Atlantic Urban Transfers in Early Modernity

Abstract

The history of the Portuguese city of Mazagão is also the history of a journey over the Atlantic. Figuratively speaking, this chapter is structured as a ship’s voyage from the northwestern shore of Africa to the Amazon basin rain forest to follow the Portuguese contribution to the urban design and public space from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries along the coasts and islands of the Atlantic Ocean. Established as a castle in 1514 and confirmed as a fortress town a few decades later, Mazagão had its population relocated to South America in 1769. Chronologically speaking, both original and subsequent urban plans in the different sites delimit Portuguese early modern experience as far as the evolution and the establishment of regular geometries to the city fabric are concerned.