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Amazonian Atlantic: Cacao, Colonial Expansion and Indigenous Labour in the Portuguese Amazon Region (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2021

Rafael Chambouleyron Open the ORCID record for Rafael Chambouleyron [Opens in a new window]  and
Karl Heinz Arenz Open the ORCID record for Karl Heinz Arenz [Opens in a new window]
Rafael Chambouleyron*
Affiliation:
Associate Professors, Faculty of History, Universidade Federal do Pará
Karl Heinz Arenz
Affiliation:
Associate Professors, Faculty of History, Universidade Federal do Pará
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: rafaelch@ufpa.br
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Abstract

A product native to the Amazon forest, cacao became the most important staple of the Portuguese Amazonian colonial economy from the late seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth century. Based on extensive research in Brazilian and European archives, this article analyses cacao exploitation in Portuguese Amazonia, examining its dual spatial dimension: the expansion of an agricultural frontier, and the expansion of an extractive frontier in the deep hinterland, with a particular focus on the role that Indian labour played in this development.

Spanish abstract

Spanish abstract

Siendo un producto nativo de la selva amazónica, el cacao se convirtió en el grano básico más importante de la economía colonial de la Amazonía portuguesa desde fines del siglo XVII hasta mediados del siglo XIX. En base a investigación extensa en archivos brasileños y europeos, este artículo analiza la explotación del cacao en la Amazonía portuguesa, examinando su dimensión espacial dual: la expansión de una frontera agrícola, y la expansión de la frontera extractiva en la profundidad de la selva, con un enfoco particular en el papel que el trabajo indígena jugó en este proceso.

Portuguese abstract

Portuguese abstract

Nativo da floresta Amazônica, o cacau tornou-se o produto básico mais importante da economia colonial da Amazônia Portuguesa no período entre o século dezessete e a metade do século dezenove. Tendo como base ampla pesquisa em arquivos do Brasil e da Europa, este artigo analisa a exploração do cacau na Amazônia Portuguesa, examinando sua dupla dimensão espacial: a expansão de uma fronteira agrícola e a expansão de uma fronteira extrativa floresta adentro, com particular ênfase no papel que o trabalho indígena teve nesse desenvolvimento.

Keywords

Portuguese Amazon regioncacao exploitationIndigenous labourseventeenth and eighteenth centuriesregión amazónica portuguesaexplotación de cacaotrabajo indígenasiglos XVII y XVIIIregião Amazônica portuguesaexploração de cacautrabalho indígenaséculos dezessete e dezoito
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 221 - 244
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Research for this article was made possible by support from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). The authors wish to thank the editorial board and the anonymous readers of the Journal of Latin American Studies, and the readers of the Commodities of Empire Project. A first version of this paper was published as Commodities of Empire Working Paper No. 29 at https://commoditiesofempire.org.uk/publications/working-papers/working-paper-29/ (last accessed 28 Dec. 2020).

References

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2 Regarding chocolate consumption in the Early Modern world, see Fernand Braudel, Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe siècle, vol. 1: Les structures du quotidien: le possible et l'impossible (Paris: Albin Colin, 1979), pp. 213–14; Camporesi, Piero, Il brodo indiano (Milan: Garzanti, 1990), pp. 109–22Google Scholar; Harwich, Nikita, ‘Le chocolat et son imaginaire, XVIème–XVIIIème siècles: le monde américain dans une tasse’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 32 (1995), pp. 261–93Google Scholar; Clarence-Smith, Cocoa and Chocolate, pp. 11–20; Norton, Marcy, ‘Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics’, The American Historical Review 111: 3 (2006), pp. 660–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Campos, Edmund Valentine, ‘Thomas Gage and the English Colonial Encounter with Chocolate’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 39: 1 (2009), pp. 183–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Norton, Marcy, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures. A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Irene Fattacciu, ‘Atlantic History and Spanish Consumer Goods in the 18th Century: The Assimilation of Exotic Drinks and the Fragmentation of European Identities’, Nouveaux mondes, mondes nouveaux, 2012, https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/63480 (last accessed 8 Dec. 2020); Fernández-Armesto, Felipe and Sacks, Benjamin, ‘The Global Exchange of Foods and Drugs’, in Trentmann, Frank (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 139Google Scholar; Jones, Christine A., ‘Exotic Edibles: Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, and the Early Modern French How-to’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 43: 3 (2013), pp. 623–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fattacciu, Irene, Socialità, esotismo e ‘ispanizzazione’ dei consumi nella Spagna del Settecento (Trieste: Università di Trieste, 2018)Google Scholar; Empire, Political Economy, and the Diffusion of Chocolate in the Atlantic World (London: Routledge, 2020).

