Chapter 12 Brazil

About how many Indians live in the Amazon Basin today, compared with the two million to five million living there when the Portugese arrived?

200,000

When farmers cleared rain forests to create farms, they discovered that

the soil was thin and not very fertile

Which area of Brazil is its economic heartland?

the southeast

What is an escarpment?

a sharp cliff between different levels of land

How do plantations help boost Brazil's industrial growth?

by growing sugar cane for gasohol

Brasilia was built in the Brazilian highlands to

boost development of Brazil's interior

Opponents of the reservation system in the Amazon Basin argue that the system

causes Indians to lose their culture

Which of these events in Brazil came last?

coastal cities become crowded industrial centers

The strongest cultural influence of northeastern Brazil are from

descendants of enslaved Africans

In addition to threatening animal and plant life, deforestation in the Amazon also hurts

farmers

The founding of Brasilia represented progress because

in order to build the city, roads to the interior had to be constructed

What has caused the percentage of Brazilian agricultural workers to drop?

industrial development

What has caused the percentage of Brazilian workers in agriculture to drop?

industrial growth

Brazil's sertao is a plateau area with

poor soil

To encourage people to move to the interior, Brazil built

roads

What was the main crop of Portugese plantations in Brazil's northeast?

sugar

One major step in Brazil's economic development was

the creation of gasohol

What might lead to the elimination of the favelas?

the creation of more jobs

A home in a favela would probably be made of

tin and mud

Would a failure of the coffee crop hurt the Brazillian economy? Why or why not?

yes- exports revenues would fall dramatically