Brazil and the politics of the Spanish Habsburgs in the South Atlantic, 1580-1640

The Portuguese Atlantic World largely avoided being swept up in the maelstrom of the Age of Revolutions until .  In fact, the Luso-Brazilian empire was distinguished by, first, the relative paucity of vocalized discontent with Brazil's subordinate status and, second, the absence of resistance to Portugal's rule in Brazil. The political, economic, and social structures of the Old Regime went relatively unchallenged in the Old World and the New. In the period after , this relative docility is chiefly attributable to the notable cohesiveness of Brazil's ruling elite, conscious of the perils inherent to their slave societyin , two-thirds of Brazil's population was comprised of enslaved people, free persons of African ancestry, or those of mixed racial backgroundand fearful of a Saint-Domingue-like insurrection.  Yet the comparative tranquility can also be explained by the weakness of Portuguese authority in the New World. With the notable exception of the - period, dominated by the iron-fisted first minister, the marquis of Pombal, there had been few efforts to centralize authority, leaving local elites with ample autonomy, leeway to conduct their own affairs, and few reasons

'En 1587 tres navíos ingleses aparecieron en la Bahía de Todos los Santos y bombardearon la capital del Estado do Brasil, Salvador de Bahía, durante casi dos días. En el transcurso de los acontecimientos, los recién llegados tomaron varios barcos del puerto y asaltaron el área azucarera circundante a la Bahía, el Recôncavo, donde una alianza de portugueses, milicias locales y nativos consiguieron repeler el ataque. El episodio es bien conocido entre los historiadores de Brasil y de Salvador quienes a menudo lo han definido como una escaramuza simple y local entre europeos y portugueses en América. Es decir, como un mero capítulo introductorio a lo que serían los 'verdaderos' ataques europeos a Brasil que culminarían con la ocupación holandesa de Pernambuco (1630-1654). Haciendo uso de fuentes atesoradas en archivos brasileños, portugueses y españoles, el objetivo de esta comunicación no es otro que ofrecer una nueva interpretación del ataque inglés a Salvador de Bahía de 1587, vinculándolo al conflicto Anglo-Español de finales del siglo XVI. En primer lugar, se pretende definirlo como un ejemplo más del creciente interés de Europa por Brasil durante este periodo. En segundo lugar, se busca ofrecer una imagen más actualizada del episodio de 1587, proponiendo a la ciudad de Salvador como un escenario local donde las rivalidades de ámbito global se manifestaron. Finalmente, la comunicación pretende discutir el significado de los territorios americanos en la Guerra Anglo-Española (1585-1604) que no solamente enfrentó a la Monarquía Hispánica y a Inglaterra, sino también a las potencias europeas de la época, incluyendo Portugal y por ende, sus territorios ultramarinos. Comunicación presentada en ' Congreso Internacional “La Armada Española de 1588 y la Contra Armada Inglesa de 1589. El conflicto naval entre España e Inglaterra, 1580-1607', celebrado en Cartagena entre el 23 y el 26 de abril de 2019.

World History Connected, 2021

Part of a special edition of the World History Connected's (WHC) "Latin America in World History," this paper offers two case studies for teaching Brazil in world history. The Dutch siege of Bahia (1638) and Princess Leopoldina's role in Brazil's independence from Portugal (1822) can help draw Brazil into world historical discussions. Both "teachable moments" also serve to investigate Atlantic environmental, food, and gender history. For the WHC's complete and open access edition please see: https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/18.1/toc.html

