Family and Empire: Pantaleão Ferreira and His Heirs in Sixteenth-Century Portugal

Abstract

Emigration overseas offered new career possibilities for the sons of elite families in the city of Porto, Portugal, although girls increasingly entered convents. This work explores the case of Pantaleão Ferreira, a man of recent noble status, and how his life and the lives of his family members were affected by the availability of new territories provided by the Iberian Empires during the sixteenth century. The lives of the members of the Ferreira family are reconstructed in order to unveil their affections, inheritance strategies, and family relationships.