Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T17:16:08.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

State Contractors and Global Brokers: The Itinerary of Two Lisbon Merchants and the Transatlantic Slave Trade during the Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 December 2018

J. Bohorquez  and
Maximiliano Menz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Portuguese Empire was the stage for one of the largest movements of enslaved people during early modern times. Almost two millions enslaved humans were violently carried from Africa in Portuguese vessels in the eighteenth century alone. Yet, in contrast to British or French slave traders based in Europe, for which a vast literature is available, little is known about the Lisbon traders. This paper aims at filling this gap by paying attention to the trajectory of two Lisbon slave traders: Domingos Dias da Silva and José António Pereira. In recounting their biographies and their business in Africa, Brazil, and Asia, we draw attention to the active role Lisbon-based slave traders played in the financing, organisation, and carrying of slave traffic, as well as the different institutional conditions they confronted when profiting from the commerce in humans. Domingos Dias da Silva became a key state contractor in spite of his poor origins, while Pereira featured as a global broker, connecting different markets in four continents. These two agents and their diverse characteristics help shed light on the slave trade, the context in which it expanded, and on the people who conducted this infamous commerce.

Keywords

Slave traderAtlantic tradePortuguese Empiremerchant itinerariesglobal history
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , December 2018 , pp. 403 - 429
Copyright
© 2018 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

J. Bohorquez gained his PhD at the European University Institute. Currently, he is researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS)-Universidade de Lisboa, and previously he was Weatherhead initiative on global history postdoctoral fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affaires (Harvard University). His research interests encompass global history and political economy in the Early Modern Age.

Maximiliano M. Menz is Professor of Early Modern History at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), his main interests are the economic history of the Portuguese Empire, specially the slave trade and its relations with the European finance.

