Beyond the Narrative

Cartography in the administration of Portuguese America can be related to three major processes—first, to allow the exploration and occupation of territory from the coast to the interior; second, to improve the organization of the colonial administration system; and third, as a basis for diplomatic negotiations of territory with other European nations. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, during the Atlantic maritime expansion through which new lands and new worlds were unveiled to Europeans, the Portuguese constructed a solid cartographic mapping of Brazil—a process in which they were the pioneers. The objective was to allow their vessels to cross the ocean and afterward to guarantee their dominion over the newly discovered lands, which resulted in a progressive increase of geographic knowledge of the world that was being unveiled to the Europeans. For these reasons, maps produced during these two centuries showed the increasing expectations and knowledge of the New World and reflected the manner of how the Americas, particularly Brazil, were gaining visibility among the European public; the maps satisfied the public’s curiosity about the recently discovered lands, with information related to geography and nature. Initially, as Spanish, Portuguese, and even French explorers began to reach the west coast of the continent, parts of the coastline began to appear on Portolan charts, which were used at that time for maritime sailing and are very rare today. Later the cartographers started portraying the interior of Brazil. Representations of local geography began to progressively replace images of natives and local flora and fauna. It became common on 17th-century maps to design a chain of rivers that allowed Brazil to be portrayed as an island. It was not by chance that this representation appeared in Portuguese maps at the same time as the Spanish and Portuguese crowns were unified, from 1580 to 1640. In the 17th and 18th centuries administrative cartography was mostly performed and supervised from Portugal by the Portuguese Crown or the Overseas Council, which handled all colonial policy. Two features characterized this activity: the impact of Portuguese colonization as it moved toward the western and central regions of the continent; and technical changes to cartographic practice that began at this time, characterized by Enlightenment rationality. The discovery of gold in the southeastern and central-west regions of Brazil, the Portuguese exploration of the Amazon basin, and the incessant disputes between the Spanish and Portuguese over Colonia del Sacramento in the south demanded better definition of both internal and external frontiers. Internal frontiers included divisions between captaincies, comarcas (a subdivision of captaincies originally of an ecclesiastical nature), bishoprics, and various other administrative divisions. External frontiers, by contrast, usually represented borders with Spanish American colonies.

The history of Brazilian print culture is closely connected to the establishment of national literature in the 19th century. Indeed, after three centuries of prohibition of printing activity in the colony by the Portuguese Crown, Impresão Régia, the first legal printing establishment in Brazil, was created in 1808 due to the arrival of the Portuguese royal family during the Napoleonic wars. From the late implementation of Imprensa Régia, which became Typographia Nacional after the independence of Brazil in 1822, to the consolidation of the publishing world in the second half of the century, marked by the controversial French presence, the discourses on literature and print production modes tend to reflect the different circulation spheres. In fact, following the long period of colonization under Portuguese rule, print production modes were implemented simultaneously with the consolidation of a broad print culture, characterized by the growth of newspapers, the circulation of images, and the impactful arrival of the novel. Undeniably, the sudden and concurrent arrival of the two worlds—technical and cultural—in addition to the paradoxical development of the print world, marked by its two technical systems—artisanal and industrial—strongly influenced the material aspects of 19th-century Brazilian publishing production. In this context, under the argument of an alleged precariousness of local print production, writers, critics, typographers, engravers, and bookbinders created literary and editorial polemics in newspapers, magazines, and books that contributed to the very construction of a “literary system.” Despite the intrinsic relationships established between literature and publishing, the multidisciplinary field of the history of the book insists on separating approaches dedicated to the technical production processes and the material analysis of objects of written culture from the approaches dedicated to print circulation and uses. Understanding the contradictions imposed by the simultaneous implementation of two technical systems, which are found when analyzing the traces left by the print equipment supply trade and the conditions to build a printing workshop, contributes to understanding the historical conditions of print production. In this sense, the historiographical perspective dialogues with heritage studies in the notion of printing heritage, understood in its tangible and intangible dimensions, considering the machines and tools of the past, together with the techniques then in use. In fact, while bringing together a set of material, technical, and mechanical elements of different production modes, printing heritage also contains the memories of the human actions that set them in motion.

