Trying Times: reactions to the 1857 and 1864 crises in Brazil

The initial decades of the second half of the nineteenth century were characterised by tremendous institucional change in the monetary and banking realm in Brazil. Two major crises lay behind these changes: the first one, international in origin, reached the country in November 1857; the second, in 1864, was domestic in nature, and had graver consequences. The article compares the reactions to both episodes and concludes that there was a process of learning which, in the end, ensured that the response to the 1864 crisis was more consistent than the one pursued in 1857.