References

Bibliography

Unpublished Primary Sources Google Scholar
-Arquivo Distrital Braga [ADB]Google Scholar
-Familía Araújo de AzevedoGoogle Scholar
Archivo General de Indias, Seville [AGI]Google Scholar
-IndiferenteGoogle Scholar
Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon [AHU]Google Scholar
-AngolaGoogle Scholar
-CódicesGoogle Scholar
-ParáGoogle Scholar
-Rio de JaneiroGoogle Scholar
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid [AHN]Google Scholar
-ConsejosGoogle Scholar
Arquivo Histórico Tribunal Contas, Lisbon [AHTC]Google Scholar
-Erário RégioGoogle Scholar
Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo, Lisbon [ANTT]Google Scholar
-Alfândega de LisboaGoogle Scholar
-Cartório do distribuidor de LisboaGoogle Scholar
-Cartório Notarial LisboaGoogle Scholar
-Coleção LinharesGoogle Scholar
-Habilitações da Ordem de CristoGoogle Scholar
-Juízo Índia e MinaGoogle Scholar
-Junta do ComércioGoogle Scholar
-Livros dos Feitos FindosGoogle Scholar
-Ministério do ReinoGoogle Scholar
-Ministério dos negócios estrangeirosGoogle Scholar
-Tribunal do Santo OfícioGoogle Scholar
Instituto Estudios Brasileiros, São Paulo [IEB]Google Scholar
-Coleção Alberto LamegoGoogle Scholar
Transatlantic Slave Trade Database [Strada]Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Acioli, G. Negócio da Costa da Mina e comércio Atlântico. Tabaco, açúcar, ouro e tráfico de escravos: Pernambuco (1654–1760). PhD diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2008.Google Scholar
Alencastro, L. O trato dos viventes. Formação do Brasil no Atlântico Sul séculos XVI–XVII. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000.Google Scholar
Alencastro, L. “Le versant brésilien de l’Atlantique-Sud: 1550–1850.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 61: March–April (2006): 339–382.Google Scholar
Antunes, L. “Têxteis e metais precisos: Novos vínculos do comércio indo-brasileiro (1808–1820),” in O Antigo Regime nos trópicos. A dinâmica imperial portuguesa (séculos XVI–XVIII), edited by João Fragoso et al., 381–420. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001.Google Scholar
Armitage, D., and Braddick, M., eds. The British Atlantic World 1500–1800. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.Google Scholar
Baylyn, B. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Bohorquez, J. Globalizar el sur. La emergencia de ciudades globales y la economía política de los imperios portugués y español: Rio de Janeiro y La Habana durante la Era de las Revoluciones.PhD diss., European University Institute, 2016.Google Scholar
Bohorquez, J. “Linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans: Asian Textiles, Spanish Silver, Global Capital, and the Financing of the Portuguese-Brazilian Slave Trade (ca.1760–1808).” (forthcoming)Google Scholar
Borucki, A. “The Slave Trade to the Rio de la Plata, 1777–1812: Trans-imperial Networks and Atlantic Warfare.” Colonial Latin American Review 20:1 (2011): 81–107.Google Scholar
Burt, R. Neighbor Networks: Competitive Advantage Local and Personal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Caldeira, A. Escravos e traficantes no Império Português. Lisboa: Esfera dos Livros, 2013.Google Scholar
Candido, M. An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Candido, M. Fronteras de la esclavización: Esclavitud, comercio, e identidade em Benguela, 1780–1850. México: El Colegio de México, 2011.Google Scholar
Candido, M. “South Atlantic Exchanges: The Role of Brazilian-Born Agents in Benguela, 1650–1850.” Luzo-Brazilian Review 50:1 (2013): 53–82.Google Scholar
Cañizares-Esguerra, J., and Seeman, E., eds. The Atlantic in Global History, 1500–2000. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.Google Scholar
Capela, J. Dicionário de negreiros em Moçambique, 1750–1897. Porto, Portugal: Centro de estudos Africanos da Universidade de Porto, 2007.Google Scholar
Carreira, E. “O comércio português no Gujarat na segunda metade do século XVIII: As famílias Loureiro e Ribeiro.” Mare Liberum 9: July (1995): 83–94.Google Scholar
Carreira, E. Globalising Goa (1660–1820). Change and Exchange in a Former Capital of Empire. Goa, India: Goa 1556 Publishing, 2014.Google Scholar
Coclanis, P., ed. The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice and Personnel. Columbia: University of South Caroline Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Costa, L. et al., O Ouro do Brasil. Lisboa: Imprenta Nacional, 2013.Google Scholar
Curto, J. Álcool e escravos. O comércio luso-brasileiro do álcool em Mpinda, Luanda e Benguela durante o tráfico de escravos (1480–1830) e seu impacto nas sociedades da África Central Ocidental. Lisboa: Vulgata, 2002.Google Scholar
Daudin, G. “Profitability of Slave and Long-Distance Trading in Context: The Case of Eighteenth-Century France.” Journal of Economic History 64:1 (2004): 144–171.Google Scholar
Delobette, E. “Négociants et traite de Noirs au Havre au XVIIIe siècle.” Annales de Normadie 48:3 (1998): 259–295.Google Scholar
Donovan, M. Commercial Enterprise and Luso-Brazilian Society during the Brazilian Gold Rush: The Mercantil House of Francisco Pinheiro and the Lisbon to Brazil Trade, 1695–1750. PhD diss., Maryland University, 1990.Google Scholar
Engerman, S., ed. Trade and the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1850. Cheltenham: Edward Elger, 1996.Google Scholar
Erikson, E. Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600–1757. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Fatah-Black, K., and van Rossum, M., “Beyond Profitability: The Dutch Transatlantic Slave Trade and Its Economic Impact.” Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slaves Studies 36:1 (2015): 63–83.Google Scholar
Ferreira, R. “Biografia, mobilidade e cultura Atlântica: A micro-escala do tráfico dos escravos em Benguela, séculos XVIII–XIX.” Tempo UFF 10:20 (2006): 33–59.Google Scholar
Ferreira, R. Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Ferreira, R. “Dinâmica do comércio intracolonial: Geribitas, panos asiáticos e guerra no tráfico angolano de escravos (século XVIII).” In O Antigo Regime nos trópicos. A dinâmica imperial portuguesa (séculos XVI–XVIII), edited by João Fragoso et al., 340–378. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001.Google Scholar
Ferreira, R. Transforming Atlantic Slaving: Trade, Warfare and Territorial Control in Angola, 1650–1800. PhD diss., University of California, 2003.Google Scholar