3 Chambouleyron, Rafael, ‘Como se hace en Indias de Castilla. El cacao entre la Amazonía portuguesa y las Indias de Castilla (siglos XVII y XVIII)’, Revista Complutense de Historia de América, 40 (2014), pp. 23–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Serafim Leite, SJ, História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil, vol. 4 (Lisbon/Rio de Janeiro: Portugália/INL, 1943), pp. 158–61; Frédéric Mauro, Le Portugal et l'Atlantique au XVIIe siècle, 1570–1670. Étude économique (Paris: SEVPEN, 1960), p. 370; Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’, p. 115; Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise. The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its Empire, and Beyond, 1540–1750 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), pp. 546–7; Timothy Walker, ‘Slave Labor and Chocolate in Brazil: The Culture of Cacao Plantations in Amazonia and Bahia (17th–19th Centuries)’, Food & Foodways, 15 (2007), pp. 85–9; ‘Establishing Cacao Plantation Culture in the Atlantic World: Portuguese Cacao Cultivation in Brazil and West Africa, circa 1580–1912’, in Louis E. Grivetti and Howard-Yana Shapiro (eds.), Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), pp. 543–58; Karl-Heinz Arenz, De l'Alzette à l'Amazone. Jean-Philippe Bettendorff et les jésuites en Amazonie portugaise (1661–1693) (Saarbrücken: Éditions Universitaires Européennes, 2010), pp. 338–41; Rafael Chambouleyron, ‘Cacao, Bark-clove and Agriculture in the Portuguese Amazon region, Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century’, Luso-Brazilian Review, 51: 1 (2014), pp. 1–35.

5 The Portuguese Amazon region constituted a separate and independent administrative province of Portuguese America, called the State of Maranhão and Pará. It comprised six captaincies (Maranhão, Pará, Tapuitapera, Cametá, Caeté and Joanes).

6 Karl Heinz Arenz and Frederik Luizi Andrade de Matos, ‘“Informação do Estado do Maranhão”: uma relação sobre a Amazônia portuguesa no fim do século XVII’, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 175 (2014), pp. 349–80.

7 Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’, p. 118.

8 Manuel Nunes Dias, Fomento e mercantilismo: A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão, 1755–1778 (Belém: Universidade Federal do Pará, 1970), 2 vols. and António Carreira, A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão, Vol. 1: O comércio monopolista Portugal–África–Brasil na segunda metade do século XVIII (São Paulo/Brasília: Companhia Editora Nacional/INL, 1988).

9 Daniel B. Domingues da Silva, ‘The Atlantic Slave Trade to Maranhão, 1680–1846: Volume, Routes and Organisation’, Slavery & Abolition, 29: 4 (2008), pp. 477–501; Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

10 See Frederik Luizi Andrade de Matos, ‘O comércio das “drogas do sertão” sob o monopólio da Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão (1755–1778)’, unpubl. PhD Diss., Universidade Federal do Pará, 2019; and Diego de Cambraia Martins, ‘A Companhia Geral de Comércio do Grão-Pará e Maranhão e os grupos mercantis no império português (c.1755–c.1787)’, unpubl. PhD Diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2019.

11 See Camila Loureiro Dias, ‘Os índios, a Amazônia e os conceitos de escravidão e liberdade’, Estudos Avançados, 33 (2019), pp. 235–52; see also Aldair Carlos Rodrigues, ‘The Colonial Brazilian “Slave Society”: Potentialities, Limits, and Challenges to an Interpretative Model Inspired by Moses Finley’, in Noel Lenski and Catherine M. Cameron (eds.), What is a Slave Society? The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 251–71.

12 Nunes Dias, Fomento e mercantilismo; Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’; Carreira, A Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão. See also Walker, ‘Slave Labor and Chocolate in Brazil’.