Tempo, 2016

The general aim of this article is to analyse the political organisation of the territory in Portuguese America from the start of the building up of the Crown judiciary system from in the 16th to the 18th centuries and to look into the causes of its belatedness in comparison to what happened in Spanish America. The focus will however be on the comarcas through the reconstitution of the process leading to the setting up of these judiciary divisions. Four stages of this process will be identified and discussion will ensue over the social and political contexts in which these political and administrative novelties came to happen. It is claimed that the delay in the structuring of the judicial network in the States of Brazil and Maranhão stems from the fact that the Portuguese advance into the territories took place at a later stage. The comparisons between the two systems will also bring other differences to the fore, not least the greater rigidity of the Spanish model in contrast to the more experimental character of the Portuguese one, and the resilience found to exist in the donatarial system. It is also worth to point out that given solutions were the result of the will of central power as much as of local initiative, and it is suggested that the building up of the crown' s political apparatus (in which the judiciary network is included) brought about the connivance, albeit ephemeral, of social interests which are considered contradictory or irreconcilable by some authors.

e-Journal of Portuguese History, 2023

This article analyzes the expeditions of residents of the captaincy of São Vicente (in Brazil) into the provinces of Paraguay and Río de la Plata (part of the Viceroyalty of Peru) during the late sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century. Initially, the main question that we aim to analyze is why these expeditions-bandeiras-occurred, as well as the conflicts that triggered them. The bandeiras involved crossing the not so well-defined frontiers at that time between the Spanish and Portuguese dominions in Southern America. This leads us to the second point: understanding whether this circulation was favored by agreements established by Portugal and Spain during the Iberian Union (1580-1640). While both crowns had plans that aimed to strengthen these connections, we will try to understand if this intention was expressed directly through treaties or royal authorizations, or if the permissiveness occurred more through omission or veiled connivance by the colonial and metropolitan authorities. Finally, the last possibility raised here is whether the fact that the bandeiras took place during the Iberian Union period was the result of a mere temporal coincidence.

Hispanic American Historical Review, 2000

This essay focuses on the influence of Brazilian historian Ciro Flamarion Cardoso’s reflections on the design of current historiography of the Brazilian colonial period by presenting a genealogy of the key interpretative lines of the subject. It starts by surveying former matrices of colonial Brazilian history such as those of Roberto Simmonsen, Caio Prado Junior and Fernando Novais, for whom the logic of Brazilian history was dictated from abroad due to the country’s subordinate role in the world economy under commercial capitalism. Cardoso’s ideas paved the way for a new method of reflecting on the colonial period by placing emphasis on American societies’ internal logics. The offshoots of the debate and their implications for current historiography are discussed.

Este artigo investiga a identifi cação nacional da elite brasileira dentro do contexto intra-latinoamericano até hoje pouco explorado. Durante o último terço do século dezenove, fi guras-chave do estado tanto como das letras no Brasil começaram a se interessar seriamente - de fato mais do que se tem normalmente admitido - pelos seus vizinhos. O crescente reconhecimento dos avanços hispanoamericanos permitiu o aparecimento de novos juízos de valor positivos junto aos velhos juízos negativos, o qual teve como efeito por sua vez tanto uma identifi cação otimista como uma identifi cação pessimista. Estas tendências interligadas e a largo prazo atingiram o seu momento crítico com a abolição da escravatura em 1888 e a queda da monarquia em 1889, os dois pilares da singularidade brasileira no subcontinente. A partir destes eventos importantes interpretes do Brasil começaram a se perceber como formando parte de uma Latino-América bifacial, ligada tanto à ordem e progresso no modelo da Europa e dos Estados Unidos quanto ao caudillismo autóctono.

The history of the Portuguese Empire in Brazil and its influence on contemporary Brazil is a story of multiple legacies. In this chapter I explore these through a study of the initial Portuguese policy of settlement of the Brazilian colony. For, eager to defend its colonial lands in Brazil from foreign powers, between 1534 and 1536 the Portuguese Crown divided the land of the colony in longitudinal tracks, or slices, going from the coast to the imaginary line set by the Treaty of Tordesillas. Brazil was thus subdivided into 15 hereditary captaincies. While the system of hereditary captaincies would formally not last beyond the mid-1500, its impact on social, economic and political affairs in Brazil has been important.