Este estudo tem por objetivo compreender como ocorreu a educação jesuíta, no território da Capitania de São Vicente, no século XVI. A Pesquisa bibliográfica, de caráter documental, analisou os registros feitos pelos próprios padres jesuítas, a fim de discutir o papel da educação naquela sociedade. A atuação dos padres jesuítas teve uma função decisiva na formação da cultura e da educação no Brasil. As discussões e os resultados são referentes ao campo da história educacional, na colônia brasileira de Portugal, e permitem a atualização dos estudos na área da história e da historiografia da educação, pois contribuem para compreensão da relação entre educação e religião nos primórdios do Brasil. As contribuições das Actas do Estado de São Paulo, juntamente com as cartas jesuítas, permitiram concluirmos que o processo de instituição da educação no Brasil, não foi tarefa fácil para os jesuítas, mas permitiu o desenvolvimento de um novo modo de vida aos indígenas. Ainda, é possível perceber que a educação permitiu em conjunto com os interesses da Coroa Portuguesa a ampliação da Capitania para o desenvolvimento das relações políticas e econômicas da época.

After more than a century and a half of looking for precious metals, by private individuals and the Portuguese crown, gold in abundant quantities was finally discovered in 1695, in the sertões of Cataguases—a region that corresponds to the central portion of the current state of Minas Gerais. The event marked the beginning of a series of finds in the most western part of Portuguese America in the first half of the 18th century, in the regions that would come to be known as Minas do Cuyabá and Minas dos Goyazes. The 18th century marked the dawn of a golden era in the Luso-Brazilian world, pointing to the concretization of the promises that, since the 16th century, had proclaimed an era of wealth for Portugal. The most profound consequence of the discovery of gold was a new geopolitical reconfiguration of Portuguese dominions in the American continent, in a politically delicate conjuncture, in which America came to occupy a central position in the Portuguese Empire, at the same time that Iberian territorial boundaries—established by the Treaty of Tordesillas—were the subject of intense negotiation. The captaincy of Minas Gerais, where a large amount of gold was discovered for the first time, constituted a laboratory where the Portuguese crown drafted the political and administrative formula that would later be applied in the captaincies of Mato Grosso and Goiás.

In this work, the history of the whaling operation in Brazil during the 17th and 18th centuries is recovered. The activity was a monopoly of the Iberian (until 1640) and Portuguese crown, from 1614 to 1801, with economic, political, and ecological significance and impact both for the human and non-human protagonists.The abundance of whales and the valorisation of their products worked as drivers - environmental and economic - for the implementation and development of whaling in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Santa Catarina. In its duration, this coastal operation followed the ‘Basque-style’ style with the establishment of fixed whaling stations on land and capturing animals very close to shore. For a short period, sperm whales were captured offshore, using techniques characteristic of the ‘American-Style Shore’. The capture focused on coastal baleen whales, from which oil was produced and baleen plates extracted. Contrary to what was previously assumed, these two products were sent to Lisbon in very significant quantities and periodicity, which allows us a better understanding of their importance in the context of the Portuguese colonisation of the Americas and in a framework of ‘wet globalisation’.This marine extraction not only accompanied the processes of appropriation of the territory but was also a stimulus to promote them. It is argued here that whales played a role in providing a source of wealth for the Portuguese empire and in being an integral element in building relationships between people and the ocean.

The 16th–19th centuries was the period that witnessed the ups and downs development of the trade of the Portuguese Crown and the Portuguese private traders in India. In fact, the maritime trade of the Portuguese Crown only developed significantly in the 16th century; from the 17th century, because of different reasons, it declined gradually. Finally, it had to depend on the British at the end of the 19th century. In contrast with the Portuguese Crown trade, although the commerce of the Portuguese private merchants had to face a lot of difficulties, it continued to expand its role and influence during the four centuries (16th–19th). This article summarizes the trade of Portuguese royal and Portuguese private commercial activities in India from the 16th to the 19th century. On that basis, the authors of this article analyze and point out the core characteristics which fully and comprehensively reflect the development of commercial activities of the Portuguese royal family and merchants in India during this period. To conduct this research, the authors rely on the research results of scholars around the world directly or indirectly related to this issue and use two main research methods of Historical Science, including the historical method and the logical method. In addition, the authors also use several other research methods such as analysis, synthesis, statistics, and comparison. The completion of this study will make a scholarly contribution by helping researchers to have a more comprehensive and in-depth view of Portugal’s commercial activities in Asia in general and India in particular from the 16th to the 19th century.