13 Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 1520–1720 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2008 [1973]), pp. 68–95, 235–52, 330–40; Carlos Rosés Alvarado, ‘El ciclo del cacao en la economía colonial de Costa Rica, 1650–1794’, Mesoamérica, 3: 4 (1982), pp. 247–78; Robert J. Ferry, The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas: Formation and Crisis. 1567–1767 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989); Eugenio Piñero, The Town of San Felipe and Colonial Cacao Economies (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 1994); Philip MacLeod, ‘Auge y estancamiento de la producción de cacao en Costa Rica 1660–95’, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, 22: 1 (1996), pp. 83–107; Janine Gasco, ‘The Social and Economic History of Cacao Cultivation in Colonial Soconusco, New Spain’, in Alex Szogyi (ed.), Chocolate: Food of the Gods (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), pp. 155–63; Claudia Quirós, ‘La sociedad dominante y la economía cacaotera de Rivas, factores determinantes para el surgimiento de la “hacienda de campo” en el Pacífico norte costarricense: primera mitad del siglo XVIII’, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, 25: 2 (1999), pp. 49–71; Johannes Postma, ‘Suriname and its Atlantic Connections’, in Johannes Postma and Victor Enthoven (eds.), Riches from Atlantic Commerce. Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585–1817 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 287–322; Sheila Salazar, ‘Cacao y riqueza en la Provincia de Caracas en los siglos XVII y XVIII’, Tierra Firme, 22: 87 (2004), pp. 293–312; Frédérique Langue, ‘Orígenes y desarrollo de una élite regional. Aristocracia y cacao en la provincia de Caracas, siglos XVI–XVIII’ Nouveaux mondes, mondes nouveaux, 2005, http://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/769 (last accessed 9 Dec. 2020); Nikita Harwich, ‘Le cacao vénézuélien: une plantation à front pionnier’, Caravelle, 85 (2005), pp. 17–30; Cameron L. McNeil (ed.), Chocolate in Mesoamerica. A Cultural History of Cacao (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2009), pp. 271–337; Nikita Harwich, Histoire du chocolat (2nd edn, Paris: Desjonquères, 2008), pp. 47–65; Meritxell Tous, ‘Cacao y encomienda en la Alcaldía Mayor de Sonsonate, siglo XVI’, Anuario de Estudios Americanos, 68: 2 (2011), pp. 513–37; María Luisa Laviana Cuetos, ‘La base agraria’, in Willington Paredes Ramírez (ed.), Pensamiento en torno a la producción cacaotera (Quito: MCE-Fondo Editorial/Corporación Editora Nacional, 2011), pp. 203–32.

14 Eduardo Arcila Farías, Comercio entre Venezuela y México en los siglos XVII y XVIII (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1950); Dora León Borja and Ádám Szászdi Nagy, ‘El comercio del cacao de Guayaquil’, Revista de Historia de América, 57–8 (1964), pp. 1–50; Ramón Aizpurua, Curazao y la costa de Caracas. Introducción al estudio del contrabando en la provincia de Venezuela en los tiempos de la Compañía Guipuzcoana (1730–1780) (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1993); Robert Ferry, ‘Trading Cacao: A View from Veracruz, 1626–1645’, Nouveaux mondes, mondes nouveaux, 2006, http://nuevomundo.revues.org/document1430.html (last accessed 9 Dec. 2020); Jesús Hernández Jaimes, ‘El fruto prohibido. El cacao de Guayaquil y el mercado novohispano, siglos XVI–XVIII’, Estudios de Historia Novohispana, 39 (2008), pp. 43–79; Guillermina del Valle Pavón, ‘Comercialización del cacao de Guayaquil por los mercaderes del Consulado de México en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII’, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 26: 2 (2010), pp. 181–206; Manuel Miño Grijalva, El cacao Guayaquil en Nueva España, 1774–1812 (política imperial, mercado y consumo) (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2013); Enriqueta Quiroz, ‘Circulación y consumo de cacao en la ciudad de México en el siglo XVIII’, Secuencia, 88 (2014), pp. 37–64.