Florentino, M. “The Slave Trade, Colonial Markets, and Slave Families in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ca. 1790–1830.” In Extending Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, edited by David Eltis and David Richardson, 275–312. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Florentino, M. Em costas negras. Uma história do tráfico de escravos entre a África e o Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997.Google Scholar
Fragoso, J. Homens de grossa aventura acumulação e hierarquia na praça mercantil de Rio de Janeiro, 1790–1830. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1982.Google Scholar
Fragoso, J. and Florentino, M.. O arcaísmo como projeto. Mercado atlântico, sociedade agrária e elite mercantil em uma economia colonial tardia. Rio de Janeiro, c. 1790– c. 1840. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001.Google Scholar
Furber, H. Private Fortunes and Company Profits in the India Trade in the 18th Century. Aldershot: Variorum, 1997.Google Scholar
Furtado, J. Homens de negócio: a interiorização da metrópole e do comércio nas minas setecentistas. São Paulo: HUCITEC, 1999.Google Scholar
Greene, J., and Morgan, P.,eds. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Haggerty, S. “Risk and Risk Management in the Liverpool Slave Trade.” Business History 51:6 (2009): 817–834.Google Scholar
Inikori, J. Africa and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Klein, H. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lapa, J. R. A Bahia e a Carreira da Índia. São Paulo: Companhia Editorial Nacional, 1968.Google Scholar
Lopes, G. and Menz, M.. “Resgate e mercadorias: uma análise comparada do tráfico luso-brasileiro em Angola e na Costa da Mina (século XVIII).” Afro-Ásia 37 (2008): 43–73.Google Scholar
Lugar, C. The Merchant Community of Salvador, Bahia, 1780–1830. PhD diss., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1980.Google Scholar
Machado, P. An Ocean of Trade: South Asian Merchants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c. 1750–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Maxwell, K. “The Atlantic in the Eighteenth Century: A Southern Perspective on the Need to Return to the ‘Big Picture.’” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1993): 209–236.Google Scholar
Mentz, S. The English Gentleman Merchant at Work: Madras and the City of London 1660–1740. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Menz, M. “A companhia de Pernambuco e Paraíba e o funcionamento do tráfico de escravos em Angola (1759–1780).” Afro-Ásia 48 (2013): 45–76.Google Scholar
Menz, M. “As ‘geometrias’ do tráfico: O comércio metropolitano e o tráfico de escravos em Angola (1796–1807).” Revista de História 166 (2012): 185–222.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Prado, F. Edge of Empire: Atlantic Networks and Revolution in Bourbon Rio de la Plata. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Pedreira, J. Os Homens de negócio da praça de Lisboa de Pombal ao Vintismo (1755–1822). Diferenciação, reprodução e identificação de um grupo social. PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1995.Google Scholar
Person, R., and Richardson, D., “Social Capital, Institutional Innovation, and Atlantic Trade before 1800.” Business History 50:6 (2008): 765–780.Google Scholar
Pinto, C. A Commercial Ressurgence, 1770–1830. Telichery: Irish, 2002.Google Scholar
Pinto, C. “Lisbon Investment in the Indian Commerce: The Surat Feeder.” Mare Liberum 9: July (1995): 217–233.Google Scholar
Pinto, C. Trade and Finance in Portuguese India: A Study of the Portuguese Country Trade, 1770–1840. Delhi: Concept Publishing, 1994.Google Scholar
Radburn, N. “Guinea Factors, Slave Sales, and the Profits of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: The Case of John Tailyour.” William and Mary Quarterly 72:2 (2015): 243–286.Google Scholar
Richardson, D. et al., Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Richardson, D. and da Silva, F. R.. Networks and Trans-cultural Exchange: Slave Trading in the South Atlantic, 1590–1867. Leiden: Brill, 2015.Google Scholar
Riello, G., and Parthasarathi, P., eds. The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Riello, G. and Tirthankar, R., ed. How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850. Leiden: Brill, 2009.Google Scholar
Rinchon, D. “Les armements négriers au XVIIIe siècle d’après la correspondance et la comptabilité des armateurs et de capitaines nantais.” Mémoire présenté à la séance de 19 décembre de 1955, Académie Royal de Sciences Belge.Google Scholar
Roberts, R. “West Africa and the Pondicherry Textile Industry.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 31:2 (1994): 117–145.Google Scholar
Rocha, M. M. Crédito privado num contexto urbano: Lisboa, 1770–1830. PhD diss., European University Institute, 1996.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, J. De costa a costa. Escravos, marinheios e intermediários do tráfico negreiro de Angola ao Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2005.Google Scholar
Rothschild, E. The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Sequeira, P. Relações intracoloniais Goa-Bahía, 1675–1825. Brasilia: Fundação Alexandre Gusmão, 2013.Google Scholar
Silva, D. Crossroads: Slave Frontiers of Angola, 1780–1867, PhD diss., Emory University, 2011.Google Scholar
Silva, D. “The Supply of Slaves from Luanda, 1768–1806: Records of Anselmo Fonseca Coutinho.” African Economic History 38 (2010): 53–76.Google Scholar
Souza, G. de. Tratos e mofatras. O grupo mercantil do Recife colonial (c. 1654–c. 1759). Recife: UFPE, 2012.Google Scholar
Stern, P. The Company State: Corporate Sovereingty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Subrahmanyam, S. Three Ways to Be Alien: Travels and Encounters in the Early Modern World. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Subramanian, L. Indigenous Capital and Imperial Expansion: Bombay, Surat, and the West Coast. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Sweet, J. Domingos Alvares, African History, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2011.Google Scholar
Tejerina, M. Luso-brasileños en la plaza mercantil de Buenos Aires virreinal. Bahia Blanca, Argentina: Universidad de Bahia Blanca, 2004.Google Scholar
Vanneste, T. Global Trade and Commercial Networks: Eighteenth-Century Diamond Merchants. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012.Google Scholar
Verger, P. Fluxo e Refluxo do Tráfico de Escravos entre o Golfo de Benin e a Bahia de Todos os Santos: Dos séculos XVII a XIX. Salvador: Editora Corrupio, 1987.Google Scholar