of coffee production they would use what they had previously stored from the year before. The Monroe Doctrine appeared to some South American states as a US attempt of preserving their control over that hemisphere. Brazil viewed this doctrine as a measure of protection against the interference of the US and from European nations. Brazil's first ambassador to the United States, Joaquim Nabuco, 1905–10, was a partisan of the Monroe Doctrine. Brazil borrowed money from many nations but it was not until after World War One that it actually borrowed substantial amounts from the US. With the outbreak of the First World War, Brazil continued to share the most significant trade with America with a trade that was valued at $154 million. Coffee cycle (1840–1930) The impact of coffee on the Brazilian economy was much stronger than that of sugar and gold. When the coffee surge began, Brazil was already free from the limitations of colonialism. Moreover, the substitution of slave labor for wage labor after 1870 (slavery was abolished in 1888) meant an increase in efficiency and the formation of a domestic market for wage goods. Finally, the greater complexity of coffee production and trade established important sectorial linkages within the Brazilian economy. Coffee was introduced in Brazil early in the eighteenth century, but initially it was planted only for domestic use. It took the high world prices of the late 1820s and early 1830s to turn coffee into a major export item. During the initial phase, production was concentrated in the mountainous region near Rio de Janeiro. This area was highly suitable for coffee cultivation, and it had access to fairly abundant slave labor. Moreover, the coffee could be transported easily on mule trains or on animal-drawn carts over short distances to the ports. An entrepreneurial class established in Rio de Janeiro during the mining surge was able to induce the government to help create basic conditions for the expansion of coffee, such as removing transportation and labor bottlenecks. From the area near Rio de Janeiro, coffee production moved along the Paraíba Valley toward São Paulo State, which later became Brazil's largest exporting region. Coffee was cultivated with primitive techniques and with no regard to land conservation. Land was abundant, and production could expand easily through the incorporation of new areas. However, it soon became necessary to ease two basic constraints: the lack of transportation and the shortage