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Cacao, Bark-Clove and Agriculture in the Portuguese

Amazon Region in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth


Century
Rafael Chambouleyron
Luso-Brazilian Review, Volume 51, Number 1, 2014, pp. 1-35 (Article)
Published by University of Wisconsin Press
DOI: 10.1353/lbr.2014.0012
For additional information about this article
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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lbr/summary/v051/51.1.chambouleyron.html
Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
ISSN 0024-7413, 2014 by the Board of Regents
of the University of Wisconsin System
1
Cacao, Bark-Clove and Agriculture
in the Portuguese Amazon Region in
the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth
Century*
Rafael Chambouleyron
Este texto discute a cultura do cacau e do cravo no Estado do Maranho e
Par, nos sculos XVII e XVIII. Seu principal argumento o de que mais do
que derivar do fracasso da produo aucareira na regio (modelo colonial
exemplar para a Amrica portuguesa), as vrias tentativas de desenvolver
o cultivo das especiarias amaznicas, durante o sculo XVII e princpios do
sculo XVIII, decorreram de uma srie de circunstncias e experincias. Esse
foi o caso do lento descobrimento e interao com a regio amaznica e seus
produtos, o declnio do domnio portugus na ndia, e uma percepo singular
de outras experincias coloniais.
O Maranho Brasil melhor e mais perto de Portugal
Simo Estcio da Silveira
Relaa sumaria das cousas do Maranho, 1624
Portuguese and creole soldiers coming from the northeast of Portuguese
America conquered the Amazon region in the beginning of the seventeenth
century.
1
In the 1620s, distance and the difculty of travel from the Amazon
region to the captaincies of Pernambuco and Bahia, where the Portuguese
colonial government was established, led to the creation of an autonomous
administrative province in the north, called Estado do Maranho (or Estado
do Maranho e Gro-Par). Te State of Maranho was divided into many
captaincies, private and royal (the most important of them being the royal
captaincies of Maranho and Par). Directly dependent on Lisbon, only in
the nineteenth century did this region become part of the rest of Brazil.
2
In
2 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
contrast to other regions of Portuguese America, such as Bahia or Pernam-
buco, where sugar cane and sugar mills fourished since the late sixteenth
century, the State of Maranho, during the frst hundred years of its coloni-
zation, represented a constant source of challenges for the Portuguese crown,
which endeavored to develop the region economically.
According to Francisco de Assis Costa, since the beginning of the colo-
nization process, the Portuguese had tried to transform the region into an
extension of a colonial economy founded upon agricultural production of
goods, based on the use of an African labor force. However, colonial experi-
ence revealed the impossibility of transforming the region into a plantation
economy. During the seventeenth century, the region became heavily depen-
dent upon an American- Indian labor force, and a variety of local products,
primarily Amazonian spicesthe drogas do sertogathered by the natives
in the hinterland, or serto. Assis Costa therefore notes the confrontation
of an agricultural ideal with an extractive reality, in the approach of the
Portuguese crown to the region.
3
Te historiography has emphasized the importance of this contradic-
tion to our understanding of the Amazonian economy and its labor system.
In many classic works of economic history, such as those written by Caio
Prado Jnior, Celso Furtado, Roberto Simonsen, Nelson Werneck Sodr and
Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, the State of Maranho formed a contrast to other
Portuguese colonial experiences, manifesting the failure to implement an
economy based on plantations and African slavery.
4
According to these types
of analyses, a classic sugar economy, such as that established in the captain-
cies of Bahia and Pernambuco, could not be developed in the Amazon region
due to the inadequacy of the regions felds and to specifc economic conjunc-
tures.
5
According to many authors, it was only in the second half of the eigh-
teenth centurywhen the Marquis of Pombal (Sebastio Jos de Carvalho e
Melo) dominated Portuguese colonial policy, that a proper colonization
of the region began. It was only then that the crown seriously intervened to
guarantee its political dominion over the vast sertes.
Tere is no doubt that the Amazon region failed to become a classical
export economy, at least during the seventeenth and early eighteenth cen-
turies.
6
Moreover, it is clear that the seventeenth- century Brazilian experi-
encei.e. sugar, tobacco and African slavesremained an important model
for the crown, settlers and authorities, when the growth and preservation
of Maranho were under discussion.
7
However, historiography has favored
an anachronistic Brazilian nation-state bias that ignores other connections
external to modern Brazil, or to the South Atlanticwhich help us to under-
stand the specifcities of colonial Maranho and Par.
In fact, if one analyses the development of seventeenth- century Mara-
nhos economy and occupation from the perspective of a secondary economy
Chambouleyron 3
gravitating around a central and exemplar colonial experience, one neglects
other factors which could help to understand the formation of this specifc
colonial society and economy. Te aim of this article is to argue that, rather
than deriving from the failure of a (Brazilian) plantation economy, the
many enterprises attempted with the drogas do serto originated from a
particular intersection of historical circumstances and experiences: frst, the
gradual discovery of, and specifc interactions with, Amazonian nature and
its products; second, the decline of Portuguese power in India; and third, a
unique appreciation of other American colonial experiences, especially that
of the thriving cacao economy in colonial Venezuela.
* * *
As mentioned above, historians have depicted the Amazon economy during
the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as one based on the extrac-
tive industry of the sertos spices. However, data reveal that the Portuguese
crown promoted the cultivation of many local products, cacao, bark-clove
and indigo being the most important. Te crown also invested in sugar and
tobacco production.
8
Terefore, the establishment of an agricultural policy,
throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, whether success-
ful or not, encompassed both Amazonian spices and traditional products
such as sugar, as well as cattle in the island of Maraj (in Par) and in the State
of Maranhos eastern frontier.
9
Te Amazonian economy was characterized
by the intersection of many crops and types of occupation. In fact, unlike
other conquests of Portuguese America, there was a strong interrelation
between its hinterlandthe sertoand the coastal settlements such as So
Lus and especially Belm where the Portuguese established an agricultural
economy.
10
If sugar production could be seen as an agricultural ideal for the
region, because of the prosperous experiences in the State of Brazil, it did not
preclude other types of agricultural experimentation.
Not by chance, in the 1650s, one of the most infuential diplomats and
men of letters of the kingdom, Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, insisted on the
importance of developing and cultivating the State of Maranhos products,
including not only sugar and tobacco, but also cacao, indigo, clove and many
others.
11
Like many other letrados of the seventeenth- century Portugal, Ri-
beiro de Macedo believed in the increasing importance of Portuguese Amer-
ica for the development of the kingdom.
12
According to Lus Ferrand de Almeida, the ideas of these intellectuals in-
fuenced the crown and coincided with an economic crisis in the Portuguese
empire. Tis was particularly clear during the second half of the seventeenth
century, when, according to Vitorino Magalhes Godinho, the imperial
economy had undergone a prolonged depression dominated by a crisis in
4 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
the sugar, tobacco, silver and slave trades.
13
Ferrand de Almeida points out
that the Portuguese crown had to develop new ways to prevent the crisis.
Specifc policies concerning taxation and trade were among the solutions en-
visioned by Lisbon to face the crisis. Tus, Ferrand de Almeida argues that
the Crown provided incentives for the extraction and cultivation of the Am-
azonian spices in order to compensate for the losses in the Indian Ocean, as
well as to mitigate the generalized crisis of the Portuguese empire, related to
the Brazilian trade.
14
Warren Dean points out that the sugar expansion in the
Caribbean and the decline of Portuguese Asiatic empire led to an increasing
interest of the Portuguese crown to cultivate Brazilian products that until
then were only collected.
15
Te promotion of Amazonian spices, therefore, should not be attributed
to the failure to establish a sugar plantation economy. At least three main
factors should be considered instead, as mentioned above. First, from the
1640s onwards, when the Portuguese achieved considerable dominion over
the region, the recognition of these territorial gains led to a gradual discovery
of new potential products. According to the descriptions of the State of Mara-
nho, the spices began to occupy an important place in the regions character-
ization. In the 1680s, for example, Captain Manuel Guedes Aranha stressed
that the captaincy of Par was a conquest where everyday new products
are discovered.
16
Father Joo de Sousa Ferreiras America abreviada (1690s)
stressed the same idea. Above all the products that could be cultivated in Ma-
ranho were invaluable spices in its sertes, such as clove, cacao and others
that could be found.
17
In 1692, Royal Treasurer Francisco Teixeira de Moraes
wrote that, as experience has shown, the State of Maranho had precious
and many spices.
18
Tis was the main reason why, throughout this period, the idea of dis-
covery became so important for the region. In the letters and reports written
to Lisbon, the authorities stressed the frequency with which expeditions and
journeys entered the serto to search for new or previously discovered spices.
One has the impression sometimes that the sertanejos (the men experienced
in the sertes) were sent without even knowing what they were seeking. In
1680, for example, a paper possibly written by Governor Incio Coelho da
Silva defended the revocation of the taxes of all those new spices that could
be discovered in the conquest. Te prince agreed with this suggestion and
decided to lif half of the taxes on the new spices that will be discovered in
that State [of Maranho]. A wealthy Portuguese trader, commenting on the
same paper also concluded that the prince should lif the taxes on those sta-
ples that were not yet discovered.
19
Te discovery of new spices or new sources of known spices then became
a task for authorities, settlers and clerics. In 1656, during an expedition or-
ganized in search of gold, the Jesuit Father Joo de Soutomaior described
Chambouleyron 5
fnding several trunks of a tree called burapinima. According to him, this
wood could become a new spice of this State.
20
In the late 1680s, Governor
Artur de S e Meneses notifed the crown of all the progress that the Portu-
guese had made in the discovery of new products. With the letter, he sent
new samples of long pepper, quinaquina, an herb similar to tea, carajuru (a
red dyestuf), and twenty- four kinds of wood for yellow dyestuf. He also
informed the king about the unsuccessful enterprises undertaken by Captain
Andr Pinheiro de Lacerda, who had tried to fnd cochineal, and about a new
spice, called puxuri (pixurim), which had been given to him by Jos de Al-
buquerque, to whom he had entrusted some discoveries.
21
Two years later,
the same governor commented to the king that he had ordered all the people
who entered in the serto to try to discover spices.
22
For the Portuguese, the
State of Maranho was a land of riches; its wealth was hidden, however, and
the conquerors had to unveil it.
23
Second, the decline of Portuguese power in India in the second half of
the seventeenth century afected the Portuguese supply of Indian spices and
entailed a general shif in the axis of the empire, from the Indian Ocean to the
Atlantic.
24
From this change resulted several attempts to transplant eastern
products to Portuguese colonies in America.
25
Although these experiments
took place in the State of Brazil and not in Maranho,
26
there is no doubt that
the Portuguese experience in Asia infuenced the approach they took to Am-
azonian spices. Tis is clear in texts and descriptions written about the region
since the beginning of the conquest.
In 1624, Captain Simo Estcio da Silveiras Relaa sumaria das cousas do
Maranha epitomizes this trend. He extolled the fertility of felds, the salu-
briousness of the land, the precious metals and stones that could be found, its
sugar cane, and the abundance of woods, edible plants and fruits, as well as
hunting and fshing. In his text, Captain Silveira insisted on the many paral-
lels that could be drawn with the East. Tus, he asserted that cinnamon sim-
ilar to that of Ceylon probably could be found, as well as clove comparable
to that of Ternate. According to Captain Silveira, Maranho was an Oriental
Peru. He was told that Indian mangoes and durians could also be found,
since this land is at the same latitude as Malacca.
27
Later descriptions drew explicit comparisons with the Indian world.
28
In
1648, the Overseas Council wrote a report to the king calling his attention
to the spices similar to those of India which were recently discovered in
Maranho. Te councilors suggested the king to command the governor to
investigate what could be discovered about the spices, and by all means to
try to produce some fruits from this discovery for the royal Treasury and
his vassals.
29
Years later, in 1679, Father Bartolomeu Galvo wrote that not only was the
State of Maranho the most fertile land in America, but it also produced
6 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
spices that even when uncultivated were better than those from India. He
added that if those spices were farmed, they would sufce to make the king-
dom wealthy.
30
Joo de Mouras Tought and Discourse (1680s) relates a di-
alogue between two friends. Te author explained how Portugal had been
an opulent kingdom when the spices of India arrived at Lisbon. It was pre-
cisely the State of Maranho which could restore this loss, since its products
could be easily obtained and transported to the kingdom. Moreover, one of
the interlocutors explained that there could be no difculty in developing
Indian spices in Maranho, since if one considers the climates and qualities
of both lands, one concludes that there is no diference between them.
31
If,
as asserted by Olaya Echeverra, the Asiatic lens had infuenced the Iberian
conquerors since the discovery of America, there is no doubt that, in the case
of the State of Maranho, it was the straits faced by the Portuguese in India
that would modulate the role played by the oriental spices in the region.
32
Tird, in the case of many other goods, especially cacao, colonial expe-
riences other than that of the State of Brazil justifed the discovery of and
experimentation with new products in the State of Maranho. In the 1680s,
Governor Artur de S e Meneses notifed the municipal council of Belm
that the king had informed him about the excellent quality of a black wood
(maybe rosewood), recently discovered, considered much better than that
of the Indies of Castile.
33
At the end of the seventeenth century, the for-
mer Governor of Maranho Gomes Freire de Andrade mentioned the use
of urucu (annatto) as a dyestuf by the French in Cayenne, and a kind of
wood, found in the Indies of Castile highly regarded in the northern na-
tions, both products that the Portuguese could exploit.
34
In the 1690s, Incio
Mendes da Costa was granted a license for indigo production based on what
he had seen in Curaao, where, living for some time, [he] had observed the
Dutchmen producing indigo.
