Analytical Framework

This essay examines the Portuguese seaport system in the early modern period. The analysis focuses on the evolving network in the northwest and its connections with Lisbon, the country's main port. Ports historically have been the foci of local, regional, national and international economic development and social change. These linkages with both hinterland and foreland make ports a fertile ground for understanding the historical transformation of economic, commercial, transport and technological networks, as well as industrial development and social and urban change. Historians increasingly view ports not simply as infrastructure but rather as complex systems shaped by economic, political, social and cultural forces. They are also increasingly seen as active agents in the processes of modernisation, technological innovation and urbanisation. As a result, port history in recent decades has undergone a renaissance, although the focus has mainly been on economic and technological issues.

Although port historians have concentrated on the modern period, the significant role of ports in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is undeniable. Ports structured political and economic spaces and were essential junctions in supra-regional interactions. New nautical techniques, new trade networks and the increasing tonnage of seagoing vessels all served to increase the prominence of maritime communication routes from the coastal to the trans-oceanic. In the early modern period, economic hegemony was contested between city-ports such as Lisbon, Seville, Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. Connections between Europe and other continents were maintained through ports at the same time that the internal implications of those dynamics were projected onto maritime centres. In fact, the strategic centrality of seaports in the early modern age has given rise to specific historical phenomena and dynamics that need to be studied. The creation of a world economic system and the concentration of population generated demographic, social and mental phenomena that set port zones apart from inland regions.

The growing role of “sea power,” both naval and commercial, enhanced the role of ports. The growth of international fleets and lucrative trades based in key ports motivated pirates and led to the construction of military fortifications. The exposure of port cities to both land and sea made them more vulnerable to epidemics and disease; improvements in health protection were also features of the internal dynamics of such places.