Abstract
Portugal’s imperial enterprise existed both within and outside the world economy. Its outposts on the eastern coast of Africa, in India, and elsewhere throughout the East were, however, usually little more than points of commercial and cultural contact with regions external to the world economy. For example, the populous and wealthy states of India and China afforded the vastly outnumbered Portuguese little opportunity to institute thoroughly colonial regimes.1 In the Atlantic islands, Brazil, and, to a lesser degree, west Africa, however, extensive colonization took place, a development that facilitated incorporation of Portugal’s Atlantic possessions into the modern world system. The Portuguese found their Atlantic holdings less difficult to settle than those in the East. Distances were not nearly so great, and the aboriginals of Brazil, though often worthy opponents, could not mount the sort of resistance to intrusion that the Portuguese encountered in India, China, and Japan.
O Brasil se vay attenuando, e os Senores de Eng.os impossibilitando, que devem mais do que tern.
Salvador Correia de Sá (circa 1669)
O estado esta tão mizeravel, que se V. Mage não acudir como seu Real braco, será impossivel podello sustentar as Rendas.
D. Rodrigo da Costa, Viceroy of India (1689)
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Notes
In fact, it has been estimated that the number of ablebodied Portuguese men in the Far East never exceeded 10,000. C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire: 1415–1825 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 53. At the end of the sixteenth century, the total number of Portuguese in the Far East was estimated at 16,000. Sérgio, Antológia, p. 134.
Fernando Novais, Estrutura e dinâmica do sistema colonial (séculos XVI–XVII) (Lisbon: Livros Horizontes, 1975), pp. 9–10.
C. R. Boxer, “The Portuguese in the East, 1500–1800,” in H. R. Livermore, ed., Portugal and Brazil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 231.
For a discussion of England’s abandonment of Tangier in 1684, which offended the Portuguese since they were not given the chance to regain control over the Moroccan stronghold, see Edgar Prestage, O Conde de Castelmelhor e a Retrocessão de Tanger a Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1917).
Portugal’s lengthy tenure in North Africa is discussed in Robert Ricard, Études sur l’Histoire de Portugais au Maroc (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1955).
Manuel Godinho, S.J., Relação do Novo Caminho Que Fez por Terra e Mar Vindo da India para Portugal no Anno de 1663 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional—Casa da Moeda, 1974), p. 17.
Eric Axelson, Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600–1700 (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1964), p. 144.
Alexandre Lobato, Relações Luso-Maratos, 1658–1737 (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1965), pp. 28–34. Additional information on Goa in the 1680s can be found in ANTT, Convento da Graça, Misc. Manuscritos, caixa 6, tomo 3.
C.R. Boxer, Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550–1770 (London: Oxford University Press reprint, 1968), pp. 170–72.
Abbé Carré, The Travels of Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, 1672 to 1674, 3 vols., Lady Fawcett, trans., Sir Charles Fawcett, ed., with the assistance of Sir Richard Burn (London: Hakluyt Society, series 2, vols. 95–97, 1947–1948), 97:715.
Tito Augusto de Carvalho, As Companhias Portuguesas de Colonização (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1902), p. 39. Six years later, D. Pedro II also began urging wealthy Bahians to finance a proposed Junta do Comércio da India.
J. R. Amaral Lapa, A Bahia e a Carreira da India (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1968), pp. 265–68.
Quoted in Axelson, Portuguese in South-East Africa, p. 184. Additional discussion of Portugal’s unruly subjects can be found in Allen F. Isaacman, Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution, the Zambesi Prazos, 1550–1902 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972), passim;
and M. D. D. Newitt, “The Portuguese in the Zambesi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System,” Journal of African History 10 (1)(1969):67–85.
Details of the heroic defense of Mombasa can be found in C. R. Boxer and Carlos de Azevedo, Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa, 1593—1729 (London: Hollis and Carter, 1960), pp. 58–73. A manifest of men and material aboard a relief ship prepared by the viceroy of India is in BNL, Pombalina, 439, fls. 261–68. Also see Amaral Lapa, A Bahia, pp. 205–6.