35
In pre-Columbian America cacao was already important in the produc-
tion and consumption networks of the Maya and the Aztecs.
36
As pointed
out by Ross Jamieson, these interactions determined that very soon afer
the conquest the Spanish conquerors had begun to be infuenced by the
conquered.
37
Cacao became an important product in many places in Span-
ish America, mainly in colonial Mexico, Venezuela (Caracas), and Central
America, during the post- conquest period.
38
In the Province of Caracas, ca-
cao was established as a vital crop and export product in the 1650s, and it be-
come even more proftable during the eighteenth century, with the formation
of a trade company.
39
Although cacao is a product native to the Amazon region,
40
the Portu-
guese discovered its potential in the second half of the seventeenth cen-
tury from the Spanish American colonies.
41
In the late 1650s or early 1660s,
Chambouleyron 7
a settler born in the State of Maranho, Joo Dornelas da Cmara, defended
the plantation and exportation of cacao in the State of Maranho based on
the experience of the Indies of Castile, where he had seen the Spaniards cul-
tivating it.
42
From this time onwards the Crown attempted the development
of cacao industry.
How did the Portuguese then organize the systematic exploitation of
these Amazonian products?
Cacao
Among local products, cacao became one of the most important staples of
the Amazonian economy, especially during the eighteenth century.
43
Since
the 1670s, the crown decided to spur cacao production and cultivation.
44
In-
centives from the crown were most likely a result of the news sent from the
colony, which indicated the commercial potential of its production. Dornelas
da Cmaras report, probably written in the late 1650s, stressed the benefts of
cacao. According to him, it was more advantageous to cultivate cacao than
sugar, since it was more valuable and cheaper to produce. Tat was the rea-
son why he ofered his services to establish its cultivation in the captaincy of
Par.
45
Also in the 1660s, in a lengthy description of the State, Judge Maurcio
de Heriarte reported that the captaincy of Par was plentiful in cacao, from
which the settlers do not know how to beneft.
46
Historiography pointed out that the Jesuits pioneered the cultivation (and
exploitation) of cacao in the Amazon region.
47
According to Father Serafm
Leite, the frst attempts to plant cacao were undertaken, in 1674, by Father
Joo Felipe Bettendorf, who transported seeds from the captaincy of Par to
the captaincy of Maranho. Tere, he distributed the product of the frst trees
among the settlers. Father Leite argues that it was this frst auspicious event
which encouraged the Crown to exploit cacao cultivation.
48
However, the infuence of Spanish exploitation of cacao had echoed in
the region (and in the papers received at the Court) well before. Father Leite
himself quoted a 1664 letter from the governor of the State of Brazil to a
Jesuit Father in the captaincy of Cear (at the eastern frontier of the State of
Maranho). Te letter refers to cacao found in that region and in the Indies,
which according to him had similar climates.
49
Years earlier, as mentioned
above, Dornelas da Cmara had written about the Spaniards and their suc-
cess with cacao cultivation. Not by chance, Dom PedroII himself recognized
Dornelas da Cmara as being the frst person to begin this cultivation in
that captaincy [Par], from the knowledge he had of the Indies of Castile.
50
In a long report presented to the Overseas Council in Lisbon, probably
between 1676 and 1677, Dom Fernando Ramirez discussed the conveniences
8 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
of cacao and vanilla cultivation. He stressed their utility, since both could
be exported to Europe and Africa. Moreover, he argued, there was no other
cacao and vanilla but those grown in the Indies of Castile, and this produc-
tion could not even satisfy demand for them in Spain. Te cultivation and
trade of these two staples, therefore, could help to develop and populate the
State of Maranho, as had occurred with sugar in the State of Brazil. He then
explained the ways by which cacao was planted in the Indies, and how the
sovereign could promote its cultivation. Afer hearing the royal treasurer of
the kingdom and the royal counselor, the Overseas Council suggested that
the king should take advantage of Dom Fernando Ramirezs assistance to
spur cacao cultivation among the settlers.
51
Te new governor and the appointed royal treasurer would be authorized
to plant vanilla and cacao, in order to provide an instructive example to the
settlers.
52
In the years that followed, the governor and the royal treasurer wrote
to the court about the success of their eforts. Te crown was clearly con-
vinced about the need to sponsor cacao production, since in 1680, the prince
regent of Portugal had decided to abolish the monopoly that the contrac-
tors of chocolate enjoyed in Portugal.
53
Tis measure was taken afer a paper
probably written by Governor Incio Coelho da Silva reached the court. Te
paper advocated that cacao and vanilla should be sold freely in Portugal, and
for their market prices. In addition, it proposed that both products should be
exempted from taxation. As stated by the Overseas Council, two tradesmen
analyzed the text and seconded the recomendations. Te Council suggested
the abolition of the chocolate monopoly, and the king eventually ordered its
abrogation. In addition the king decided to free cultivated cacao, vanilla and
indigo from taxation for six years paying half taxes there afer.
54
Tose mar-
keting wild cacao would pay half taxes, a clear incentive for planted cacao.
55
Te governor received this new order (sent in April 1680), and stressed
that the settlers were now eager to plant more cacao. Te governor also com-
plained about the royal treasurer, who had not encouraged the settlers to
plant cacao and vanilla, as he had promised.
56
In a report about this letter, the
Overseas Council drew attention to the settlers initiatives which led to the
prince to subsidize some of them for their eforts.
57
Some years later, in Sep-
tember1684, in the context of a series of ofcial measures to sponsor the State
of Maranhos economy, the sovereign wrote again to the governor, stressing
the utility of the cultivation of cacao and vanilla.
58
In 1686, the king com-
plained that an insufcient quantity of cacao had been sent from Maranho;
he then ordered the governor to give incentives to those who planted it.
59
As
was the case for other products, some cacao planters obtained privileges and
grants, such as the authorization to bring Indians from the serto (descer
ndios) to work in the felds,
60
and especially sesmarias (land grants).
61
Chambouleyron 9
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the crown incentives did
have a noticeable efect. Te analysis of sesmarias given to Portuguese settlers
reveals how cacao plantations compared to other traditional products, such
as sugar and tobacco. In the State of Brazil, during the seventeenth century,
sugar and, to a lesser extent, tobacco became the most important staples,
primarily in the captaincies of Bahia and Pernambuco.
62
In the case of the
State of Maranho, not only sugar and tobacco but also local products such
as cacao were cultivated. Most of the cacao planters claimed their lands at the
end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a sign that the crowns
eforts eventually succeeded.
Although confrmed by the monarchy in the beginning of the eighteenth
century, many of these lands were already occupied. In fact, most of the set-
tlers demanded a concession of the lands they already cultivated. In Portu-
guese America in general, tenure of the land and its economic exploitation
were the main arguments for the concession of land grants.
63
Te formula
possessing and cultivating, in fact, was a common phrase in the petitions.
Small wonder that, in 1699, the representative of Maranho at the court stated
that the settlers had succeeded in producing considerable cacao, having em-
ulated one another.
64
In 1700, Manuel de Barros da Silva, a citizen of Belm,
for example, argued that he was cultivating a piece of land in the Guajar
River, and had developed large pastures for cattle and had cultivated a large
amount of cacao.
65
Years later, Silvestre Vilasboas justifed his petition for
land in the Laranjeiras River stating that he had cultivated those lands with
many crops, one alembic and more than 12thousand trees (ps) of cacao.
66
From the 1690s until the beginnings of the 1720s, I found reference to
162 land grants that governors distributed among settlers in the captaincy
of Par in which lands wild cacao was found and could be cultivated. From
these, 65 (40%) were dedicated, albeit not exclusively, to the cultivation of
cacao.
67
Only 16 settlers granted land stated that they had not yet planted
cacao.
68
Being a considerable open frontier, the captaincy of Pars capital, Belm,
was gradually surrounded by land grants. Te size of these sesmarias was
variable, but they did not surpass two leagues, since at the end of his reign
(16831706), Dom PedroII established limits for their concession.
69
Typically, planters cultivated a number of crops, but the most crucial was
cacao. Many of these crops are impossible to identify, and are defned solely
as lavouras and roas certainly referring to the cultivation of manioc (the pri-
mary starch of Portuguese America adapted from Indigenous agriculture)
70

and other foods (mantimentos). Tus, Catarina Alves had along the river
Acar her roas and felds of cattle, and almost 8thousands trees of cacao.
71

Leo Pereira de Barros occupied a piece of land on the river Guam with
10 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
5thousands trees of cacao besides other lavouras.
72
In 1714, Felipe Marinho
argued that he had been planting for more than 15years trees of cacao and
urucu and his roas.
73
Besides his 15thousands cacao trees, Antnio de Paiva
de Azevedo cultivated all the lavouras the land allows.
74
Cacao cultivation was concentrated on Acar, Guam and Moju rivers
that fow into Guajar Bay in front of Belm. Data suggest that the crowns
efort to promote a cacao industry in the Amazon met with some success.
75

In fact, land grants indicate that, in contrast to what Manuel Nunes Dias,
Sue Gross and Dauril Alden have stated, cacao production did not come
only from collectionthe cacau bravo (wild cacao)but also from culti-
vation (cacau manso).
76
Te use of the words cacaual or cacoal
77
(which
could be considered an orchard) and fazenda of cacao
78
in the land grants
indicates the existence of a concentrated plantation of cacao, and not wild
cacao found in these lands and then collected. Moreover, many of the set-
tlers explicitly stated they were planting or cultivating cacao in their
lands.
79
Nevertheless, the gathering of cacao remained important throughout the
seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Data from the registrar of the Royal
Treasury of Par, between 17001702the only systematic series we could
fndindicate that in this period, 226canoes went to the serto for cacao and
clove, paying taxes to the Treasury.
80
Data from the religious orders estates
and Indian villages in the late 1720s and early 1730s, afer cacao became the
most important export product of the region, indicate that wild cacao was far
more exploited than the cultivated one. However, the clerics could count on
the labor of the many Indians from villages they administered to the extent
that their survey of production was organized by estate and Indian villages.
81

Planted cacao, produced on lands granted by the crown, therefore, coexisted
with the gathering of cacao in the sertes. When the crown established a
trade company, the Companhia de Comrcio do Gro-Par e Maranho, in
1755, cacao was the regions most valuable crop.
82
Unfortunately, there is no way of measuring cacao cultivation and gath-
ering with any precision, since, except from the data related to the religious
orders, for the late 1720s and early 1730s, we could not fnd any systematic
reference to the production or exports of cacao for the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, a recurrent problem for this period. Only scattered
information can be gathered.
83
Nevertheless, mention of cacao cultivation
rarely appears in the documents before the end of the seventeenth century.
In addition, the increase of the tithes of cacao and clove was signifcant. Tis
increase indicates considerable growth in agricultural production, undoubt-
edly a more reliable source than collecting in the sertes. Since the religious
orders systematically avoided the payment of the tithes,
84
cacao and clove
tithes can be an indication of settlers exploitation of both products.
Chambouleyron 11
Clove
Like cacao, bark-clovepau-cravo (Dicypellium caryophyllatum)repre-
sented an important staple for the State of Maranho. Unlike cacao, however,
the Portuguese never succeeded in cultivating it. Clove remained an import-
ant product throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Te frst
references to clove appeared in 164546. A royal letter issued in August of
1646 ordered the States royal treasurer to examine in depth the news that in
the private captaincy of Caet there existed abundant forests of clove.
85
Two
years later, the Overseas Council informed the king that a small box contain-
ing some samples of the cloves bark had been sent to Portugal. Te Councils
report about Maranhos clove was optimistic. Although diferent from the
Oriental typeit was a bark and not a fowerin taste it is similar to that of
India. Moreover, it could be proftable for the royal treasury, since the Dutch
were the lords of India and prevented the Portuguese from exploiting its
spices. To avert what had happened in the East, the Council suggested that
the king should build fortresses close to the spices.
86
In March of the same year, Sergeant- major Felipe da Fonseca Gouveia
sent a letter from the Gurup fortress warning the king about the terrible
state of its defenses. He also stated that he had been in the Moluccas and that
the clove trees there and in Maranho were the same.
87
He even thought
that Maranhos clove was better. Nutmeg could also be found, like that of
Malacca. For the Overseas Council, these discoveries were even more inter-
esting than those from Caet. As the councillors reminded the king, the cap-
taincies of Gurup and Par, where Sergeant Gouveia had found the clove,
belonged to the sovereign, whereas Caet was a private captaincy, granted to
lvaro de Sousa.
88
Small wonder that, two days before this report, the sover-
eign had written to the royal treasurer commanding him to respect lvaro de
Sousas privileges and donations.
89
In October 1648, another report stressed the importance of those spices
recently discovered in Maranho, from news sent by the royal treasurer.
Te Council even suggested that the king should order the newly appointed
governor, Lus de Magalhes, to investigate what could be discovered about
the spices.
90
Some years later, a new report informed the king about more drogas. Ac-
cording to the Overseas Council, the samples sent from Maranho had arrived
in such a state that it was impossible to evaluate their worth.
91
Apparently,
from what could be analyzed, both the sarsaparilla and the nutmeg were con-
sidered unsuitable, but the clove met with approval. Te Council suggested
that Sergeant Gouveia should go to the kingdom and bring samples in perfect
condition. In addition, the councilors stressed that everything should be done
with all discretion because those lands are open and without defense.
92
12 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
Te crown promoted experiments with bark-clove cultivation. Mean-
while, settlers harvested the wild bark.
