year run, India's 'Golconda' diamond mines were nearly depleted by the early 1700s. Fortunately, a new find in the Portuguese colony of Brazil in 1725, helped to re-invigorate the diamond trade. During the 'diamond rush' years (1725-1860), the Portuguese crown declared a "royal monopoly" on all diamond mining in Brazil, placing the industry under state-regulated control.

To obtain a mining concession from the Portuguese government, a gold deposit was required to cover any future taxes that would be levied on production. The tax, known as the "Royal Fifth," was a hefty 20 per cent, based on the value of proceeds from the mine. During this period, Brazil was able to produced between 50,000 and 250,000 carats of rough diamonds per year.

Mining and the Slave Trade

Alluvial mining in Brazil was labor-intensive, negro slaves imported from Africa, were used extensively for mining operations. The capital city of Salvador De Bahia (est. 1549), on the Bahia de Todos os Santos (All Saints Bay) in Bahia, was a global hub for the Portuguese slave trade, and to this day, the state of Bahia has the highest concentration of blacks in Brazil.

Diamantiferous sands and gravel, (cascalho or cascalhão) were hand-dug from river ledges and beds, scooped out of the river bottom by divers (escafandro), or dug from hillsides (engrunada or gruta). Then the diamond-bearing alluvium was washed in sluices of running water, washed again in wooden basins (faísca or lavagem), and finally picked through by hand. The cascalhão occurs in high river-bank ledges, as a combination of gravel and sand, but river-bottom gravel deposits were beneath a bed of clay and silt.

At first, Brazilian diamonds were not as desirable as their Indian counterparts, and the first few years of mining yielded smaller sized stones. As the supply of Indian diamonds dried up, Brazilian stones gained in popularity. In the mid 1700s, Brazilian diamonds were flooding the European market, and prices fell precipitously, but this was reversed as supplies began to dry up in the early 1800s. Brazil's largest rough diamond to date is the "Star of the South," a 254 carat stone found in 1854.

Alluvial deposits in Brazil were created by Diamantiferous material being transported from its primary source, within kimberlite intrusions along the Amazonian cráton to the north, and the San Francisco Cráton in Minas Gerais. There are also diamond-bearing kimberlite bodies in the regions of Mato Grosso and Rondônia.

Diamonds and Regions:

Diamantina in Minas Gerais

Miners prospecting for gold along the Rio Jequitinhonha river, near the town of Tejuco (now Diamantina) in the Minas Gerais region, made Brazil's first diamond discovery in 1725. By 1740, there was a major diamond rush to Minas Gerais' Rio Abaete and Rio Jequitinhonha alluvial deposits, and mining in the region reached its peek between 1785 and 1807.

Mato Grosso's Alluvial Diamond Fields

The Portuguese government took possession of the territory in 1748, creating a Colonial Captaincy so as to fully exploit Mato Grosso's mineral wealth. Mining exploration was heavily regulated by the Portuguese Crown during the 1700s, and all extracted minerals were subject to high taxation.

Mato Grosso's alluvial diamonds were first discovered in the 'Morro Vermelho' formation, near the mining town of Diamantino. By 1847, both diamonds and gold were mined-out in the area, and by 1852, the Diamantino prospect was abandoned, bankrupting the Mato Grosso Mining Society.

Chapada Diamantina in Bahia

In 1842, large diamond deposits were discovered along the banks of the rio Mucugê in the mountainous region of Chapada Diamantina (Diamond Highlands), in the Brazilian state of Bahia. This created a diamond-rush to the region, causing a new glut in the European market.

Diamonds in Chapada Diamantina's Serra da Sincorá (Cincora) region (aka Lavras Diamantinas) occur in river gravels and sands (cascalhão) along the banks of the rio Mucugê, which is a tributary of the rio Paraguaçu (Paraguassu river). Within the Chapada Diamantina sits the Circuito do Diamante (Circuit of the Diamonds) surrounded by the towns of Andaraí, Mucugê, Palmeiras, and Lençóis.

By 1901 around 5000 negro slaves worked in the Bahia mines at Serra da Sincorá. The Sincorá region is one of the few locations on earth that carbonado is found. Carbonado (aka 'carbon diamond' or 'black diamond') is a rare, semi-porous black polycrystalline variety of diamond.

The Chapada Diamantina has a dramatic landscape with high plains, table-top mesas, and steep cliffs or towers known as 'tepuy.' Before the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1800s, the only local inhabitants of the region were indigenous Indians from the Maracas and Cariris tribes. In 1985, the Chapada Diamantina region was made into a National Park, with its headquatrers in Palmeiras.

Brazil's Recent Diamond History

In the 1960's, near Mato Grosso's capital of Diamantino, the 'Mato Grosso Diamond Project' (a 63,000-hectare claim block) created a 'diamond rush' to the area. To date, more than 50 kimberlite pipes have been located, many of which are the most likely source for the region's historic alluvial deposits.

In 1999, nearly 3000 itinerant miners (diamond diggers, or garimpeiros) illegally entered the protected, Cinta Larga ("broad belt") Indian reservation to mine for diamonds. This area lies between the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, along the Bolivian boarder. Mining was forbidden within the 'Roosevelt Reservation' in order to preserve the indigenous 'Cinta Larga' people's homeland, but the Cinta Larga are allowed to engage in 'small scale prospecting' (garimpagem), if the labour is done exclusively by indigenous Indians. Federal Police evicted the garimpeiros, but the government estimates that as much as $50 million were smuggled to Belgium.

The Cinta Larga attacked a group of illegal prospectors in April of 2004, killing 41 of them. Since the incident, tensions in the region have eased, and in October 2004, Brazil received accreditation to obtain a Certificate of the Kimberley Process. Diamond mining within the Roosevelt Reservation could be worth an estimated $3.5 billion annually.

Future Diamond Mining in Brazil

The most promising locations for any future Brazilian diamond mining activity are in the states of Matto Grosso and Bahia, and in recent years diamond mining activity has picked up in the region. Diagem Inc. in cooperation with Rio Tinto (Rio Tinto Desenvolvimentos Minerais Ltda) is still surveying for new diamond finds in Brazil. There have been several promising finds at its 'Collier-04' kimberlite pipe, located in the Juina diamond district of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Exploration in the Diamantina, Regis, Santo Antonio, and Serra da Canastra regions of Minas Gerais is currently being conducted by Brazilian Diamonds Limited, CODEMIG, and Mineração Rio Novo Ltda.