Virginia Rau, et al., “Les Escales de la Carreira da India (XVIe–XVIIe Siècles),” in Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin, Les Grandes Escales vol. 33 (Brussels: Ediciones de la Librairie Encyclopédique, 1972), pp. 17–18. Information on some of the ships stopping in Bahia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can be found in Alexander Marchant, “Colonial Brazil as a Way Station for the Portuguese India Fleets,” The Geographical Review 31 (July 1941):454–65.
C. R. Boxer, “The Carreira da India, 1650–1750,” Mariner’s Mirror 46 (February 1960):42–43.
Victorino Magalhães Godinho, “Portugal, as Frotas,” p. 82. In 1660, it was reported that between five and six thousand men were employed in the annual voyages of the Brazil fleet. Freire de Oliveira, Elementos, 7:cvi. During the eighteenth century, the number of ships (and probably men) sailing in the annual voyage of the frota to Portugal remained roughly the same, though a hundred merchant ships, including two from India, reached the mother country in 1759. During this century, approximately one-tenth of the vessels in the frota proceeded to Oporto. Eulália Maria Lahmeyer Lobo, “As Frotas do Brasil,” Jahrbuch fur Geschichte von Stoat, Wirstschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerihas 4 (1967):472–73. During D. Pedro II’s reign, at least ten to twelve English vessels took part in the annual voyages of the frota. Boxer, “Vicissitudes of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance,” p. 28.
The best study on the founding of the Brazil Company is C. R. Boxer, “Padre António Vieira, S.J., and the Institution of the Brazil Company in 1649,” HAHR 29 (1949):474–97.
A brief but useful discussion of the forces that led to the decline of Brazilian sugar’s predominance on the world market can be found in Matthew Edel, “The Brazilian Sugar Cycle of the Seventeenth Century and the Rise of West Indian Competition,” Caribbean Studies 9 (April 1969):24–44. Even though prices dropped after 1650, Brazilian sugar production and the number of engenhos in operation actually increased between 1650 and 1690. See Mauro and Parker, “Portugal,” p. 710.
Alfândega de Lisboa, Museu Histórico, Reflexos Aduaneiros dos Descobrimentos e Conquistas (Second Exposição Temporária) (Lisbon, 1960), p. 42.
Caribbean planters, however, also bemoaned the heavy tax burden laid on their sugar. See E. Littleton, The Groans of the Plantations, or a True Account of Their Grievous and Extreme Sufferings by the Heavy Impositions upon Sugar (London: M. Clark, 1689).
Virginia Rau and Maria Fernanda Gomes da Silva, Os Manuscritos do Arquivo da Casa de Cadaval Respeitantes ao Brasil, 2 vols. (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1956–1958), 1:203.
Vivaldo Coaracy, O Rio de Janeiro no Século 17, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1965), p. 216.
For an explanation of the probable origin of the term bandeirante, consult Richard M. Morse, ed., The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the Brazilian Pathfinders (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, 1965), pp. 22–23.
Manuel Cardozo, “A History of Mining in Colonial Brazil, 1500–1750” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1939), pp. 87–88. For details on Mendonça’s role in the mineral quest, see Lopes Sierra, A Governor and His Image, passim.
Manuel Cardozo, “Dom Rodrigo de Castel-Branco and the Brazilian El Dorado, 1673–1682,” The Americas 1 (1944): 139.
Francisco Varnhagen, História geral do Brasil, 3rd ed., 5 vols. (São Paulo: Companhia Melhoramentos, 1927[?]–1948), 4:145.
In 1690, for example, the crown granted the governor of Rio de Janeiro the right to grant honors and rewards to Paulistas who discovered gold or silver mines. Honors included elevation to fidalgo status and membership in one of the three largest military orders. Eight years later, these incentives were extended to individuals who discovered copper, tin, saltpeter, or other useful mineral deposits. Basilio de Magalhães, “Documentos relativos ao ‘bandeirismo’ paulista e questões connexas, no periodo 1664 a 1700,” Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geographico de São Paulo 18 (1914):283–84, 364. For a discussion of D. Pedro II’s contemporaneous encouragement of copper production in Angola, see, for example, the 1676 regimento of Governor Aires de Saldanha de Meneses e Sousa, BNL, Fundo Geral, 8554, fl. 12, 14–14v; and the laws of 1693 and 1694 published in Andrade e Silva, Collecção, 10:319, 361.