93
According to an account likely
written in the 1650s by the representative of the State of Maranho in the
court, Sergeant Gouveia had tried to beneft bark-clove without success,
since the plants grew naturally only in the distant hinterland. His experi-
ences with cultivation were also unsuccessful. Sergeant Gouveia explained
this failure on the diference between the felds in the hinterland and those
close to the Portuguese communities.
94
Te account also commented that
settlers usually traveled 100leagues to fnd clove, taking one month on the
journey, only to process about four arrobas of the product (approximately
45kilograms).
95
In 1662, the king received a proposal for the exploitation of the bark-clove
as a trade monopoly (estanco). Te sovereign ordered the Overseas Council
to examine this ofer.
96
Tis report revealed the uncertainty about the use of
this new spice. Te council wrote an account of the frst news about the prod-
uct and how the Crown had dealt with it. For some councilors the economic
benefts of a bark-clove monopoly were not at all clear, but others believed
in its potential. Te royal treasurer of the kingdom opined that bark-clove
should not be granted an estanco. According to him, its economic potential
was still uncertain; in addition, it was more useful to leave this spice for the
settlers to send it to the kingdom. A new report approved this judgment and
the sovereign authorized the contract.
97
However, there is no more reference
about this contract in the documents.
From 1650 to 1800, settlers exploited bark-clove. Many attempts to do-
mesticate this plant were made, but all of them were fruitless. In 1684, the
prince ordered the governor to plant 100 trees of clove close to the Portu-
guese settlements, and to try to develop its cultivation.
98
It remained, how-
ever, primarily a forest product, gathered by the local population. Moreover,
like cacao, it was mainly a paraense product (i.e. from the captaincy of Par),
since it did not abound in the captaincy of Maranho.
99
Even if there is no systematic data about clove exports until the 1730s,
100

clove gathering appeared to be extensive, at least for the levels of Euro-
pean consumption. In 1686, the king determined that three to four thou-
sand arrobas of clove per year were enough to supply Europe (from 45 to
60metric tons).
101
Apparently, this order was re-stated in 1687.
102
Tat was
certainly quite a low limit, if one recalls that only one ship, called Nossa
Senhora da Luz, arrived in Lisbon the same year carrying one thousand
arrobas of clove in bulk.
103
Apparently, clove was not only collected from
the serto, but also traded, probably with Indian groups. Some few docu-
ments refer to the resgate of clove, which meant some sort of commercial
transaction.
104
Chambouleyron 13
Cacao and Clove Exploitation and Trade
Cacao and clove became the most important spices of the Amazon economy
throughout the colonial period. Not only were both exported to the king-
dom, but they also played a crucial role in the regions economy. Until the
1750s, commercial transactions were conducted using both products as nat-
ural money alongside cotton in cloth and cord as well as sugar and manioc.
Settlers and Indians commonly used these products to pay for goods and
labor).
105
Unfortunately, there is almost no data concerning the production, com-
mercialization or even generic references to the disembarkation of cacao and
clove in Portugal. An accurate appraisal of their importance as commodities
remains difcult, since, there is insufcient data to analyze the relationships
established between producers, intermediaries and consumers as part of a
commodity chain approach.
106
However, owing to the importance of these two staples, the crown estab-
lished specifc tithes for both in the 1670s: the dzimos do cacau e cravo. Be-
sides taxes paid on both spices when embarked (the direitos da alfndega),
clove and cacao tithes were usually paid afer an auction by a contractor.
Tus, clove and cacao also became an important resource for the State of
Maranhos perennially strapped royal treasury. In 1676, the prince wrote to
the councilors of So Lus, reminding them of the problems of my treasury.
Terefore, as well as the residents in Par, the settlers should pay the tithes
of all the fruits of the land and taxes on the slaves from the serto.
107
Tese
tithes were probably established in the early 1670s, since a royal letter re-
ferred to another missive sent from the governor in 1674 regarding the form
of their collection.
108
Indian workers, free and slave, harvested both cacao bravo and manso and
bark-clove. Unlike the Caracas cacao plantation, there is no reference to the
use of African slaves, although both Indians and Africans worked together in
the Amazonian felds where settlers cultivated many crops altogether.
109
In-
dian workers reigned in the sertes were both clove and cacao were collected,
as the Portuguese were entirely dependent on Indian labor force. Te Indian
labor regime was a source of constant complaint and trouble in seventeenth-
and early eighteenth- century Amazon region, as a number of historians have
already pointed out.
110
Te gathering of clove and cacao in the sertes caused a series of prob-
lems for the crown and local authorities. From the 1680s onwards the crown
tried to address these difculties. First, there was the problem of falsifcation.
In 1684, the prince sent a provision condemning the mixture of bark-clove
with other trees barks, in order to make the product heavier. In 1712, the
14 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
ofcials from the custom in Lisbon made clear that falsifed bark-clove could
lead to the fnal extinction of this trade for the natives of that State [Mara-
nho].
111
In the case of cacao, the provision stressed the existence of unripe
fruits which rapidly spoiled.
112
In 1703, a new instruction complained of a
fraudulent load of cacao sent to Portugal. According to this order, the settlers
did not process it correctly to make it heavier. In addition, they used to paint
wet fruits, to give the impression that they were perfectly ripe.
113
If these practices diminished the quality and the reputation of Maran-
hos products, the gathering of spices in the sertes were a source of more
serious internal problems. In the case of clove, the method used to collect the
bark killed the trees because the settlers did not merely cut the bark, but the
whole tree. Dornelas da Cmara had already condemned this practice be-
cause it forced settlers to search for this product in even more distant regions,
which will be soon desolated in the same way, and then they will have to fnd
new [places] even further.
114
In 1686, the king recommended that the Governor Gomes Freire de An-
drade discuss with Artur de S e Meneses, his successor, the excessive cutting
of clove. Te royal letter warned about the possibility of clove extinction,
since in its harvesting, the same method is used as with pau- brasil, (Brazils
dye wood which was felled) and commanded them to discuss the problem.
115

Te king also wrote to the new governor, and decreed the prohibition of cut-
ting young trees for ten years.
116
In 1687, Governor Gomes Freire de Andrade
prohibited the cutting of trees in the Capim River (Par).
117
According to
Freire de Andrade, the Indians who sold bark-clove to the Portuguese, men-
tioned above, only cut the bark of using a thread, a technique that should be
learned from those barbarians.
118
Apparently these prohibitions were useless. Clove seemed to disappear
towards the end of the seventeenth century. In 1684 the Franciscans of Santo
Antnio were authorized to export 100arrobas of clove and 100 of cacao free
from taxes. Tirteen years later, the clerics requested a reform of their grant,
since there is no clove anymore.
119
In 1685, the governor commented that
in Par, the settlers had sent so many canoes afer clove that, in a few years,
bark-clove would no longer be found.
120
One of the gravest problems managing the collecting of spices was
the control of men who entered the serto. In 1692, Judge Miguel da Rosa
Pimentel reported that thirty to forty canoes went annually to the sertes.
121

In 1686, Governor Gomes Freire de Andrade decided to compel all those
who went to the serto to register their canoes in Belm and in the fortress of
Gurup, and to request a specifc license from the captain- major of Par. His
idea was to control the number of boats, the people who traveled in them,
and to discover whether they took advantage of this journey to make illegal
Chambouleyron 15
enslavements.
122
Te king transformed this governors order into a law in
1688.
123
Tis decree covered every person that goes to the serto for the clove
and cacao.
124
At the same time, the sovereign confrmed Freire de Andrades
order to the captain- major of the fortress of Gurup to check the license of
every canoe harvesting clove and cacao and to register those that stopped in
the fortress.
125
Tis order was reinstated in 1691.
126
Tis law caused some inconveniences for the religious orders whose mem-
bers did not want to obey it. Royal decrees in 1690 and 1699 commanded the
governor to compel the clerics to register their canoes, since they were vas-
sals and were required to register their goods with customs ofcials.
127
Tis practice caused internal problems in some religious orders, such as
the Society of Jesus. In his chronicle, Father Bettendorf asserted in the 1670s
that the head of the order disapproved of dispatching Indians to collect clove
for the Society. Father Bettendorf argued, nevertheless, that the reason why
the reverend fathers of Santo Antnio [Franciscans] send people for the clove
and cacao [is] for the expenses of their churches.
128
In 1679, Jesuit Father
Antonio Vieira wrote a letter to the superior of Maranho, admonishing him
not to send Indians afer clove and cacao, in observation of the Jesuit rule.
129
Final remarks
Cacao and clove experimentation and exploitation in the Amazon region in-
dicate the importance given to the cultivation of local products as a source of
wealth for the settlers and the crown. Te projects promoted by Lisbon reveal
that the gradual discovery of the Amazonian products increased the crowns
interest in the region. Many of these enterprises were based upon former
or contemporary experiences in Asia and Spanish America. Moreover, the
decline of Portuguese power in India enhanced the importance given to the
Amazonian spices throughout the second half of the seventeenth century.
Tree general issues arise from the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-
century Amazonian experience. First, the evidence examined here demon-
strates the inadequacy of established interpretations that stress that the
colonization of the Portuguese Amazon region began with the Marquis of
Pombals ascendancy in the mid- eighteenth century. Most Brazilian and Bra-
zilianist scholarship has insisted that it was only then that a systematic ag-
ricultural, administrative, and trade policy was implemented in the region.
Pombals decisions to end the tutelage of religious orders over Indian villages
is also correctly referenced as a signifcant change of direction for the region.
Authors have rightly presented his ministry (17511777) as a milestone not
only for Portugal, but also for the many provinces that composed her vast
empire, including the Amazon.
16 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
However, this interpretation ofen presents a distorted depiction of earlier
periods of Maranho and Pars history defned by the lack of a proper colo-
nial policy and by the dominion of the religious orders, primarily of the Jesu-
its. Tis is clear in the works of authors who identifed the Amazon region as
an isolated and poor area of the Portuguese empire before Pombal. Moreover,
up to the time of the defnition of a specifc agricultural policy under Pombal,
the region is reckoned to have been abandoned to its own fate: the settlers
surviving by the gathering of spices, the hunting of Indians, and subsistence
crops; the religious orders thriving to the detriment of settlers; the crown
oscillating between both groups but mostly absent from the region.
130
Maybe
this broader tableau was an image Pombal himself promoted to legitimate his
own projects for the region.
Contrary to what was stressed by part of the historiography, the State of
Maranho was far from being abandoned by the crown before 1750. If many
of the agricultural and development projects failed (just as Pombals did),
the crown frequently interfered in the State of Maranho. In fact, the crown
played a crucial role in the regions development, since it intervened in all
aspects of colonial society. It sponsored the population of the region,
131
it en-
couraged the discovery and exploitation of spices, it tried to defne a labor
regime,
132
and it supported the development of agriculture (most of the lands
granted in the captaincies of Par and Maranho were given by the governors
before Pombal).
133
Te crowns intervention in the region, although reliant
upon colonial experience, was shaped by the royal treasurys dearth of re-
sources in the region.
134
Te incapacity of Maranhos economy to produce
enough wealth to maintain the Portuguese military and bureaucratic appara-
tus led to an even larger presence. Te crown, afer all, viewed the progress of
economic activities not only in terms of development, but also with regard to
the fnancing of the royal treasury. At the court, these issues were considered
in tandem, and Maranhos failure to produce growth did not necessitate
abandonment. On the contrary, it led to an increasing government inter-
vention. Te strategic importance of this northern province of Portuguese
America, which bordered Spanish, French and Dutch colonies, was reason
enough for the Portuguese crown to persist in its eforts to control this exten-
sive, frontier territory.
Second, the signifcant role played by the crown in the region adds a new
element to a relatively recent debate in Brazilian and Portuguese historiogra-
phy regarding local and central government in the Portuguese empire. One
side of this debate emphasizes the limits of Portuguese absolutism, especially
afer 1640, with the end of Spanish rule, and the ascension of a new dynasty.
Tis school argues that these transformations led to the construction of a
corporate government, shared by the king and the members of local elites
within the empire. Political rule thus has been understood as a negotiation
Chambouleyron 17
between diferent levels and sources of power in the kingdom and in its
colonies overseas.
135
Te Amazonian experience during the second half of the seventeenth
century, however, requires a diferent perspective. Certainly the crown had to
settle with local elites the limits of its own political intervention in the region
as historians have stressed for the whole of Portuguese America).
136
Never-
theless, royal power was increasingly brought to bear on many other sectors
of society beyond that of government in the Amazon, such as the population
of the region, the agricultural policies related to local products, the complex
problems concerning the use of an Indian labor force, and the defense of the
regions frontiers.
Moreover, the local population became dependent on crown intervention
for their own survival. Tax exemptions, the organization of the slave trade,
and the promotion of commerce were among the many policies established
by the central government in Lisbon that benefted the Portuguese and Cre-
ole population of the State of Maranho, throughout the seventeenth and
early eighteenth century. Even beyond the white and mestizo population,
the crown had to take into account other types of local power. Tat was the
case of the many Indian nations who were essential for the consolidation
of Portuguese dominion over the region.
137
For the defense of the land, the
gathering of spices in the sertes, the cultivation of the felds, and the canoes
that became the almost exclusive form of transport in the region, the Portu-
guese depended on the Indians, both those who lived among the Portuguese
and those who lived in the hinterland in their own traditional communities.
Tese local powers, especially the latter ones, were governed by principles
and laws not subdued to the logic of the Ancien Regime, so much discussed
by the recent historiography. Te interpretation of the balance of power be-
tween local and imperial forces must thus consider the particularities of each
region of the Portuguese dominions; in the case of the Amazon region, the
main role played by Indian nations.