The author analyses the process of mixing (mesticagem) in the Rio Negro region during the 18th and 19th Centuries. After presenting the main features of this mesticagem’s components (the Amerindian, the European and the African), the author concentrates on the inter-racial marriage policies prescribed by the Portuguese Crown, as part of a group of projects geared towards the exploitation of human resources in Portuguese America. Guzman believes that one of the main hindrances to the advance of the studies about the Amazonian caboclo societies is the belief that they are independent and self-regulated social systems. Such a conception has prevented a more accurate understanding of such societies as a product of historical transformations.

The native populations of Portuguese America were essential for the implementation of the Portuguese colonial project. Their labor was indispensable in constructing the colony, and political alliances with native peoples ensured the success of the conquest at several crucial moments, and only with the aid of native knowledge it was possible to occupy the land and advance the conquest of the immense territory that became known as Brazil. In this sense, peace was a necessity. Yet, in highlighting the centrality of Indians in the settlement of the Portuguese colony in the Americas, it must also be recognized that the relations established there between Portuguese conquerors and native populations were also historically marked by tension and violence. A war of extermination, often masquerading as a “just war,” and slavery became inseparable parts of colonial strategy. Moreover, access to land and the use of indigenous labor could both constitute secure indicators of success in the conquest of Portuguese America. In the process of colonization the Portuguese Crown was confronted by various forms of native resistance and by the differing interests of diverse colonial agents. During the 17th and 18th centuries the Crown faced tensions, disputes, and contradictions in relation to the slavery and freedom of Indians and the way it solved these conflicts revealed the configuration of its indigenist policy.

A história da maconha no Brasil tem seu início com a própria descoberta do país. A maconha é uma planta exótica, ou seja, não é natural do Brasil. Foi trazida para cá pelos escravos negros, daí a sua denominação de fumo-de-Angola. O seu uso disseminou-se rapidamente entre os negros escravos e nossos índios, que passaram a cultivá-la. Séculos mais tarde, com a popularização da planta entre intelectuais franceses e médicos ingleses do exército imperial na Índia, ela passou a ser considerada em nosso meio um excelente medicamento indicado para muitos males. A demonização da maconha no Brasil iniciou-se na década de 1920 e, na II Conferência Internacional do Ópio, em 1924, em Genebra, o delegado brasileiro Dr. Pernambuco afirmou para as delegações de 45 outros países: "a maconha é mais perigosa que o ópio". Apesar das tentativas anteriores, no século XIX e princípios do século XX, a perseguição policial aos usuários de maconha somente se fez constante e enérgica a partir da década de 1930, possivelmente como resultante da decisão da II Conferência Internacional do Ópio. O primeiro levantamento domiciliar brasileiro sobre consumo de psicotrópicos, realizado em 2001, mostrou que 6,7% da população consultada já havia experimentado maconha pelo menos uma vez na vida (lifetime use), o que significa dizer que alguns milhões de brasileiros poderiam ser acusados e condenados à prisão por tal ofensa à presente lei. No presente, um projeto de lei foi aprovado no Congresso Nacional propondo a transformação da pena de reclusão por uso/posse de drogas (inclusive maconha) em medidas administrativas.

O presente trabalho examina a importância do Tratado de Madri na formação da fronteira do oeste brasileiro, em especial na região da Capitania do Mato Grosso, no século XVIII. Apresenta ainda uma análise da importância da dinâmica social na região do Mato Grosso setecentista, com destaque para as inter-relações entre os portugueses e as sociedades indígenas (guaicurus e paiaguás), para legitimar o pleito da Coroa portuguesa.

With this article I will try to demonstrate how by the use of written arguments, some members of the Society of Jesus in the Real Audiencia de Quito were trying to counteract the projects of land occupation undertaken by the Portuguese Crown in the Northwestern of the Amazon basin (province of Maynas) during the 18th century. For that, I will use the different defensive arguments written by some of the jesuit missionaries against the Portuguese inhabitants from the capitanias of Grao Para and Maranhao. Arguments that show the complexity of those imperial disputes, but that were not effective to prevent the constant military actions of the Portuguese armies that led to the loss of a huge jurisdictional fraction of the Spanish domains in South America.

