Magistracy and Society in Colonial Brazil

Abstract

HE GOVERNMENT and society of the Portuguese empire formed two interlocking systems of organization. In one of them a metropolitan-directed administration, characterized by categorical and impersonal relations, joined the individual or corporation to the political institutions that constituted -formal government. In the other system interpersonal primary relations were based on extended families and kinship groups (parentelas), shared corporate or social status and goals, and common ecomomiic interests. To understand properly the operation of government in colonial Brazil one must examine the interaction of these two systems and the relations of government employees with other socioeconomic groups. The following analysis will deal with the Portuguese professional bureaucrats, not only as performers of specific -political functions but also as dynamiic participants in the complex -relations that made up Brazilian colonial society. For historical and theoretical reasons magistrates formed the core of the Portuguese imperial bureaucracy. At the center of each -town in the Portuguese empire stood the pelourinho (pillory), symbol :of justice and royal authority. Its location at the core of the community bespoke the Portuguese medieval concept of kingship which stressed the role of the monarch as dispenser of justice and protector of the poor and weak.' This close identification of King and Justice led quite naturally to the embodiment of royal authority in the judicial-administrative officers of the realm. This group, the magisterial bureaucrats, rose to power with the dynastic revolution of 1383 that brought the House of Aviz to the Portuguese throne.2 Thereafter, the demands of royal eentralization and the development of a