A third general refection concerns the role of the Amazon region within
the Portuguese empire, primarily in its relation with Brazil. Troughout the
seventeenth century (until the nineteenth century), both parts of Portuguese
America, the State of Maranho and the State of Brazil, were independent of
one another and considered to be administratively equivalent components of
the Portuguese empire. Afer the creation of Maranhos bishopric in 1677, no
aspect of Maranhos administration was subjected to the State of Brazil, as it
ended ecclesiastical subjection to the bishop of Salvador, in Bahia.
138
Tat does not mean that relationships were not established between these
colonial entities. During the 1680s, the authorities of Maranho and Brazil
were increasingly concerned with the discovery of a road (caminho) be-
tween both States.
139
Te State of Brazil also ofered a model when the question
18 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
of Indian labor force was at stake (as was the case in the 1690s, when an ep-
idemic of smallpox decimated the indigenous population).
140
Some in the
Amazon region believed that African slaves, such as those largely employed
in the Brazilian coast, represented a solution for the many problems endured
by settlers in the region (though this was not a widespread viewpoint).
During colonial times, however, the State of Maranho and Par was not
part of the State of Brazil. Even if Captain Simo Estcio da Silveira argued
that Maranho was a better Brazil, this statement predated the arrival of the
frst governor of the State of Maranho (in 1626) and indicated diference,
rather than similarity, with the State of Brazil. Historians have projected the
modern confguration of Brazil as a nation into the past such that the Ama-
zon region has mainly been explained from a perspective outside its bounds:
the colonial State of Brazil, and more specifcally the sugar production region.
Tat does not mean that one should ignore the connections between those
two parts of the Portuguese conquests in America. It means that one has
to connect the State of Maranho and Par with Spanish America, with the
Atlantic islands, with Lisbon, with the African west coast, and with the State
of India, parts of the globe that also helped to shape Amazonian society.
141
Notes
*Tis research was sponsored by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Cientfco e Tecnolgico (CNPq), the Fundao de Amparo Pesquisa do Estado do
Par (Fapesa), and the Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (FCT). I would like
to thank Oscar de la Torre Cueva and Heather Flynn Roller for their corrections and
comments. A previous version of this text was read and commented by Professor
David Brading, whom I would also like to thank.
1. Concerning the conquest of the Amazon region, see: Joo Francisco Lisboa,
Crnica do Brasil colonial: apontamentos para a histria do Maranho (Petrpolis/
Braslia: Vozes/INL, 1976), 67152; Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, Limites e demarcaes
na Amaznia brasileira. 1. A fronteira colonial com a Guiana francesa (Belm: Se-
cult, 1993), 1145; Carlos Studart Filho, Fundamentos geogrfcos e histricos do Es-
tado do Maranho e Gro Par (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exrcito Editora, 1959),
77163; Guy Martinire, Geopoltica do espao portugus da Amrica. O Estado
do Maranho, in Nova histria da expanso portuguesa. O imprio luso- brasileiro
(16201750), ed. Frdric Mauro (Lisbon: Estampa, 1991), VII, 10342; Jorge Couto,
As tentativas portuguesas de colonizao do Maranho e o projecto da Frana
equinocial, in A unio ibrica e o mundo atlntico, ed. Maria da Graa M. Ventura
(Lisbon: Colibri, 1997), 17483; Lucinda Saragoa, Da Feliz Lusitnia aos confns da
Amaznia (161562) (Lisbon/Santarm: Cosmos/CMS, 2000), 1155; Mario Martins
Chambouleyron 19
Meireles, Histria do Maranho (So Paulo: Siciliano, 2001), 1767; Alrio Cardoso,
Insubordinados, mas sempre devotos: poder local, acordos e confitos no antigo
Estado do Maranho (16071653) (M.Phil. Tesis, Univ. Estadual de Campinas,
Campinas, 2002); Guida Marques, Entre deux empires: le Maranho dans lUnion
ibrique (16141641), Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, 2010, http://nuevomundo.
revues.org/59333; Alrio Cardoso, A conquista do Maranho e as disputas atlnticas
na geopoltica da Unio Ibrica (15961626), Revista Brasileira de Histria, 31, no.61
(2011): 31738; Helidacy Maria Muniz Corra, Para aumento da conquista e bom
governo dos moradores: o papel da Cmara de So Lus na conquista do Maranho
(16121668) (PhD Diss. Univ. Federal Fluminense, 2011); Cardoso, Maranho na
Monarquia Hispnica: intercmbios, guerra e navegao nas fronteiras das ndias de
Castela (15801655) (PhD Diss. Univ. de Salamanca, 2012).
2. When the term Brazil is used in this text it is intended to mean the old State of
Brazil, contrary to the State of Maranho.
3. Francisco de Assis Costa, Ecologismo e questo agrria na Amaznia (Belm:
EdUFPA, 1992), 45.
4. See: Caio Prado Jnior, Histria econmica do Brasil (35
th
edn. So Paulo:
Brasiliense, 1987), 6970; Celso Furtado, Formao econmica do Brasil (22
th
edn.
So Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1987), 6667; Roberto Simonsen, Histria
econmica do Brasil (8
th
edn. So Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1978), 11047;
Nelson Werneck Sodr, Formao histrica do Brasil (3rd edn. So Paulo: Brasiliense,
1964), 12829; Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, A poltica de Portugal no vale amaznico
(2nd edn. Belm: Secult, 1993), 9196. For a reinterpretation of this viewpoint, see:
Antonio Filipe Pereira Caetano, Para aumentar e conservar aquelas partes . . .:
Confitos dos projetos luso- americanos para uma conquista colonial (Estado do Ma-
ranho e Gro- Par, sculos XVIIXVIII), Revista Estudos Amaznicos, VI, no. 1
(2011): 120.
5. Concerning the inadequacy of the regions soils for sugar plantation, see, also:
Sue Gross, Agricultural promotion in the Amazon Basin, 17001750, Agricultural
History, XLIII, 2 (1969): 270; Colin MacLachlan, African slave trade and economic
development in Amazonia, 17001800, in Slavery and Race Relations in Latin Amer-
ica, ed. Robert Brent Toplin (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1974), 11518; Prado Jnior,
Histria econmica do Brasil, 69; Maria Regina Celestino de Almeida, Trabalho
compulsrio na Amaznia: sculos XVIIXVIII, Revista Arrabaldes, I, 2 (1988):
103105; Vicente Salles, O negro no Par: sob o regime da escravido (2
nd
edn. Braslia/
Belm: MinC/Secult, 1998), 45.
6. For the frst half of the eighteenth century (reign of Dom Joo V), see: Gross,
Agricultural promotion in the Amazon Basin, 17001750: 26976; MacLachlan,
African Slave Trade and Economic Development in Amazonia, 17001800, 11245;
and Dauril Alden, Te Signifcance of Cacao Production in the Amazon Region
During the Late Colonial Period: an Essay in Comparative Economic hHstory, Pro-
ceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120, no.2 (1976): 10335.
7. Concerning the role of African slavery in seventeenth and early eighteenth-
century Amazonia, see: Manuel Nunes Pereira, A introduo do negro na Amaznia,
Boletim GeogrfcoIBGE 7, no. 77 (1949): 50915; Manuel Nunes Pereira, Negros
20 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
escravos na Amaznia, Anais do X Congresso Brasileiro de Geografa (Rio de Janeiro:
Conselho Nacional de Geografa, 1952) III, 15385; Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, O
negro na empresa colonial dos portugueses na Amaznia, Actas do Congresso Inter-
nacional de Histria dos Descobrimentos (Lisboa: Comisso Executiva das Comem-
oraes da Morte do Infante Dom Henrique, 1961), V, 2
nd
part, 34753; Antnio Jos
Saraiva, Le pre Antonio Vieira S.J. et la question de lesclavage des noirs au XVIIe
sicle, Annales. Economies, socits, civilisations, 22
e
anne, no.6 (1967): 12891309;
Colin MacLachlan, African Slave Trade and Economic Development in Amazonia,
17001800; Sue Anderson Gross, Labor in Amazonia in the First Half of the Eigh-
teenth Century, Te Americas, XXXII, 2 (1975): 21121; Arthur Napoleo Figueiredo,
Amaznia: tempo e gente (Belm: Prefeitura Municipal de Belm, 1977); Mrio Mar-
tins Meireles, Os negros no Maranho (So Lus: EdUFMA, 1983); Alden, Indian
Versus Black Slavery in the State of Maranho During the Seventeenth and the Eigh-
teenth Centuries, Bibliotheca Americana,1, no.3 (1984): 91142; Almeida, Trabalho
compulsrio na Amaznia: sculos XVIIXVIII, 10117; Salles, O negro no Par: sob
o regime da escravido; Anaza Vergolino- Henry & Arthur Napoleo Figueiredo, A
presena africana na Amaznia colonial. Uma notcia histrica (Belm: Arquivo P-
blico do Estado do Par, 1990); Aldrin Moura de Figueiredo, Os reis de Mina: a
Irmandade de Nossa Senhora dos Homens Pretos no Par do sculo XVII ao XIX,
Boletim do Museu Paraense Emlio Goeldi, 9, no.1 (1994): 10321; Rosa Acevedo Marin,
Camponeses, donos de engenhos e escravos na regio do Acar nos sculos XVIII
e XIX, Papers do NAEA, no.131 (2000); Flvio dos Santos Gomes, A Safe Haven:
Runaway Slaves, Mocambos, and Borders in Colonial Amazonia, Brazil, Hispanic
American Historical Review, 82, no.3 (2002): 46998; Salles, O negro na formao da
sociedade paraense (Belm: Paka-Tatu, 2004); Rafael Chambouleyron, Suspiros por
um escravo de Angola. Discursos sobre a mo-de-obra africana na Amaznia seis-
centista, Humanitas, 20, no. 1/2 (2004): 99111; Chambouleyron, Escravos do At-
lntico equatorial: trfco negreiro para o Estado do Maranho e Par (sculo XVII e
incio do sculo XVIII), Revista Brasileira de Histria, 26, no.52 (2006): 79114; Dan-
iel Domingues da Silva, Te Atlantic slave trade to Maranho, 16801846: volume,
routes and organisation, Slavery & Abolition (Londres, Inglaterra), 29, no.4 (2008):
477501; Benedito Costa Barbosa, Em outras margens do Atlntico: trfco negreiro
para o Estado do Maranho e Gro- Par (17071750) (M.Phil Tesis, Univ. Federal
do Par, 2009); Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an
Atlantic Slave Trade, 16001830 (Cambridge: CUP, 2010); Jos Maia Bezerra Neto,
Escravido negra no Gro- Par (Scs. XVIIXIX) (2nd edn. Belm: Paka-Tatu, 2012).
8. See: Ana Paula Macedo Cunha, Engenhos e engenhocas: a atividade auca-
reira no Estado do Maranho e Gro-Par (17061750) (M.Phil Tesis, Univ. Federal
do Par, 2009); Chambouleyron, Povoamento, ocupao e agricultura na Amaznia
colonial (Belm: Aa/PPHIST-UFPA/CMA-UFPA, 2010), 12151.
9. See: Luiz Mott, Piau colonial. Populao, economia e sociedade (Teresina: Pro-
jeto Petrnio Portella, 1985); Maria do Socorro Coelho Cabral, Caminhos do gado:
conquista e ocupao do Sul do Maranho (So Lus, SIOGE, 1992); Vanice Siqueira
de Melo, Cruentas guerras: ndios e portugueses nos sertes do Maranho e Piau
(primeira metade do sculo XVIII) (MPhil Tesis, Univ. Federal do Par, 2011).
Chambouleyron 21
10. See: Chambouleyron, Monique da Silva Bonifcio, Vanice Siqueira de Melo,
Pelos sertes esto todas as utilidades. Trocas e confitos no serto amaznico
(sculo XVII), Revista de Histria, no. 162 (2010): 1349. For a classical approach
of this perspective, see: Eidorfe Moreira, Belm e sua expresso geogrfca (Belm:
Imprensa Universitria, 1966).
11. Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, Discurso sobre os generos p.
a
o comercio que h
no Maranho e Par, 1653. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo [hereafer cited as
ANTT], Manuscritos do Brasil, n. 108. Concerning Macedos role in the history of
Portuguese economic thought, see: Antnio Srgio, Ntulas preambulares, in An-
tologia dos economistas portugueses. Sculo XVII (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 1924),
XXXVIIXLVII; Moses Bensabat Amzalak, A economia poltica em Portugal. O di-
plomata Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo e os seus discursos sbre economia poltica (Lisbon:
n.p., 1922); Amzalak, Anciens conomistes portugais du Moyen-Age au XVIIe sicle
(Lisbon: Institut Franais au Portugal, 1940); Jos Calvet de Magalhes, Histria do
pensamento econmico em Portugal. Da Idade Mdia ao Mercantilismo (Coimbra:
Imprensa Universitria, 1967), 258303; Virgnia Rau, Poltica Econmica e Mercan-
tilismo na Correspondncia de Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, Do Tempo e da histria,
2 (1968): 348; Carl Hanson, Economia e sociedade no Portugal barroco (16681703)
(Lisbon: Publicaes Dom Quixote, 1986), 12657.
12. See: Martim de Albuquerque, O Oriente no pensamento econmico portugus
no sculo XVII (Lisbon: Instituto Superior de Cincias Sociais e Poltica Ultramarina,
1967); Armando Castro, As doutrinas econmicas em Portugal na expanso e na de-
cadncia (sculos XVI a XVIII) (Lisbon: ICP, 1978); Antnio Almodovar & Jos Lus
Cardoso, A history of Portuguese economic thought (London/New York: Routledge,
1998), 1435.