João da Silva Feijó (1724-1860) foi um entre os diversos naturalistas que trabalharam a serviço da Coroa portuguesa no levantamento dos recursos naturais da então colônia portuguesa da América, na transição do século XVIII para o século XIX. Feijó, que foi sócio correspondente da Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa, empreendeu uma viagem filosófica pelas Ilhas de Cabo Verde, onde teria permanecido de 1783 a 1797. Depois de retornar dessa viagem, permaneceu por algum tempo em Portugal, preparando-se para sua vinda para a Capitania do Ceará, onde chegaria em 1799. Uma das obras científicas mais relevantes do século XVIII português, as Viagens filosóficas foram também importantes no processo de institucionalização das ciências naturais no Brasil. Este trabalho irá se debruçar sobre as de João de Silva Feijó, no Ceará, dando ênfase a aspectos ligados aos campos da mineração, da Mineralogia e da Geologia daquele período.

Many kings of Western Africa were strong allies in commerce and trade with the Portuguese crown. However, in the late 17th century, some of their successors adopted policies of free trade as a form of counter-resistance to the Portuguese. This challenged the monopoly of Western trade policies and constituted a call for recognition of their autonomy in the Atlantic world. This chapter examines these Negro-Atlantic challenges to trade and monopolistic views of the Atlantic market, focusing first on the Portuguese trade policies applied in the 17th century. Second, it examines the case of ‘free trade’ policies pursued by a second wave of West African rulers who challenged the monopolism of the Portuguese trade policies in the late 17th century after two centuries of relations. Third, the chapter critically examines the role of the Luso-Africans, and how they related to both side of their complex, hybrid identities.

<p>O tema da posse e do usufruto da terra, no Brasil, tornou-se problema desde a chegada dos conquistadores portugueses, no início do séc. XVI. Arrancada das mãos dos habitantes primitivos do solo brasileiro, a propriedade fundiária tornou assunto da Coroa Portuguesa, que transformou sua nova colônia em reservatório de inesgotáveis recursos naturais. As lutas para superar a exploração dos colonizadores começou desde cedo, numa tentativa de dar à terra sua destinação social, para além da visão mercantilista europeia. O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) inscreve-se numa larga epopeia de luta pela terra, numa guerra sem trégua contra o latifúndio, tendo no horizonte a utopia do acesso de todos à terra, de modo especial, quem dela depende para trabalhar, produzir e sobreviver, na contramão do <em>agrobusiness</em> e sua ação destruidora do solo e do recursos naturais. Uma leitura teológica da ação MST detecta, nas entrelinhas do movimento, os sinais da passagem de Deus, como na história do Povo de Israel, libertado da terra da escravidão e conduzido à terra da fraternidade. </p>

The population of Kisama, south of the Kwanza River in what is today Angola, was composed of formerly enslaved individuals who escaped and resettled there to avoid deportation to the Americas. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, several battles took place in the territories of Kisama, as the Portuguese military, following instructions they received from Portuguese crown officials, sought to subdue local leaders. Slavery was one of the motivations for many of these military attacks, as was the punishment of Kisama leaders who hosted fugitive slaves. Kisama acquired a reputation as a safe haven for fugitives and anyone who resisted Portuguese advances, which led to increased attacks from colonial forces. This region was politically fragmented into groups led by several leaders, whom the Portuguese referred to as sobas. These leaders used defensive strategies that guaranteed the autonomy of Kisama territories until the final decades of the 19th century. Sources from the 17th and 18th centuries describe Kisama’s sobas as rebels and fierce enemies of the Portuguese colonial administrators who successfully cut off land communication between the two Portuguese colonial towns of Luanda and Benguela. The sobas maintained their political autonomy until the first decades of the 19th century, when they fell under colonial rule. The protagonism of the people of Kisama is important in the history of Angola, particularly the history of resistance among west Central Africa peoples. Because Kisama was an obstacle to Portuguese advances in west Central Africa, it should be considered one of the most important areas of insubordination and resistance to Portuguese domination before the 20th century.