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Vicissitudes of Trade in the Portuguese Atlantic Empire during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Dauril Alden
Dauril Alden*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

The chances of an eighteenth-century merchant's business correspondence surviving to the present are remote, but it is even less likely that an editor could persuade publishers today to issue a five-volume collection of such material. Apart from its sheer massiveness —5,600 documents and nearly 4,000 pages of text—there are several reasons that make the appearance of Negócios colonials an event of unusual significance. First, it represents a major addition to the scant literature available concerning the activities of Portuguese merchants during the first imperial centuries; second, it is by far the most extensive and diversified published collection of mercantile papers pertaining to the colonial era of the New World; and thirdly, since the papers relate to the activities of a prominent Lisbon merchant during most of Brazil's Golden Age (1695-1760), they make it possible for the first time to comprehend many of the strategies and difficulties that arose in the conduct of trade between Portugal and her most important colony during that aureate era.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , October 1975 , pp. 282 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1975

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References

1 Lisanti, Luis, ed. Negócios coloniais, 5 vols. [I, d(lxxxiv) + 430, II, 624, III, 825, IV, 761, V, 859], Brasilia: Ministerio da Fazenda; São Paulo, Visão Editorial, 1973. (Hereafter cited NC).Google Scholar

2 The relevant primary literature includes da Silva, J. Gentil, ed. Marchandises et fi-nances: Lettres de Lisbonne, 1563–1578, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959, 1961)Google Scholar; idem, Stratégie des Affaires à Lisbonne entre 1595 et 1607. Lettres marchandes des Rodrigues d'Evora et Veiga (Paris, 1955); Rau, Virginia, ed. O Livro de Razão de Antônio Coelho Guerreiro (Lisbon, 1956)Google Scholar; and the documentary appendices in Boxer, Charles R., Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo: a Portuguese Merchant-Adventurer in South East Asia, 1624–1667 (’S-Gravenhage, 1967)Google Scholar. The plans of two well-known scholars to publish the account book of the Bahian factor Miguel Dias de Santiago (1596–1613) preserved in the Public Record Office (SP 9/104) have remained unfulfilled for two decades. Among the secondary literature see particularly Frédéric Mauro, “La Bourgeoisie Portuguaise au xviie siècle, XVIIe siècle, 40 (1958), 235-257, especially his discussion of sources, pp. 242-245; several essays by the same author reprinted in Nova história e nôvo mundo (São Paulo, 1969); and Smith, David Grant, “Old Merchants and the Foundation of the Brazil Company, 1649,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, 54 (May, 1974), 233–259 Google Scholar, and the bibliography cited in the last two works.

3 The most extensive comparable collection for English Colonial America remains White, Philip L., ed. The Beekman Mercantile Papers 1746–1799,3 vols. (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, which are substantially less detailed and therefore less valuable to the economic historian than the series under review. For a brief bibliography of other relevant sources, see the bibliography in Bruchey, Stuart, ed. The Colonial Merchant: Sources and Readings (New York, 1966), pp. 198–199.Google Scholar

4 To facilitate certain comparisons in the text I have converted Portuguese money of ac-count into sterling equivalents as of 1750, when 3,693 rs. =£1. Fisher, H. E. S., The Portugal Trade. A Study of Anglo-Portuguese Commerce 1700–1770 (London, 1971), p. 147.Google Scholar

5 The comparison with the wealth of the two counts is based upon this reviewer's unfinished study concerning economic aspects of the Aveiro-Távora conspiracy of 1758. For Banks' wealth, see Coleman, D. C., Sir John Banks Baronet and Businessman (Oxford, 1963), p. 190 Google Scholar. I am indebted to my colleague F. J. Levy for having called this study to my attention and for having made it available to me.

6 See “Carta do terramoto de 1755 na parte central de Lisboa,” in de Sousa, Francisco Luís Pereira, O terramoto do 1° de novembre de 1755 em Portugal e um estudo demográfico, 3 (Lisbon, 1928), following p. 949.Google Scholar

7 “A testamentaria de Francisco Pinheiro,” Boletim cl#x00ED;nico e de estatística dos hospitals civis de Lisboa, 20 (Lisbon, 1956), 437-478. For a general description of the archives of the Hospital de São José, see the same author's “O Arquivo Histórico do Hospital de S. José,” ibid., 29 (1965), 321-363. The biographical sketch provided in the preceding paragraph is based largely upon the first of these articles and is included because Professor Lisanti revealed so little about the central actor in his collection. I am indebted to Professor Joseph C. Miller (University of Virginia) for obtaining xerox copies of these articles for me from The Royal Society of Medicine in London.