15 Irene Fattacciu, ‘The Resilience and Boomerang Effect of Chocolate: A Product's Globalization and Commodification’, in Bethany Aram and Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (eds.), Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824: Circulation, Resistance and Diversity (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 255–73. See also Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The True History of Chocolate (2nd edn, London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), pp. 125–76 and 201–32; Harwich, Histoire du chocolat, pp. 67–87; Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures, pp. 141–200; Fattacciu, Socialità, esotismo e ‘ispanizzazione’.

16 ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’.

17 Erivaldo F. Neves, ‘Sesmarias em Portugal e no Brasil’, Politeia: História e Sociedade, 1: 1 (2001), pp. 111–39; Nelson Nozoe, ‘Sesmarias e apossamento de terras no Brasil colônia’, Revista Economia, 7: 3 (2006), pp. 587–605; Carmen Oliveira Alveal, ‘Transformações na legislação sesmarial, processos de demarcação e manutenção de privilégios nas terras das capitanias do norte do Estado do Brasil’, Estudos Históricos, 28: 56 (2017), p. 251.

18 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon (hereafter AHU), Pará-Avulsos, caixa 21, doc. 1960.

19 Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (hereafter ANTT), Chancelaria de Dom Pedro II, livro 45, fos. 318–19.

20 ANTT, Chancelaria de Dom João V, livro 44, fos. 124–5.

21 ANTT, Chancelaria de Dom Pedro II, livro 27, fos. 294–5.

22 ANTT, Chancelaria de Dom João V, livro 60, fos. 274v–276.

23 ‘Governor’ here and throughout means ‘Governor of the Sate of Maranhão and Pará’. One can find these data in three archives: ANTT, series Chancelarias Régias and Registo Geral de Mercês; AHU, series Pará-Avulsos and Maranhão-Avulsos; and Arquivo Público do Estado do Pará, Belém (hereafter APEP), series Sesmarias.

24 From the second half of the eighteenth century onward, cultivation expanded towards new regions such as the Tocantins river and later along the mid-Amazon river banks near the mouth of the Tapajós river. See Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’; Maria de Nazaré Ângelo-Menezes, ‘Histoire sociale des systèmes agraires dans la vallée du Tocantins–État du Pará–Brésil: Colonisation européenne dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle et la première moitié du XIXe siècle’, unpubl. PhD diss., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1998; Mark Harris, Rebellion on the Amazon: The Cabanagem, Race, and Popular Culture in the North of Brazil, 1798–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 133–41; and Siméia de Nazaré Lopes, ‘As rotas do comércio do Grão-Pará: Negociantes e relações mercantis (c. 1790 a c. 1830)’, unpubl. PhD diss., Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2013, pp. 159–98.

25 APEP, Sesmarias, livro 8, fos. 178–179v; APEP, Sesmarias, livro 12, fos. 85–6; ANTT, Chancelaria de Dom João V, livro 56, fos. 99–100; APEP, Sesmarias, livro 8, fos. 32v–33v.

26 Ferry, The Colonial Elite, p. 122.

27 This number is not vastly different from those recorded for the average plantations in the Venezuelan cacao estates. See Harwich, ‘Le cacao vénézuélien’, p. 20.

28 For the Portuguese Amazon region, Manuel Barata estimated a total of 1.5 million trees in 1730, which is not far from our calculation: A antiga producção e exportação do Pará. Estudo historico-economico (Belém: Livraria Gillet, 1915), p. 11.

29 Dicypellium caryophyllaceum: the bark of a tree which has a similar taste and smell to the Indian clove.

30 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Manuscrits Occidentaux, Fonds Portugais, 39. The canoas used in colonial times for transportation on the Amazonian rivers were vessels of different types and sizes with a considerable capacity for trade goods. Normally they had a crew of 14 or 16 Indigenous rowers supervised by a pilot. In general, the construction of the colonial canoas followed traditional Indigenous techniques. Elias A. C. Ferreira, ‘Oficiais canoeiros, remeiros e pilotos Jacumaúbas: mão de obra indígena na Amazônia colonial portuguesa (1733–1777)’, unpubl. MPhil thesis, Universidade Federal do Pará, 2016, pp. 58–109.

31 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 11, doc. 1060.

