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Avenues for Research in Eighteenth-Century Portuguese Overseas History1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
Extract
Early modern Luso-Brazilian history is in a rut; and nowhere is that rut more evident than for the period between the late seventeenth century and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the period of the Brazilian gold rush. The mineral strikes made a profound impact on Portugal's society and economy: in both what changed and what remained the same. Yet surprisingly, this era remains one of the least studied periods in Portuguese history. There is not, for example, even a modern biography of Dom Joao V, whose forty-five-year reign encompassed the gold rush's most glittering moments. In what follows I will argue that several widespread perceptions of the lack of sources for early modern Luso-Brazilian history are incorrect and in need of substantial revision; and further that some traditional explanations of eighteenth-century economic history have been based on inadequate research more dependent upon ideology than sound scholarship.
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References
Notes
2 Francis, A.D., Portugal 1715–1808; Joanine, Pombaline and Rococo Portugal as Seen by British Diplomats and Traders (London 1985)Google Scholar has three chapters on John V, but as its title suggests, s i narrowly focussed. Branco, Manoel Eduardo, Portugal na Epoca de Joao V (2nd ed.; Lisbon 1886)Google Scholar is little more than a study of manners. After this essay was finished Rui Bebiano's V, D.Joao, poder e espectaculo (Lisbon 1987)Google Scholar appeared, but it adds little new information or insight. Although it only surveys the literature in English, Dutra, Francis, A Guide to the History of Brazil, 1500–1822 (Santa Barbara 1980)Google Scholar is fundamental to understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Luso-Brazilian history in the current literature.
3 Wallerstcin, I., Modern World System, 2 vols. (New York 1974-1980).Google Scholar These volumes have created a cottage industry of historical articles and monographs primarily written by non-historians. Their common thread, apart from the world system thesis, is the general lack of first hand empirical research and a skewed reading of secondary sources, e.g. Lang, James, The King's Plantation (New York 1979)Google Scholar.
4 Mota's, earlier works include Nordeste 1816 (Sao Paulo 1972),Google ScholarAtitudes de Inovacao no Brasil, 1789–1801 (Sao Paulo n.d.), by the mid 1970s, ldeologia da Cullura Brasileira, 1933–1974 (Sao Paulo 1978).Google ScholarLapa's, best known works-are Bahia e A Carreira da India (Sao Paulo 1968)Google Scholar and Economia Colonial (Sao Paulo 1973)Google Scholar; he was last working on early-twentieth-century poverty.
5 Serrao, Joel el al., Roteiro de Fonles da Historia Portuguesa Contemporanea (Lisbon 1984- ) 3vols.Google Scholar to date, is the best introduction to Lisbon's archives. Most recently, Leal, Maria Jose da Silva and Pereira, Miriam Halpern edited Arquivo e Historiografia, Coloquio sobre as Fonles Historia Contemporanea Portuguesa (Lisbon 1988)Google Scholar that contain several useful essays. Highly important but overlooked archives are in foreign community churches, e.g. Sao Lorretto Church has papers for Lisbon's Italian merchant community, and local hospitals, the Hospital Civis de Lisboa, for example has the papers of the Brazil merchant Francisco Pinheiro (1686–1749).
6 Roteiro das Bibliotecas e Arquivos Dependentes Administrativamente do Instituto Portugues do Cultural (Lisbon 1984) is a short but indispensable guide to Portugal's regional archivesGoogle Scholar.
7 For an introduction, see Coloquio, Actas do, ‘O Porto na Epoca Moderna’ in Revista de Historia Vols. 2 & 3 (1981-1982), published in Oporto by the Instituto Nacional de Investigacao CientificaGoogle Scholar.
8 Some exceptions are Mattoso, Katia M. de Queiros, Bahia A Cidade do Salvador e Sen Mercado no Seculo XIX (Salvador 1978)Google Scholar and Brown, Larissa, ‘Rio de Janeiro and its hinterland’. Laura Mello e Souza, Disclassificados do Ouro: A Probreza Mineira no Seculo XVlll (Rio de Janeiro 1982)Google Scholar.
9 See Russell-Wood, A.J.R., ‘United States Scholarly Contributions to the Historiography of Colonial Brazil’, Hispanic American Historical Review (HAHR), 65:4 (11 1985) 683–724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For Portugal, the Roteiro gives a general idea of regional notarial holdings. Leal, Maria Jose da Silva, ‘Os cartorios notariais do sec. XVII existentes no Arquivo nacional da Torre do Tombo’, Nova Historia no. 3/4 (1985) 149–71Google Scholar for an idea of the ANTT holdings. No such guide exists for Brazil, in part because some notary records still remain in private hands. For a general idea of the variety of sources available for colonial Brazil, Arquivo, boletin historico e informativo published by Sao Paulo's State Archive under the direction of J.S. Witter is the best available guide.
10 Thus for Rio de Janeiro, see inter alia, Arquivo Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Codice 11, fl. 1, July 30, 1710;Cartorio #1, Caixa 13, livro 57, June 10, 1711, Cartorio #2, Caixa l, livro 6, January 25, 1712; Arquivo Historico Ultramarino, Rio de Janeiro, #5270–76, various dates but sent on 1724 fleet. Merchant petitions for Recife, Santos, and othe r colonial towns are found in the Caixa Alvulsos while merchant petitions for Lisbon are in the ANTT Junta da Comercio section.
11 These have overlapping on site catalogues made in the nineteenth century which, despite some lacunae, are fairly complete.