13. Vitorino Magalhes Godinho, Portugal and her empire, 16801720, in Te
new Cambridge modern history, ed. John S. Bromley (Cambridge: CUP, 1970), IV,
511. See also: Godinho, Problmes dconomie atlantique. Le Portugal, les fottes du
sucre et les fottes de lor (16701770), Annales. conomies, Socits, Civilisations, 5,
no.2 (1950): 18497.
14. Lus Ferrand de Almeida, Aclimatao de plantas do Oriente no Brasil du-
rante os sculos XVII e XVIII, in Pginas dispersas. Estudos de histria moderna de
Portugal (Coimbra: IHES/FLUC, 1995), 95. See also: Hanson, Economia e sociedade
no Portugal barroco, 24356; Nuno Gonalo Freitas Monteiro, A consolidao da
dinastia de Bragana e o apogeu do Portugal barroco: centros de poder e trajetrias
sociais (16681750), in Histria de Portugal, ed. Jos Tengarrinha, Jos (Bauru/So
Paulo/Lisboa: EdUSC/EdUNESP/Instituto Cames, 2000), 12748.
15. Warren Dean, A Botnica e a poltica imperial: a introduo e a domesticao
de plantas no Brasil, Estudos Histricos, 4, no.8 (1991): 21819.
16. Manuel Guedes Aranha, Papel poltico sobre o Estado do Maranho [c.1682].
Revista do Instituto Histrico e Geogrfco Brasileiro, 46, 1
st
part (1883):8.
17. Joo de Sousa Ferreira, America abreviada. Suas noticias e de seus naturaes,
e em particular do Maranho, titulos, contendas e instruces a sua conservao e
augmento mui uteis [1693]. Revista do Instituto Histrico e Geogrfco Brasileiro, 57,
1
st
part (1894):141.
22 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
18. Francisco Teixeira de Moraes, Relao historica e politica dos tumultos que
succederam na cidade de S. Luiz do Maranho [1692]. Revista do Instituto Histrico
e Goegrafco Brasileiro, 40, 1
st
part (1877):73.
19. Arquivo Histrico Ultramarino [hereafer cited as AHU], Maranho, caixa 6,
doc.647 (14Mar. 1680). See also: AHU, Maranho, caixa6, doc.654 (28July 1681).
20. Joo de Soutomaior, SJ, Descobrimento do ouro, 1656. Documentos dos ar-
quivos portugueses que interessam ao Brasil, 8 (1945):2.
21. AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.279 (30Nov. 1689).
22. Te letter, written in Jan.1691 is included in AHU, Maranho, caixa8, doc.831
(4Apr. 1691).
23. Concerning those hidden riches in the Amazon region, see: Chambouleyron,
Opulncia e misria na Amaznia seiscentista, Razes da Amaznia, I, 1 (2005): 10524.
24. See: Huguette Chaunu & Pierre Chaunu, Autour de 1640: politiques et
conomies atlantiques, Annales. conomies, Socits, Civilisations, 9, no. 1 (1954):
4454; Frdric Mauro, Le Portugal et lAtlantique au XVII
e
sicle, 15701670. tude
conomique (Paris: SEVPEN, 1960); Charles Boxer, O imprio colonial portugus (Lis-
bon: Edies 70, 1977), 12949; Boxer. A ndia portuguesa em meados do sc. XVII
(Lisbon: Edies70, 1982); Anthony R. Disney, A decadncia do imprio da pimenta:
comrcio portugus na ndia no incio do sc. XVII (Lisbon: Edies70, 1981); Nova
Histria da Expanso PortuguesaO Imprio Luso- brasileiro (16201750), ed. Mauro;
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, O imprio asitico portugus, 15001700. Uma histria poltica
e econmica (Lisbon: Difel, 1995), 20556; Luiz Felipe de Alencastro, O trato dos vi-
ventes. Formao do Brasil no Atlntico sul (So Paulo: Companhia das Letras,2000).
25. See: Ferrand de Almeida, Aclimatao de plantas do Oriente no Brasil du-
rante os sculos XVII e XVIII, 59129; Jos Roberto do Amaral Lapa, O problema
das drogas orientais, in Economia colonial (So Paulo: Perspectiva, 1973), 11140. See
also: Dean, A botnica e a poltica imperial: a introduo e a domesticao de plan-
tas no Brasil, 21628.
26. Duarte de Macedo, however, did propose the exportation of oriental clove to
Maranho and Par. See: Stefan Halikowski Smith, Perceptions of Nature in Early
Modern Portuguese India, Itinerario, XXXI, no.2 (2007): 2729.
27. Simo Estcio da Silveira, Relaa Sumaria das cousas do Maranho [1624].
Reprint from Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, 94 (1974): 12627.
28. See: Alrio Cardoso, Outra sia para o imprio: frmulas para a integrao
do Maranho economia ocenica (16091656), in T(r)picos de Histria: gente, es-
pao e tempo na Amaznia (sculos XVII a XXI), eds. Chambouleyron & Jos Luis
Ruiz- Peinado Alonso (Belm: Aa/PPHIST-UFPA/CMA-UFPA, 2010), 926.
29. AHU, Maranho, caixa3, doc.272 (23Oct. 1648).
30. Bartolomeu Galvo, Sobre o mesmo [Maranho and Par], Lisbon, 24Oct.
1679. BA [hereafer cited as BA], cod.50-V-37, fol.388.
31. Joo de Moura, Descripo historica, e poltica do Estado do Maranha...
[1680s]. Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal [BNP], cod.585, fols.1011.
32. Olaya Sanfuentes Echeverra, Europa y su percepcin del Nuevo Mundo a
travs de las especies comestibles y los espacios americanos en el siglo XVI, Historia,
39, no.2, (2006): 53156.
Chambouleyron 23
33. Meneses report is included in: AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.279 (30Nov. 1689).
34. Freires report is included in: AHU, Maranho, caixa9, doc.907 (13Jan. 1696).
35. AHU, cod.94, fol.129v (24Jan. 1691).
36. See: Laura Caso Barrera & Mario Aliphat Fernndez, Cacao, Vanilla and
Annatto: Tree Production and Exchange Systems in the Southern Maya lowlands,
XVIXVII centuries, Journal of Latin American Geography, 5, no.2 (2006): 2952.
37. Ross Jamieson, Te Essence of Commodifcation: Cafeine Dependencies in
the Early Modern World, Journal of Social History, 35, no.2 (2001): 271.
38. See: John Bergman, Te Distribution of Cacao Cultivation in Pre- Columbian
America, Annals of the Association of the American Geographers, 59, no. 1 (1969):
8596.
39. Concerning cacao production in colonial Spanish America, see: Eduardo Ar-
cila Faras, Economa colonial de Venezuela (Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica,
1946); Michael Hamerly, El comercio del cacao de Guayaquil durante el perodo colo-
nial: un estudio cuantitativo (Quito: Comandancia General de Marina, 1976); Robert
Ferry, Encomienda, African Slavery, and Agriculture in Seventeenth- Century Cara-
cas, Te Hispanic American Historical Review, 61, no.4 (1981): 60935; Carlos Ross
Alvarado, El ciclo del cacao en la economa colonial de Costa Rica: 16501794,
Mesoamrica, 3, no. 4 (1982): 24778; Eugenio Piero, Te Cacao Economy of the
Eighteenth- Century Province of Caracas and the Spanish Cacao Market, Te His-
panic American Historical Review, 68, no.1 (1988): 75100; Piero, Te Town of San
Felipe and Colonial Cacao Economies (Philadelphia: Te American Philosophical So-
ciety, 1994); Robert Ferry, Trading Cacao: a View from Veracruz, 16291645, Nuevo
Mundo- Mundos Nuevos, 6 (2006) http://nuevomundo.revues.org/document1430.
html; Murdo MacLeod, Spanish Central America. A Socioeconomic History, 15201720
(Rev. edn. Austin: Uof TexasP, 2007).
40. Charles R. Clement, Michelly de Cristo-Arajo, Geo Coppens dEecken-
brugge, Alessandro Alves Pereira, Doriane Picano- Rodrigues, Origin and Domes-
tication of Native Amazonian Crops, Diversity, 2 (2010): 7880.
41. In the early 1640s, news concerning the abundance of cacao in the Amazon
river circulated among the Portuguese and Spaniards, spread by the work of Father
Cristobal de Acua, who traveled from Quito to Belm with Captain- major Pedro
Teixeira. See: Cristobal de Acua, SJ, Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio de las Ama-
zonas (Madrid: En la Imprenta del Reyno, 1641), 14v15.
42. Papel q. se deu a Rainha D Luiza sobre varias utilid.
es
do Maranha,
[1650s1660s]. ANTT, Coleo So Vicente, vol.23, fol.234v.
43. See: Alden, Te Signifcance of Cacao Production; Robert F. Ferry, Te
Price of Cacao, Its Export, and Rebellion in Eighteenth- Century Caracas. Boom,
Bust, and the Basque Monopoly, in Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth- Century
Latin America, eds. Lyman L. Johnson & Enrique Tandeter (Albuquerque: Uof New
MexicoP, 1990), 315,327.
44. Mauro, Le Portugal et lAtlantique au XVII
e
sicle, 370; Alden, Te signifcance
of cacao production, 115.
45. Papel q. se deu a Rainha D Luiza sobre varias utilid.
es
do Maranha,
fols.234234v.
24 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
46. Maurcio de Heriarte, Descripo do Estado do Maranho, Par, Corup e
Rio das Amazonas [16621667], in Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Histria geral do
Brasil (3
rd
edn. So Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1934), v.III,218.
47. Serafm Leite, SJ, Histria da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil (Lisboa/Rio de Ja-
neiro: Portuglia/INL, 1943), IV, 15861. See also: Alden, Te Making of an Enterprise.
Te Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Beyond, 15401750 (Stanford: Stan-
fordUP, 1996), 54647; Timoty {Timothy?] Walker, Slave Labor and Chocolate in
Brazil: the Culture of Cacao Plantations in Amazonia and Bahia (17
th
19
th
centuries),
Food & Foodways, 15 (2007): 8589; Karl-Heinz Arenz, De lAlzette lAmazone. Jean-
Philippe Bettendorf et les jsuites en Amazonie portugaise (16611693) (Saarbrcken:
ditions Universitaires Europennes, 2010), 33841.
48. Leite, Histria da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, 15859.
49. Leite, Histria da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, 160.
50. LGM, 47 (13Jan. 1679). Nevertheless, in a previous letter, the Crown did recog-
nize that the Jesuits had planted some cacao. LGM, 46 (16Aug. 1678). Father Leite
seems correct when he stated that the Jesuits where the frst to plant cacao in the
capitaincy of Maranho. In a land grant, Governor Incio Coelho da Silva recognizes
that the priests were the frst who planted cacao in this island [of So Lus]. Con-
frmaa de ha legoa de terra [...] o g.
or
Ign.
co
Coelho da Silva do Coll.
o
de N.
a
S. da
Luz do Maranham &. que he a de Anindyba, 30Apr. 1678. ANTT, Cartrio Jesutico,
mao 82, no. 17. See: Alden, Te signifcance of cacao production in the Amazon
region, 11415.
51. AHU, Maranho, caixa5, doc.614 (20Sept. 1677).
52. A royal provision of December 1677 determined the revocation of former or-
ders, which prohibited the ofcials of the crown from cultivating and trading. Tese
prohibitions were stated in three laws. See: Anais da Biblioteca NacionalLivro
Grosso do Maranho, 66 (1948) [herafer cited as LGM], 19 (9Sept. 1648); LGM, 21
(17Oct. 1653); and LGM, 27 (9Apr. 1655). For the laws revocating these decisions, see:
LGM, 42 (1Dec. 1677) and LGM, 41 (1Dec. 1677).
53. See: Manuel Barata, A antiga produco e exportao do Par: estudo historico-
economico (Belm: Typ. da Livraria Gillet, 1915),11.
54. Te Treasury Council (Conselho da Fazenda) decided the same, days afer.
Alphabeto das rezolues das Consultas do Conselho da Fazenda, 1705. BNP, Pom-
balina, no.178, fol.87v.
55. AHU, Maranho, caixa6, doc.647 (14Mar. 1680).
56. AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.190 (10Apr. 1681). Te sovereign answered this letter
commanding the judge of the State to hear Dom Fernando Ramirez and his explana-
tions why he did not accomplish his task. LGM, 60 (20Aug. 1681).
57. AHU, Maranho, caixa6, doc.654 (28July 1681).
58. LGM, 6566 (2Sept. 1684).
59. LGM, 7374 (24Nov. 1686).
60. Tat was, for example, the case of Jos Portal de Carvalho, who was granted
20couples of Indians by the king. LGM, 214 (27Mar. 1702). Domingos Portilho de
Melo Gusmo obtained a similar grant in 1706, when he pleaded for 200 Indians
to work on cacao trees. AHU, Maranho, caixa 10, doc. 1083 (1706). In the early
Chambouleyron 25
1720s, Francisco de Melo Palheta obtained Indians for the cultivation of cacao.
AHU, cod. 269, fol. 193v194 (30 Jan. 1722); see also: Domingos de Sousa Ferreira.
AHU, cod.269. fol.196v197 (31Jan. 1722); Pedro Portal de Carvalho. AHU, cod.269,
fol. 199v200 (12 Feb. 1722). I kindly thank Mrs. Fernanda Aires Bombardi for the
references on the early 1720s.