8 It is evident, for example, that the collection's existence remained unknown to such a prominent scholar as Frédéric Mauro who wrote “Lamentàvelmente, os arquivos privados dos mercadores [Portuguêses] são pouco numerosos, digamos mesmo, inexistentes,” “Mercadores e Mercadores Banqueiros Portuguêses no século XVII,” originally published in 1961 and reprinted in Nova história pp. 119-134. The quotation is from p. 120.

9 Cf. NC, I, xlii-xliv and Daupiás, , “A testamentaria,” 457–468.Google Scholar

10 Lavradio to Luis de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 19 June 1779, Armitage, John, The History of Brazil, from … 1808 to … 1831, 2 (London, 1836), 209.Google Scholar

11 The origins of the commission system in the Portuguese empire have yet to be determined. Cf. K. G. Davies, “The Origins of the Commission System in the West India Trade,” Royal Historical Society, Transactions, Ser. 5, II (London, 1952), 89-108, which focusses upon the beginnings of London agents for West India sugar planters during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The same focus is preserved by Pares, Richard in his classic study, A West-India Fortune (London, 1950).Google Scholar

12 E.g., out of a shipment of 12 pipes of wine Pinheiro sent to Luanda in 1717, the agent set aside one pipe “com que se atestaão az mais.” Since a pipe amounted to 126 English gallons, that was a lot of testing! But, then, sailors too did their own “testing” at sea, as evidenced, for example, by a notation of June, 1715, indicating that one pipe of a wine shipment to Bahia had mysteriously arrived empty. NC, IV, 500 and 446. Neither incident provoked any protest from Pinheiro.

13 A recent and inevitably controversial contribution to the growing literature concern-ing the significance of the trade is Thomas, Robert P. and Bean, Richard N., “The Fishers of Men: The Profits of the Slave Trade,” The Journal of Economic History, 34 (December, 1974), 885–914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 E.g., “… fazendo a ditta remessa na … frotta proxima q. passou;” Pinheiro to . ar Alz. de Araújo, 14 April 1717, NC, IV, 583.

15 James Browne to Mr. Bullfinch, 12 June 1736, as quoted in Bruchey, , Colonial Merchant,p. 178.Google Scholar

18 Cf. Beekman Papers, III, 1441, index entries under “Debts, collection of.” In 1762 Gerard G. Beekman wrote “I have made Upwards of £ 1500 Bad Debts in 4 years by having to[o] much Lenity and patience with persons in my Debt, by which means others have got their money and I Lost mine.” To Samuel Fowler, 17 February 1762,1, 404. Four years later he wrote “I have due me Interest Only for money Lent Upwards of £ 500 and not in my Power to Compie [sic] the persons to payment… .” To David and William Ross, 10 February 1766, Ibid. 1,494.

17 E.g., “… farão VM venda pello mais alto preço q. poderem e … a dr.o de contado; e se pocivel for nada fiado p.a na frota vir… .” Pinheiro to Luis Antonio Preto, 20 March 1722, NC, V, 6.

18 For an example of such expenses, see NC, II, 145–146.

19 “… gr.des cabedais q. parão na sua mão de minha conta… .” Pinheiro to Muzzi, 21 November 1729, NC, V, 177.

20 E.g., Muzzi to Pinheiro, 25 August 1729, NC, III, 355.

21 Daupiás, “A testamentaria,” p. 476.

22 “… não he esta terra capas de se obrigar a ninguem por just. a porq. se matão homens como q. m bebe agua… .” João Deniz de Az[eve]do to Pinheiro, Rio de Janeiro, 26 February 1718, NC, II,122.

23 NC, IV, 641, 643, and 647. While Pinheiro did not make a practice of loaning money in Brazil, on at least one occasion he seems to have sanctioned a loan by his brother to the Governor of Rio de Janeiro of 2,700,000 rs. which was eventually repaid (NC, II, 91 and 100). See also II, 108 for an interesting reference to commercial opportunities involving the governors of Angola and Mina.

24 NC, IV, 651. Pinheiro tried every strategy that he knew to persuade his nephew to settle his late father's accounts and on one occasion warned him that his father's soul was troubled by his son's negligence (IV, 674), but the money was never paid.

25 Daupiás, “A testamentaria,” p. 437. Such callousness was by no means unique to Pinheiro. E.g., on 17 December, 1754 Gerard G. Beekman wrote his correspondents: “My Brother Cornelius … now being a Corpse above Ground [,] have only Just time [to] advise you that the [F]riendship[']s Cargo of Salt turned out well and sold at a good Price… .” Beekman Papers, 1,240.