12 For example, Salomon's, H. P.fine Portrait of a New Christian, Fernao Alvares Melo (Paris 1982)Google Scholar.
13 Smith, David Grant, ‘Old Christian Merchants and the Foundation of the Brazil Company, 1649’, HAHR 54:2 (05 1974) 233–259Google Scholar, and his ‘The Mercantile Class of Portugal and Brazil in the Seventeenth Century: A Socio-Economic Study of the Merchants of Lisbon and Bahia, 1620–1690’ (Unpubl. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin 1975).Google ScholarSwetschinski, Daniel, ‘The Portuguese Jewish Merchants of 17th Century Amsterdam: A Social Profile’ (Unpubl. Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandeis University 1979),Google Scholar pursuasive-ly argues that Jewish merchants played a fairly minor role in Atlantic commerce.
14 Inquisicao: Inventarios de Bens Confiscados a Cristaos Novos, Fontes Para A Historia de Brasil (Lisbon 1976)Google Scholar and her earlier Os Cristaos-Novos na Bahia: 1624–1654 (Sao Paulo 1972).Google Scholar On the topic of New-Christians in colonial commerce we unfortunately have no work for the eighteenth century to match Salvador, Jose Goncalves, Os Cristaos-Novos e o Comercio Atlantico Meridional (Sao Paulo 1978)Google Scholar.
15 nventario dos Processos da Inquisicao de Coimbra (1541–1820), 2 vols. (Paris 1972),Google Scholar ed. Luiz Bivar Guerra. The processes for the Lisbon and other tribunals have not yet been published.
16 Costa, Jose Pereira da, ‘O Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo’, Revista de historia Economica e Social, no. 6 (July-December 1980) 97–103Google Scholar; see Bauer, Arnold J., ‘The Church in the Economy of Spanish America: Ccnsos and Depositos in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, HAHR 63:1 (11 1983) 707–734Google Scholar.
17 The Metropolitan Curia Archives of Rio, Sao Paulo, and Lisbon, for example, contain extensive collections. Owing to the tradition of outmigration, one of the most useful habilitacoes collections for colonial history is housed at Braga. Franquelim Neiva Soares of the Seminario de Santiago recently told me that much of it is now indexed.
18 Marcillo, Maria Luiza, ‘The demography of Colonial Brazil’, The Cambridge History of Latin America, 5 vols. Vol. 2 (Cambridge 1985-1986),Google Scholar ed. by Leslie Bethel, 37–66, and her Bibliographical essay, 811–116 are the best overview. No one has yet taken a systematic analysis of early modern Portuguese demography. Those interested in the topic might consult Nazareth, J. Manuel et. al, A demografia portuguesa em finais do Antigo Regime (Lisbon 1983)Google Scholar a case study of the town of Coruche and A Populacao de Portugal em 1798. O Censo de Pina Manique (Paris 1970), ed. by Joaquim Verissimo Serrao which is limited by the narrow categories of Maniquc's census.Google ScholarRocha-Trindadc, Maria Bcatriz, Bibliografia da Emigracao Portuguesa (Lisbon 1984)Google Scholar and Estudos Sobre A Emigraxao Portuguesa (Lisbon 1982)Google Scholar mainly deal with nineteenth- and twentieth-century migration.
19 What is acutely needed is a study similar to Altman's, IdaEmigrants and Society: Exlremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century (forthcoming, Univ. of California Press)Google Scholar.
20 For example, Amorim, Maria Noberta Simas Bettencourt, Guimaraes 1580–1819, Estudo Demografico (Lisbon 1987) is perhaps the finest available case study on early modern Portuguese demography, but her discussion virtually ignores push forces in an area in which out-migration was extensive. My essay, ‘The Politics of Immigration to Eighteenth Century Brazil: Azorean migrants to Santa Catarina’, forthcoming, touches on the issues of push forces and migration restrictionsGoogle Scholar.
21 Lang, The King's Plantation; Hanson, Carl, Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668–1703 (Minneapolis 1980)Google Scholar.
22 French Finances 1770–1795. From Business to Bureaucracy (London 1970)Google Scholar.
23 The pioneering works of Elils, Myrian, O Monopolio do Sal no Estado do Brasil (1631–1801) (Sao Paulo 1958)Google Scholar and A Baleia no Brasil Colonial (Sao Paulo 1968)Google Scholar do not unfortunately, investigate the social and political aspects of Crown finances. Nardi, Jean Baptiste, ‘O Estanco Real do Tabaco’, Historia, no. 94 (08 1986) 14–25Google Scholar is a useful contribution using materials in the Torre do Tombo. See too Lugar, Catherine, ‘The Portuguese Tobacco Trade and Tobacco Growers of Bahia in the Late Colonial period’, Essays Concerning the Socioeconomic History Brazil and Portuguese India (Gainesville, Florida 1977)Google Scholar ed. by Dauril Alden and Warren Dean. Other major tax farms have been virtually untouched by historians.
24 Although it generally deals with the late medieval period, Hespanha, Antonio Manuel, Historia des Instituicoes Epocas medieval e moderna (Coimbra 1982)Google Scholar is critical to understanding eighteenth-century Portuguese legal and political institutions as is his extended introductory essay found in Poder e Instituicoes na Europa do Antigo Regime (Lisbon 1984)Google Scholar.
25 Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil. The High Court of Bahia and its Judges, 1609–1751 (Berkeley 1973)Google Scholar.
26 Santos, Candido dos, Os Jeronimos em Portugal. Das origens aos fins do seculo XVII (Porto 1980)Google Scholar; Santos, Eugenio dos, O Oratorio no Norte de Portugal: Contribukao para o estudo da historia e social (Porto 1982)Google Scholar.
27 Taylor, William, ‘Between Global Process and Local Knowledge: An Inquiry into Early Latin American Social History, 1500–1900’, Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History (Chapel Hill, NC 1985), ed. by Zunz, Olivier, 115–190Google Scholar.
28 The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1985)Google Scholar; Colonial British America, essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era (Baltimore 1984)Google Scholar.