Rau, Os Manuscritos, 1:233–44. During the preceding three years Brazilian officials had urged “defensive expansion,” Mario Rodriguez, “Dom Pedro of Braganza and colônia do Sacramento, 1680–1705,” HAHR 38(1958): 190.
Luis Ferrand de Almeida, A Diplomacia Portuguesa e os Limites Meridionais do Brasil (1493–1700) (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1957), p. 109. Exploiting the vast cattle herds found in the Rio de la Plata region also offered Portugal relief from its dependence on England and Ireland for hides. Documentation on Portugal’s protectionist measures for hides and English displeasure over them was published in Freire de Oliveira, Elementos, 8:341–44, 473–74, 563–64, 588.
Jonathas da Costa Rego Monteiro, A Colónia do Sacramento, 1680–1777, 2 vols. (Pôrto Alegre: Livraria do Globo, 1937), 1:115–18.
Luís Ferrand de Almeida, “Aclimatação de plantas do Oriente no Brasil durante os séculos XVII e XVIII,” Revista Portuguesa de História 15 (1975):380.
J. R. Amaral Lapa, “O Problema das Drogas Orientais,” in Economia Colonial (São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1973), p. 122.
Serafim Leite, História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, 10 vols. (Lisbon: Livraria Portugalia, 1938–1950), 5:161.
During this era, France renewed a long-standing claim to territory adjoining the mouth of the Amazon. This subject was discussed in Andrew S. Szarka, “Louis XIV and Brazil: The French Probe into Maranhão, 1697–1700,” Proceedings of the French Colonial History Society 2 (1977):133–48.
For a recent and valuable study of the enslavement and “civilizing” of Indians in Brazil, see John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).
Mathias C. Kieman, The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1640–1693 (New York: Octagon reprint, 1973), pp. 138–43.
Sue A. Gross, “Labor in Amazonia in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” The Americas 32 (1975):221.
Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 119. For slave prices, see Schwartz, “Free Labor in a Slave Economy,” p. 194.
The question as to how many Indians perished following European expansion into the Americas is still far from resolved. Casualties may well have been in the tens of millions. For a valuable collection of articles on the population question, see William M. Denevan, ed., The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976). The latest estimate for the Indian population of Brazil in 1500 is 2,431,000. Hemming, Red Gold, p. 492.
For a discussion of Portuguese activity on the Mina coast after 1637, see John Vogt, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, 1469–1682 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), pp. 189–204;
and A. F. C. Ryder, “The Re-establishment of Portuguese Factories on the Costa da Mina to the Mid-Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 1 (1958):157–83.
Pierre Verger, Flux et Reflux de la Traite des Nègres entre le Golfe de Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIe au XIXe Siècle. (Paris: Mouton, 1968), p. 29.
The classic contemporary account of the Angolan campaigns is Antonio de Oliveira de Cadornega, História Geral das Guerras Angolanas (1680), 3 vols. (Lisbon: Agencia-Geral do Ultramar, 1972).
David Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola: The Mbundu and Their Neighbors under the Influence of the Portuguese, 1483–1790 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 134.
Walter Rodney, “Portuguese Attempts at Monopoly on the Upper Guinea Coast, 1580–1640,” Journal of African History 6 (1965):315–16.
Candido da Silva Teixeira, “Companhia de Cacheu, Rios e Comércio de Guiné,” Boletim do Arquivo Histórico Colonial 1 (Lisbon, 1950):92. (This first Boletim was also the last.)
Catherine Lugar, “The Portuguese Tobacco Trade and Tobacco Growers of Bahia in the Late Colonial Period,” in Dauril Alden and Warren Dean, eds., Essays Concerning the Socio-Economic History of Brazil and Portuguese India (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1977), p. 26.
Raul Esteves dos Santos, Os Tabacos: Sua Influência na Vida da Nação, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Seara Nova, 1974), 1:28, n. 2.
John Colbatch, An Account of the Court of Portugal under the Reign of the Present King Dom Pedro II (Lisbon: Thomas Bennet, 1700), p. 23.
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© 1981 University of Minnesota
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Hanson, C.A. (1981). Recession and Recovery in the Colonies (Part 1). In: Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668–1703. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05878-5_9
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