61. Land grantsthe sesmariaswere an old tradition in Portugal, related to the
so-called Reconquista against the Muslims, during the Middle Ages. According to
Antnio Vasconcelos de Saldanha, afer the conquest of the Portuguese territory, it
became a means of consolidating the possession of the land. Nonetheless, Vascon-
celos de Saldanha and Jos da Costa Porto have stressed that the development of
this institution in the Portuguese kingdom and in its overseas territories followed
diferent paths. In the frst case, it was a problem of taking advantage and developing
abandoned or misused land. In the case of the colonies, there was the concern to oc-
cupy deserted and uncultivated spaces and to populate them. Whatever their destiny
was in Portugal, as Virgnia Rau pointed out, what is clear is that with the overseas
expansion, the sesmarias became a fundamental element in the colonization of the
Islands (Madeira and Azores) and Portuguese America. See: Antnio Vasconcelos de
Saldanha, As capitanias do Brasil (2
nd
edn. Lisbon: CNCDP, 2001), 285 and 289; Jos
da Costa Porto, O sistema sesmarial no Brasil (Braslia, EdUNB, n.d.), 4243; Virgnia
Rau, Sesmarias medievais portuguesas (Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa, 1946),14. For
a general approach on the sesmarias in Portuguese America, see: Carmen de Oliveira
Alveal, Converting Land into Property in the Portuguese Atlantic World, 16
th
18
th

Century [ies?] (PhD diss. Te Johns Hopkins Univ., 2007).
62. Concerning sugar and tobacco production in seventeenth and early
eighteenth- century Portuguese America, see, respectively: Stuart Schwartz, Sugar
Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society. Bahia, 15501835 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridgeUP, 1998) and Jean- Baptiste Nardi, O fumo brasileiro no perodo colonial (So
Paulo: Brasiliense, 1996).
63. See: Erivaldo Fagundes Neves, Sesmarias em Portugal e no Brasil, Politeia.
Histria e Sociedade, 1, no.1 (2001): 11139; Nelson Nozoe, Sesmarias e apossamento
de terras no Brasil colnia, Revista EconomiA, 7, no.3 (2006): 587606; Alveal, Con-
verting land into property.
64. AHU, Maranho, caixa9, doc.981 (21Aug. 1699).
65. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.28, fol.27 (21Aug. 1700).
66. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.28, fols.321322v (14Nov. 1707).
67. 1) Jos da Cunha de Ea. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.345346 (granted in
15 Jan. 1694; confrmed in 18 Feb. 1702); 2) Catarina Alves. ANTT, CR, Pedro II,
liv.28, fols.300v301 (granted in 7Dec. 1700; confrmed in 9Jan. 1704); 3)Manuel de
Barros e Silva. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.28, fols.2728 (granted in 21Aug. 1700; con-
frmed in 10 Mar. 1703); 4) Sebastiana de Sousa Bitencourt. ANTT, CR, Pedro II,
liv.27, fols.110111 (granted in 28Nov. 1700; confrmed in 29Fev. 1702); 5)Antnio
de Sousa Moura. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.27, fols.112v113v (granted in 29Nov. 1701;
confrmed in 21Feb. 1702); 6)Francisco Vilela. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.27, fols.78
79 (granted in 22Nov. 1701; confrmed in 12Feb. 1702); 7)Manuel de Passos Moura.
ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 27, fols. 113v114 (granted in 10 Jun. 1701; confrmed in
26 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
19Feb. 1702); 8)Sebastio Gomes de Sousa. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.202
202v (granted in 13Nov. 1701; confrmed in 15Oct. 1705); 9)Clemente Soeiro Palheta.
ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.31, fols.6364 (granted in 6Feb. 1702; confrmed in 18Sep.
1706); 10)Jos da Costa Tavares. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.27, fols.292v294 (granted
in 13Feb. 1702; confrmed in 13Oct. 1702); 11)Manuel de Vargas & Manuel Fialho de
Oliveira. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.31, fols.87v88v (granted in 17Feb. 1702; confrmed
in 17Oct. 1706); 12)Domingos da Costa Ocanha. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.28, fols.376
377 (granted in 20 Feb. 1702; confrmed in 5 Dec. 1707); 13) Antnio de Paiva de
Azevedo. ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 30, fols. 172173 (granted in 29 Aug. 1702; con-
frmed in 19Sep. 1705); 14)Leo Pereira de Barros. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.
194v195 (granted in 10Oct. 1702; confrmed in 6Oct. 1705); 15)Lus Vieira da Costa.
ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 30, fols. 180v181v (granted in 18 Oct. 1702; confrmed in
1 Oct. 1705); 16) Manuel Alves Lima. ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 30, fols. 210211
(granted in 3 Jul. 1702; confrmed in 17 Oct. 1705); 17) Manuel Rodrigues Chaves.
ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 63, fols. 246v247 (granted in 13 Nov. 1702; confrmed in
7Oct. 1705); 18)Mateus de Carvalho e Siqueira. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.27, fols.294
295 (granted in 7 Jan. 1702; confrmed in 23 Oct. 1702); 19) Mateus de Carvalho e
Siqueira. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.27, fols.294295 (granted in 7Jan. 1702; confrmed
in 23Oct. 1702)second grant in the same document; 20)Ins do Couto. ANTT, CR,
Joo V, liv. 28, fols. 375376 (granted in 15 Jan. 1703; confrmed in 1 Dec. 1707);
21)Antnio Gonalves Ribeiro. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.63, fols.7070v (granted in
16Jan. 1703; confrmed in 13Feb. 1704); 22)Manuel Gonalves Lus. ANTT, CR, Pe-
dro II, liv. 30, fols. 179180 (granted in 16 Jan. 1703; confrmed in 29 Set. 1705);
23)Amaro Rodrigues Ferreira. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.176v178 (granted in
20Feb. 1703; confrmed in 23Set. 1705); 24)Joo de Pais do Amaral. ANTT, CR, Pe-
dro II, liv. 31, fols. 88v89v (granted in 12 Mar. 1703; confrmed in 27 Sep. 1706);
25) Manuel Alves de Lima. ANTT, CR, Pedro II, liv. 30, fols. 210211 (granted in
11 Apr. 1703; confrmed in 17 Oct. 1705); 26) Joo dos Santos. ANTT, CR, Pedro II,
liv. 55, fols. 111v112 (granted in 4 Jul. 1703; confrmed in 17 Feb. 1704); 27) Manuel
Aranha Guedes. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.175v176v (granted in 7Mar. 1703;
confrmed in 23Set. 1705); 28)Manuel de Braga. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.31, fols.40
41 (granted in 3Jun. 1703; confrmed in 13Jul. 1706); 29)Manuel Lopes Reis. ANTT,
CR, PedroII, liv.45, fols.318319 (granted in 5Jan. 1703; confrmed in [12] Feb.1704);
30) Joo Monteiro de Azevedo. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 32, fols. 1011 (granted in
3May 1705; confrmed in 5Dec. 1707); 31)Jos do Couto. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30,
fols.232233 (granted in 10Feb. 1705; confrmed in 6Nov. 1705); 32)Joo Vaz de Fre-
itas. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.44, fols.340v341 (granted in 16Dec. 1705; confrmed
in 19 Jun. 1706); 33) Silvestre Vilasboas. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 28, fols. 321322v
(granted in 11May 1707; confrmed in 14Nov. 1707); 34)Francisco Fernandes Moura.
AHU, Maranho, caixa11, doc.1124 (granted in 19May 1707; confrmed in 30Mar.
1711); 35)Gonalo Soares Muniz. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.31, fols.369v370 (granted in
22Jun. 1707; confrmed in 15Oct. 1710); 36)Jos Rodrigues Coelho. ANTT, CR, Joo
V, liv.34, fols.70v71 (granted in 21Jul. 1707; confrmed in 13Sep. 1709); 37)Domin-
gos de Sousa Freire. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.34, fols.127v128v (granted in 11Jan. 1709;
confrmed in 10Nov. 1709); 38)Manuel Coelho Barros. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.40,
Chambouleyron 27
fols.151v152 (granted in 29Set. 1710; confrmed in 20Feb. 1714); 39)Pedro da Costa
Raiol. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.38, fols.4949v (granted in 25Jul. 1711; confrmed in
13Jan. 1712); 40)Manuel de Passos Moura. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.43, fols.208v210
(granted in 23Sep. 1711; confrmed in 2Mar. 1715); 41)Manuel de Oliveira Pantoja.
ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 38, fols. 275v276v (granted in 14 Mar. 1712; confrmed in
24 Mar. 1713); 42) Pedro Mendes Toms. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 40, fols. 5152
(granted in 5 Apr. 1712; confrmed in 18 Nov. 1713); 43) Manuel Fialho de Olveira.
ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.42, fols.2626v (granted in 22Jul. 1712; confrmed in 30Jan.
1714); 44)Mariana Madureira. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.43, fols.148v150 (granted in
16Oct. 1713; 20Feb. 1715); 45)David Ferreira. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.45, fols.275v
276 (granted in 17 Nov. 1713; confrmed in 20 Feb. 1717); 46) Esperana de Freitas.
ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 43, fols. 147v148v (granted in 23 Oct. 1713; confrmed in
18Feb. 1715); 47)Felipe Marinho. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.44, fols.124125 (granted in
4 May 1714; confrmed in 21 Mar. 1716); 48) Francisco de Jesus Maria. ANTT, CR,
Joo V, liv.46, fols.243v244v (granted in 19Oct. 1714; confrmed in 17Mar. 1716);
49)Jos de Sousa de Azevedo. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.51, fols.302v303v (granted in
19Mar. 1716; confrmed in 25Jan. 1718); 50)Pedro Portal de Carvalho. ANTT, CR,
Joo V, liv. 44, fols. 350v351v (granted in 18 Apr. 1716; confrmed in 19 Feb. 1717);
51)Diogo Pinto de Gaia. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.59, fols.13v14v (granted in 15Jun.
1717; confrmed in 18 May 1720); 52) Antnio de Sousa Soeiro. ANTT, CR, Joo V,
liv.56, fols.93v94v (granted in 15Mar. 1718; confrmed in 25Nov. 1720); 53)Brbara
de Medeiro Bitencourt. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.125, f168v169v (granted in 15Mar.
1718; confrmed in 9Dec. 1718); 54)Xavier de Sousa Atade. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.62,
fols.269270 (granted in 17Mar. 1718; confrmed in 7Mar. 1722); 55)Manuel de Pas-
sos Moura. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.125, fols.185186 (granted in 5Apr. 1718; confrmed
in 18 Dec. 1718); 56) Lus de Faria Esteves. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 66, fols. 99100
(granted in 21Apr. 1718; confrmed in 2Nov. 1720); 57)Leonarda Muniz. ANTT, CR,
Joo V, liv. 53, fols. 169169v (granted in 16 May 1718; confrmed in 8 Mar. 1720);
58) Antnio Travassos de Miranda. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 127, fols. 179v180v
(granted in 21 Jul. 1718; confrmed in 30 May 1725); 59) Pedro Martins de Braga.
ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 59, fols. 8687 (granted in 5 Sep. 1718; confrmed in 5 Feb.
1721); 60)Manuel de Oliveira Pantoja. APEP, Sesmarias, liv.2, fols.5556v (granted
in 21Oct. 1718; confrmed in 6Mar. 1725); 61)Francisco Roberto Pimentel. ANTT,
CR, Joo V, liv. 56, fols. 98v99 (granted in 19 Apr. 1719; confrmed in 6 Jan. 1721);
62) Andr Correia Albernaz & Domingas Evangelho. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 61,
fols. 3636v (granted in 29 Jul. 1721; confrmed in 27 Feb. 1722); 63) Domingos de
Arajo & Incio Marques. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv. 60, fols. 274v276 (granted in
21Feb. 1721; confrmed in 25Nov. 1722); 64)Jos de Oliveira da Cunha. ANTT, CR,
Joo V, liv. 60, fols. 110v111v (granted in 27 Jul. 1721; confrmed in 14 Jan. 1722);
65)Jos Velho de Azevedo. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.60, fols. 6465 (granted in 2Aug.
1721; confrmed in 23Jan. 1722).
68. Tose of Jos da Cunha de Ea, Clemente Soeiro Palheta, Domingos da Costa
Ocanha, Lus Vieira da Costa, Joo de Pais do Amaral, Manuel Alves de Lima (1703),
Joo Vaz de Freitas, Francisco Fernandes Moura, Jos Rodrigues Coelho, Manuel de
Passos Moura, Pedro da Costa Raiol, Manuel Fialho de Oliveira, Mariana Madureira,
28 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
Pedro Portal de Carvalho, Leonarda Muniz, Manuel de Oliveira Pantoja (see previous
note).
69. Porto, O sistema sesmarial no Brasil, 7478; Alveal, Converting land into
property, 203206.
70. See: Roberto Borges da Cruz, Farinha de pau e de guerra: os usos da farinha
no extremo norte (17221759) (M.Phil Tesis, Univ. Federal do Par,2011).
71. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.28, fols.300v301 (granted in 7Dec. 1700; confrmed
in 9Jan. 1704).
72. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.194v195 (granted in 10Oct. 1702; confrmed
in 6Oct. 1705).
73. ANTT, CR, Joo V, liv.44, fols.124125 (granted in 4May 1714; confrmed in
21Mar. 1716).
74. ANTT, CR, PedroII, liv.30, fols.172173 (granted in 29Ago. 1702; confrmed
in 19Set. 1705).
75. Alden, Te signifcance of cacao production in the Amazon region, 115.
76. Manuel Nunes Dias, O cacau brasileiro na economia mundialsubsdios
para sua histria, Stvdia, 8 (1961): 27; Sue Gross, Te Economic Life of the Estado
do Maranho e Gro Par, 16861751 (Ph.D. diss., Tulane Univ., 1969): 10; Alden,
Te Signifcance of Cacao Production,115.
77. Tose of Sebastio Gomes de Sousa; Lus Vieira da Costa; Manuel Gonalves
Lus; Gonalo Soares Muniz; Manuel Coelho Barros; Manuel de Oliveira Pantoja (see
note68).
78. Tose of Clemente Soeiro Palheta; Jos da Costa Tavares; Mateus de Carvalho
e Siqueira; Esperana de Freitas; Felipe Marinho; Francisco de Jesus Maria; Jos de
Sousa de Azevedo; Antnio de Sousa Soeiro; Xavier de Sousa de Atade; Francisco
Roberto Pimentel (see note68).
79. Tat was the case of Manuel Barros da Silva; Sebastiana de Sousa Bittencourt;
Antnio de Sousa Moura; Francisco Vilela; Manuel dos Passos Moura; Antnio de
Paiva de Azevedo; Leo Pereira de Barros; Manuel Alves Lima; Amaro Rodrigues
Ferreira; Antnio Gonalves Ribeiro; Ins do Couto; Manuel Aranha Guedes; Ma-
nuel de Braga; Manuel Lopes Reis; Joo Monteiro de Azevedo; Silvestre Vilasboas;
Felipe Marinho; Diogo Pinto de Gaia; Antnio Travassos de Miranda (see note68)
80. BNF, Port.39, fols.60v, 61, 63v, 67v, 69, 76v77,79v.
81. Jesuits estates produced 5.8% of all the amount exploited by the Society of
Jesus (total of 5,100arrobas). In the case of the carmelites, cultivated cacao consisted
of 9.5% of their production (total of 4,200 arrobas). Governor Alexandre de Sousa
Freire (17281732) produced these data on the religious orders estates and economic
production. AHU, Par, caixa 13, doc. 1223 (c. 1730). I kindly thank Mr. Raimundo
Moreira das Neves Neto for this document.
82. Concerning the Companhia de Comrcio, see: Tito Augusto de Carvalho. As
companhias portuguezas de colonizao, Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lis-
boa, 19 - srie (1902): 31127; Dias, As frotas do cacau da Amaznia (17561777): sub-
sdios para o estudo do fomento ultramarino portugus no sculo XVIII, Revista de
Histria, 24, no.50 (1962): 36377; Dias, O cacau brasileiro na economia mundial
subsdios para sua histria, Stvdia, 8 (1961): 793; Dias, A Companhia Geral do Gro
Chambouleyron 29
Par e Maranho, 17551778, 2 vols. (Belm: Universidade Federal do Par, 1970);
Antnio Carreira, A Companhia Geral do Gro-Par e Maranho (o comrcio monop-
olista Portugal- frica-Brasil na segunda metade do sculo XVIII), 2vols. (So Paulo/
Braslia: Companhia Editora Nacional/INL, 1988).
83. See: AHU, Maranho, caixa6, doc.638 (7Aug. 1679); AHU, cod.17, fol.301A
(31Oct. 1679).
84. Joo Lcio de Azevedo, Os jesutas no Gro-Par: suas misses e a colonizao
(2
nd
edn. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1930), 238; Alden, Economics Aspects
of the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil: a Preliminary Report, in Confict and
Continuity in Brazilian Society, ed. Henry H. Keith & S.F. Edwards (Columbia: U of
South CarolinaP, 1967), 2565; Alden, Te Making of an Enterprise, 46173; Paulo As-
suno, Negcios jesuticos: o cotidiano da administrao dos bens divinos (So Paulo:
EdUSP, 2004); Raimundo Moreira das Neves Neto, Um patrimnio em contendas:
os bens jesuticos e a magna questo dos dzimos no estado do Maranho e Gro Par
(16501750) (MPhil Tesis, Univ. Federal do Par, 2011), 10950.
85. AHU, cod.275, fol.91 (13Sept. 1646).
86. AHU, cod.14, fols.130130v (22Aug. 1648). In another consulta the Council
stressed that these fortresses should be paid by the royal treasury and that the king
could divide the region in captaincies to better occupy it. AHU, Maranho, caixa3,
doc.267 (18Sept. 1648).
87. In a document certainly written years later, Sergeant Gouveia was described
as an experienced man [baqueano] of several years in India. AHU, Par, caixa 2,
doc.105.
88. AHU, Maranho, caixa3, doc.265 (5Sept. 1648).
89. AHU, cod.92, fols.116116v (3Sept. 1646).
90. AHU, Maranho, caixa3, doc.272 (23Oct. 1648). In a consulta made in 1649,
the Overseas Council stressed to the king that Governor Lus de Magalhes was sent
with special orders to inquire about the right time to collect bark-clove. AHU, Ma-
ranho, caixa3, doc.279 (18Jun. 1649).
91. In 1650, the king commanded the governor to send samples of the new spices.
AHU, cod.275, fol.267v (14May 1650).
92. AHU, cod.14, fols.373373v (15Feb. 1652).
93. It was also exploited by the crown itself. In 1676, for example, the royal trea-
surer proposed to the prince the dispatch of two large canoes to collect clove in the
captaincy of Maranho, and the gathering of 100arrobas of cacao and 200 of clove in
the captaincy of Par. Tis was a means for fnancing the construction of three for-
tresses, without disturbing the people. AHU, Maranho, caixa5, doc.611 (20Sept.
1677). Analyses of bark-clove were also ordered by the crown, in order to estimate its
value. See: ANTT, Conselho Ultramarino, Livro1 (Decretos), fol.130 (5Mar. 1688).
94. In 1687, Governor Gomes Freire de Andrade informed that in the time of Dom
Joo IV (dead in 1656), thirty thousand plants of bark-clove were cultivated on the
Capim River without success. AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.259 (Belm, 24Jan. 1687).
95. AHU, Par, caixa2, doc.105 (Second half of the seventeenth century).
96. AHU, Maranho, caixa4, doc.459 (9Sept. 1662).
97. AHU, Maranho, caixa4, doc.461 (5Oct. 1662).
30 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
98. LGM, 68 (2Sept. 1684).
99. See: Heriarte, Descripo do Estado do Maranho, Par, Corup e Rio das
Amazonas, 218; Aranha, Papel poltico sobre o Estado do Maranho, 9.
100. Concerning exports from the captaincy of Par, from 1730 until 1777, see:
AHU, Par, caixa80, doc.6627 (31Aug. 1778).
101. LGM, 7576 (24 Nov. 1686). See an examination of this order and the re-
sponses of Gomes Freire de Andrade and Artur de S e Meneses in AHU, Par,
caixa3, doc.260 (18July 1687); and AHU, cod.274, fols.58v59 (7Nov. 1687).
102. Tis new order is referred in a letter to the governor written in 1690. AHU,
cod.268, fol.71 (18Oct. 1690).
103. AHU, Maranho, caixa 7, doc. 736 (22 Feb. 1686); AHU, Maranho, caixa 7,
doc.767 (14Dec. 1686); AHU, cod.93, fols.424v425 (22Dec. 1686).
104. AHU, Par, caixa 3, doc. 258 (20 Nov. 1686); AHU, Par, caixa 3, doc. 263
(Belm, 19July 1687).
105. See: Alam da Silva Lima, Do dinheiro da terra ao bom dinheiro: moeda
natural e moeda metlica na Amaznia colonial (17061750) (M.Phil. Tesis, Univ.
Federal do Par, 2006); Alam da Silva Lima & Chambouleyron & Danilo Igliori,
Plata, pao, cacao y clavo. Dinero de la tierra en la Amazona portuguesa (c.1640
1750), Fronteras de la Historia, 14, n.2 (2009): 20527.
106. See: Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal & Zephyr Frank, Commodity Chains in
Teory and in Latin American History, in From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American
Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 15002000, eds. Topik,
Marichal & Frank (Durham: DukeUP, 2006), 124.
107. LGM, 3940 (19Sept. 1676).
108. LGM, 3839 (19Sept. 1676).
109. Chambouleyron, Tapuios entre os pretos. Mano de obra y cultivo en la Ama-
zona del siglo 17, in Sociedades diversas, sociedades en cambio. Amrica Latina en
perspectiva histrica, eds. Gabriela Dalla Corte et al. (Barcelona: Universitat de Barce-
lona, 2011), 17786.
110. Concerning Indian labor in the State of Maranho and Par, prior to Pombal,
see: Azevedo, Os jesutas no Gro-Par; Leite, SJ, Histria da Companhia de Jesus
no Brasil, vol. IV; Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis, O Estado do Maranhocatequese do
gentiorebeliespacifcao. Reprint from the second volume of Anais do IV Con-
gresso de Histria Nacional (Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional,
1950); Mathias C. Kiemen, OFM, Te Indian policy of Portugal in the Amazon region,
16141693 (Washington: Te Catholic U of America P, 1954); Alden, Black Robes
Versus White Settlers: the Struggle for Freedom of the Indians in Colonial Brazil,
in Attitudes of Colonial Powers Toward the American Indian, eds. Howard Pechman
& Charles Gibson (Salt Lake City: U of UtahP, 1969), 1945; Colin MacLachlan, Te
Indian Labor Structure in the Portuguese Amazon, 17001800, in Colonial Roots of
Modern Brazil, ed. Alden (Berkeley/Los Angeles: Te U of CaliforniaP, 1973), 199230;
David Sweet, A Rich Realm of Nature Destroyed: the Middle Amazon Valley, 1640
1750 (PhD Diss., Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1974); Gross, Labor in Amazonia in
the First Half of the Eighteenth Century; Sweet, Francisca: Indian Slave, in Struggle
and survival in colonial America, eds. David Sweet & Gary Nash (Los Angeles: Te
Chambouleyron 31
Uof CaliforniaP, 1981), 27491; Helosa Liberalli Belloto, Trabalho indgena, regal-
ismo e colonizao no estado do Maranho nos sculos XVII e XVIII, Revista Bra-
sileira de Histria, 4 (1982): 17792; Alden, Indian Versus Black Slavery; Alden, El
indio desechable en el Estado de Maranho durante los siglos XVII y XVIII, Amrica
Indgena, XLV, no.2 (1985): 42746; Maria Regina Celestino de Almeida, Trabalho
compulsrio na Amaznia: sculos XVIIXVIII; Ndia Farage, As muralhas dos
sertes (So Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1991); Antnio Jos Saraiva, O Pe. Antnio Vieira e a
liberdade dos ndios, in Histria e utopia (Lisboa: Ministrio de Educao/Instituto
de Cultura e Lngua Portuguesa, 1992), 1352; Beatriz Perrone- Moiss, Para conter a
fereza dos contrrios: guerras na legislao indigenista colonial, Cadernos Cedes, 30
(1993): 5764; Antnio Porro, O povo das guas: ensaios de etno- histria amaznica
(Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1996); John M. Monteiro, O escravo ndio, esse desconhe-
cido, in ndios no Brasil, ed. Lus Donisete Benzi Grupioni (So Paulo: Secretaria Mu-
nicipal de Cultura, 1992), 10520; Monteiro, Escravido indgena e despovoamento
na Amrica portuguesa: S. Paulo e Maranho, in Brasil nas vsperas do mundo mo-
derno, ed. Jill Dias (Lisbon: CNCDP, 1992), 13767; ngela Domingues, Os conceitos
de guerra justa e resgate e os amerndios do norte do Brasil, in Brasil: colonizao e
escravido, ed. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2000),
4556; Mauro da Costa de Oliveira, Escravido indgena na Amaznia colonial
(MPhil Tesis, Univ. Federal de Gois, Goinia, 2001); James O. Sousa, Mo-de-obra
indgena na Amaznia Colonial, Em Tempo de Histrias, 6 (2002): 118; Barbara
Sommer, Colony of the Serto: Amazonian Expeditions and the Indian Slave Trade,
Te Americas, 61, no.3 (2005): 40128; Mrcia Eliane Alves de Souza e Mello, Des-
vendando outras Franciscas: mulheres cativas e as aes de liberdade na Amaznia
colonial portuguesa, Portuguese Studies Review, 13, no. 1 (2005): 116; Almir Diniz
de Carvalho Jnior, ndios cristos: a converso dos ndios na Amaznia portu-
guesa (16531769) (PhD Diss., Univ. Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2005); Dcio
de Alencar Guzmn, Encontros circulares: guerra e comrcio no Rio Negro (Gro-
Par), sculos XVII e XVIII, Anais do Arquivo Pblico do Par, 5, t.1 (2006), 13965;
Mello, Para servir a quem quizer: apelaes de liberdade dos ndios na Amaznia
Portuguesa, in Rastros da Memria: histrias e trajetrias das populaes indgenas
na Amaznia, eds. Patrcia de Melo Sampaio & Regina de Carvalho Erthal (Manaus:
EDUA, 2006), 4872; Guzmn, A colonizao nas Amaznias: guerras, comrcio
e escravido nos sculos XVII e XVIII, Revista Estudos Amaznicos, vol. III, no. 2
(2008): 10339; Camila Loureiro Dias, Civilidade, cultura e comrcio: os princpios
fundamentais da poltica indigenista na Amaznia (16141757) (MPhil Tesis, Univ.
de So Paulo, So Paulo, 2009); Mello, F e imprio (Manaus: EdUA/FAPEAM, 2009),
243317; Arenz, De lAlzette lAmazonie; Fernanda Aires Bombardi, Para o servio
dos moradores: descimentos particulares na Amaznia colonial, in Anais do 3- En-
contro Internacional de Histria Colonial: cultura, poderes e sociabilidades no mundo
atlntico (sc. XVXVIII) (Recife: EdUFPE, 2011), 106774; Rafael Ale Rocha, A elite
militar no Estado do Maranho: poder, hierarquia e comunidades indgenas (sculo
XVII) (PhD Diss. Univ. Federal Fluminense, 2013).
111. Arquivo Geral da Alfndega de Lisboa, Casa da ndia, no.49, fol.19v (2Apr.
1712).
32 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
112. AHU, cod.93, fol.378 (2Sept. 1684). Te execution of this law, however, had
to be discussed with the local Councils, in order to be better implemented and to
develop the trade of both products. See: Annaes da Biblotheca e Archivo Publico do
Par [hereafer cited as: ABAPP], I (1902): 82 (2Sept. 1684).
113. ABAPP, I, p.120 (31Jan. 1703).
114. Papel q. se deu a Rainha D Luiza sobre varias utilid.
es
do Maranha,
fols.232232v.
115. AHU, cod.268, fol.52v (24Nov. 1686).
116. LGM, pp. 7576 (24 Nov. 1686). Tis royal order was re-stated in 1688, see:
LGM, p.104 (14May 1688).
117. AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.259 (Belm, 24Jan. 1687). Te Overseas Council sug-
gested that the crown should re-state this local prohibition (bando) as a law. AHU,
cod.274, fol.56 (24Apr. 1687).
118. AHU, Par, caixa3, doc.263 (Belm, 19July 1687).
119. AHU, Maranho, caixa9, doc.946 (12Nov. 1697). Te king sent a letter to the
governor asking his advice about the matter. AHU, cod.268, fol.126v (18Mar. 1697).
120. AHU, Maranho, caixa6, doc.726 (So Lus, 15Oct. 1685).
121. Miguel da Rosa Pimentel, Informaa do Estado do Maranha, Lisbon,
4Sept. 1692, no.43. BA, cod.50-V-34, fol.199.
122. A royal letter issued in 1691 referred to the fact that some settlers used to
bring slaves hidden in the clove, ABAPP, I, 99 (18Oct. 1690).
123. A similar order had been issued years earlier by Governor Francisco de S
e Meneses, who stayed in Belm. However, it seems this order was not taken into
consideration by the crown, which only enforced Freire de Andrades bando. BA,
cod.51-V-43, fols.3737v (Belm, 18Dec. 1682).
124. LGM, 8788 (23Mar. 1688).
125. LGM, 90 (23Mar. 1688).
126. ANTT, Conselho Ultramarino, Livro1 (Decretos), 143v (23Jan. 1691); AHU,
cod.94, fols.157157v (6Feb. 1691); LGM, p.113 (6Feb. 1691).
127. LGM, 108 (17 Oct. 1690); LGM, 193 (20 Nov. 1699). In 1687, an important
jurisconsult of the kingdom, Manuel Lopes de Oliveira, wrote a report about the
religious orders that sent their subjects to take clove and cacao in the sertes. Ac-
cording to Lopes de Oliveira, the religious orders did not have the right to go to the
serto by ecclesiastical privilege, but as vassals of the king, and hence the sovereign
could forbid their presence in the hinterland. Parecer q. na Junta dos Neg.
os
do
Maranha deu M.
el
Lopes de Oliv.
ra
sobre a lei q. se pertendia fazer p.
a
q. Eccle-
siasticos na tirassem especiarias, 29 Nov. 1687. ANTT, Manuscritos da Livraria,
n.1051, 103105 (copy). Tis document was recently published, see: Alrio Cardozo
& Chambouleyron, O advogado do imprio: um jurista discute o direito de comr-
cio dos padres do Maranho no sculo XVII, Cincias Humanas em Revista, 4, no.1
(2006): 15966.
128. Joo Felipe Bettendorf, SJ, Crnica da misso dos Padres da Companhia de
Jesus no Maranho [1698] (Belm: SECULT, 1990), 251.
129. Antnio Vieira, SJ, Carta ao Padre Superior do Maranho, 1 Feb. 1679.
Brotria, 45, no.4 (1947): 472.
Chambouleyron 33
130. See for example: Raimundo Lopes, O torro maranhense (Rio de Janeiro:
Typ. do Jornal do Commercio, 1916), 21617; Furtado, Formao econmica do Brasil,
6568 and 8992; Prado Jnior, Histria econmica do Brasil, 6975; Moacyr Paixo e
Silva, Formao econmica do Amazonas (perodo co). Reprint from Anais do III Con-
gresso Sul- Riograndense de Histria e Geografa (Porto Alegre, 1940), 3137; Simonsen,
Histria econmica do Brasil, 162; Reis, A poltica de Portugal no vale amaznico, 91
110; Jernimo de Viveiros, Histria do comrcio do Maranho (16121895) (So Lus:
Associao Comercial do Maranho, 1954), I, 6769; Ernni Silva Bruno, Histria
do Brasil. IAmaznia (So Paulo: Cultrix, 1966), 7193; Gross, Te economic life
of the Estado do Maranho e Gro-Par, 192207; Reis, Sntese de histria do Par
(Belm: Amaznia Edies Culturais, 1972), 5763; David Sweet, A Rich Realm of
Nature Destroyed: the Middle Amazon Valley, 16401750, I, 5570; Bandeira Tribuzi,
Formao econmica do Maranho (So Lus: FIPES, 1981), 1117; Leandro Tocantins,
Amaznia: natureza, homem e tempo (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira, 1982), 44
54; Adlia Engrcia de Oliveira, Ocupao humana, in Eneas Salati et al., Amaznia:
desenvolvimento, integrao e ecologia (So Paulo/Braslia: Brasiliense/CNPq, 1983),
17071; Otvio Mendona, Presena portuguesa na Amaznia (Belm: Conselho Es-
tadual de Cultura, 1984), 2324; Ciro Flamarion Cardoso, Economia e sociedade em
reas coloniais (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1984), 94104; Alden, El indio desechable en
el Estado de Maranho durante los siglos XVII y XVIII; Sebastio Barbosa Caval-
canti Filho, A questo jesutica no Maranho colonial (So Lus: SIOGE, 1990), 2226;
Farage, As muralhas dos sertes, 2353; Marilene Correa da Silva, O paiz do Amazonas
(Manaus: EdUA, 1996), 46 and 83; Meireles, Histria do Maranho, 19198; Maria de
Nazar Angelo- Menezes, Histoire sociales des systmes agraires dans la valle du
TocantinsEtat du ParBrsil: colonisation europenne dans la deuxime moiti
du XVIIIe sicle et la premire moiti du XIXe xicle (Ph.D. diss., Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1998); Angelo- Menezes, O sistema agrrio do Vale do
Tocantins colonial: agricultura para consumo e para exportao, Projeto Historia, 18
(1999): 23759; Rosa Acevedo Marin, Agricultura no delta do rio Amazonas: colonos
produtores de alimentos em Macap no perodo colonial, in A escrita da histria
paraense, ed. Rosa Acevedo Marin (Belm: NAEA, 1998), 5391; Mrcio Souza, Breve
histria da Amaznia (Rio de Janeiro: Agir, 2001), 7071 and 8687.
131. Chambouleyron, Povoamento, ocupao e agricultura na Amaznia colonial,
2976.
132. For a recent discussion, see: Guzmn, A colonizao nas Amaznias: guerras,
comrcio e escravido nos sculos XVII e XVIII; Dias, Civilidade, cultura e comr-
cio: os princpios fundamentais da poltica indigenista na Amaznia (16141757);
Jos Alves de Souza Jr, Tramas do cotidiano: religio, poltica, guerra e negcios no
Gro-Par do setecentos (Belm: EdUFPA, 2012); Mello, F e imprio, 243317; Mello,
O Regimento das Misses: poder e negociao na Amaznia portuguesa, Clio. Re-
vista de Pesquisa Histrica, 27, no.1 (2009): 4675.
133. See: Catalogo nominal dos posseiros de sesmarias, Annaes do Archivo P-
blico do Par, III (1904): 5149.
134. See: Chambouleyron, Mazelas da Fazenda real na Amaznia seiscentista,
in Tesouros da Memria. Histria e patrimnio no Gro-Par, eds. Aldrin Moura de
34 Luso-Brazilian Review 51:1
Figueiredo & Moema Bacelar Alves (Belm: Ministrio da Fazenda/MABE, 2009),
1328.
135. For a general idea of this debate, see the many collective works published in
the last ten years: Antnio Manuel Hespanha, ed., Histria de Portugal. 4. O Antigo
Regime (1620-1807) (Lisbon: Estampa, 1998); Joo Fragoso, Maria Fernanda Bicalho
& Maria de Ftima Gouva, eds., O Antigo Regime nos trpicos: a dinmica imperial
portuguesa (sculos XVIXVIII) (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira, 2001); Ma-
ria Fernanda Bicalho & Vera Lcia Amaral Ferlini, eds., Modos de governar: idias
e prticas polticas no Imprio portugus. Sculos XVI a XIX (So Paulo: Alameda,
2005); Nuno Gonalves Monteiro, Pedro Cardim & Mafalda Soares da Cunha, eds.,
Optima pars: elites ibero-americanas do Antigo Regime (Lisbon: ICS, 2005); Laura de
Mello e Souza, O sol e a sombra: poltica e administrao na Amrica Portuguesa do
sculo XVIII (So Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006); Antnio Carlos Juc de Sam-
paio, Carla Maria Carvalho de Almeida & Joo Luis Ribeiro Fragoso, eds., Conquis-
tadores & negociantes: histria das elites no Antigo Regime nos trpicos. Amrica lusa,
sculos XVI a XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira, 2007); Ronaldo Vainfas &
Rodrigo Bentes Monteiro, eds., Imprio de vrias faces: relaes de poder no mundo
ibrico da poca Moderna (So Paulo: Alameda, 2009); Laura de Mello e Souza, Jnia
Ferreira Furtado & Maria Fernanda Bicalho, eds., O governo dos povos, (So Paulo:
Alameda, 2009); Francisco Bethencourt, Confguraes polticas e poderes locais,
in A Expanso Martima Portuguesa, 14001800, eds. Diogo Ramada Curto & Fran-
cisco Bethencourt (Lisboa: Edies 70, 2010), 207-64.
136. Concerning these questions for the State of Maranho, see: Alrio Cardoso,
Insubordinados, mas sempre devotos; Joel dos Santos Dias, Os verdadeiros con-
servadores do Estado do Maranho: poder local, redes de clientela e cultura poltica
na Amaznia colonial (primeira metade do sculo XVIII) (MPhil. Tesis, Univ.
Federal do Par, 2008).
137. Concerning the importance of the Indian groups for the understanding of
colonial Portuguese America, see note 110 and: Histria dos ndios no Brasil, ed.
Manuela Carneiro da Cunha (So Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992); Monteiro,
As populaes indgenas do litoral brasileiro no sculo XVI: transformao e re-
sistncia in Brasil nas vsperas do mundo moderno, ed. Jill Dias (Lisbon: CNCDP,
1992), 12136; Monteiro, Armas e Armadilhas: histria e resistncia dos ndios, in
A Outra Margem do Ocidente, ed. Adauto Novaes (So Paulo: FUNARTE/Compa-
nhia das Letras, 1999), 23756; Monteiro, Negros da terra: ndios e bandeirantes nas
origens de So Paulo (So Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994); Denise Maldi, De
confederados a brbaros: a representao da territorialidade e da fronteira indgenas
nos sculos XVIII e XIX, Revista de Antropologia, 40, no. 2 (1997): 183221; Cris-
tina Pompa, Religio como traduo: missionrios, Tupi e Tapuia no Brasil colonial
(Bauru: EdUSC, 2003); Maria Regina Celestino de Almeida, Metamorfoses indgenas:
identidades e cultura nas aldeias coloniais do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo
Nacional, 2003).
138. A translation of the Bull into Portuguese was published in Francisco de Paula
e Silva, Apontamentos e notas para a historia ecclesiastica do Maranho (Salvador:
Typ. de S. Francisco, 1922), 5255. Concerning the bishopric of Maranho, see also
Chambouleyron 35
Csar Augusto Marques, A Igreja no Maranho (So Lus: Fundao Cultural do Ma-
ranho, 1977), 3. According to Dom Felipe Condur Pacheco, from 1677 onwards the
bishop of Maranho became sufragan of Lisbon. Felipe Condur Pacheco, Histria
eclesistica do Maranho (So Lus: Departamento de Cultura do Maranho, 1969),
16. In 1684, Dom Pedro II requested the creation of the bishopric of Par. Only in
1719 it was ofcially created by the bull Copiosus in misericordia (4March 1719), but
the frst bishop arrived only in 1724. See: Alberto Gaudncio Ramos, Cronologia
eclesistica da Amaznia (Manaus: Typ. Fnix, 1952), 14 and18.
139. For an introduction to this topic, see: Joo Capistrano de Abreu, Os camin-
hos antigos e o povoamento do Brasil, in Captulos de histria colonial e Os cami-
nhos antigos e o povoamento do Brasil (2
nd
edn. Braslia: EdUnB, 1998), 25559; Pedro
Puntoni, A guerra dos brbaros. Povos indgenas e a colonizao do serto nordeste do
Brasil, 16501720 (So Paulo: Hucitec/EdUSP, 2002), 2729.
140. Concerning the problem of Indian and African labor forces in sixteenth- and
seventeenth- century Brazil, see: Stuart B. Schwartz, Indian labor and New World
plantations: European demands and Indian responses in northeastern Brazil, Te
American Historical Review, 83, no.1 (1978): 4379.
141. See: Serge Gruzinski, Local, global e colonial nos mundos da Monarquia
catlica. Aportes sobre o caso amaznico, Revista de Estudos Amaznicos, II (2007):
1128.

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