32 APEP, codex 32, no folio number.

33 See AHU, Maranhão-Avulsos, caixa 6, doc. 725 (1685). This sarsaparilla was an Amazonian variety of the Smilax genus.

34 Anais da Biblioteca Nacional, 66 (1948), pp. 87–8 (23 March 1688).

35 Mauricio de Heriarte, Descripção do Estado do Maranhão, Pará, Corupá e Rio das Amazonas [1662] (Vienna: Carlos Gerold, 1874), p. 48.

36 João Daniel, SJ, Tesouro descoberto no máximo rio Amazonas, vol. 2 [1770s] (Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto, 2004), pp. 83 and 467.

37 João Felipe Bettendorff, SJ, Crônica da missão dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus no Maranhão [1698] (Belém: Secult, 1990), p. 464.

38 José Monteiro de Noronha, Roteiro da Viagem da cidade do Pará, até ás ultimas colonias do Sertão da Provincia [1768] (Pará: Santos & Irmãos, 1862), pp. 17, 20, 30, 33, 34, 44, 59, 69–70.

39 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 13, doc. 1223 (c. 1732).

40 Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’, p. 120; Ferry, The Colonial Elite, p. 128; Piñero, The Town of San Felipe, p. 153.

41 AHU, codex 269, fo. 169v (20 Sept. 1721).

42 See Luís Ferrand de Almeida, ‘Aclimatação de plantas do Oriente no Brasil durante os séculos XVII e XVIII’ [1976], in Páginas dispersas. Estudos de história moderna de Portugal (Coimbra: IHES/FLUC, 1995), pp. 59–129; José Roberto do Amaral Lapa, ‘O problema das drogas orientais’, in Lapa, Economia colonial (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1973), pp. 111–40; Warren Dean, ‘A botânica e a política imperial: a introdução e a domesticação de plantas no Brasil’, Estudos Históricos, 4: 8 (1991), pp. 216–28.

43 AHU, codex 269, fo. 218 (19 Nov. 1722); AHU, Pernambuco-Avulsos, caixa 31, doc. 2818 (Recife, 20 June 1725); AHU, codex 270, fo. 7v (9 July 1726); AHU, codex 270, fo. 59v (11 July 1728); AHU, Pernambuco-Avulsos, caixa 38, doc. 3412 (Recife, 20 April 1729); AHU, codex 270, fo. 104v (12 June 1730). São Tomé and Príncipe would eventually become a centre for colonial Portuguese cacao production in the nineteenth century.

44 AHU, codex 270, fos. 274–274v (29 March 1724).

45 AHU, Maranhão-Avulsos, caixa 23, doc. 2420 (Belém, 7 Oct. 1737).

46 João Luís Lisboa, Tiago C. P. dos Reis Miranda and Fernanda Olival (eds.), Gazetas manuscritas da Biblioteca Pública de Évora, vol. 1: 1729–1731; vol. 2: 1732–1734 (Lisbon/Évora: Colibri, UNL/UE, 2002; 2005), vol. 1, p. 89.

47 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 303.

48 Charles-Marie de La Condamine, Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'intérieur de l'Amérique méridionale (Maastricht: Jean-Edmé Dufour & Philippe Roux, 1778), p. 174.

49 Pablo Ibáñez-Bonillo and Karl Heinz Arenz, ‘Uma correspondência transfronteiriça na Amazônia colonial: a carta do jesuíta Louis de Villette de Caiena a seu confrade José Lopes em Belém (1733)’, História Unisinos, 23: 1 (2019), p. 123.

50 APEP, codex 10, no folio number (9 Nov. 1728).

51 APEP, codex 10, no folio number (23 Sept. [1729]). See André José dos Santos Pompeu, ‘Novos olhares sobre as práticas do sertão na Amazônia colonial (século XVIII)’, in Fabiano Vilaça dos Santos and Mônica da Silva Ribeiro (eds.), Impérios ibéricos no antigo regime: governo, agentes e dinâmicas políticas e territoriais (séculos XVI–XVII) (Belo Horizonte: Fino Traço, 2019), pp.339–58.

52 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 19, doc. 1813 (1736–7).

53 A cruzado was worth 400 réis up to 1706, and then 480 réis. See Charles Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil (1695–1750). Growing Pains of a Colonial Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1962), p. 354. For comparison purposes, in the state of Maranhão in the late seventeenth century, an African slave was worth 400 cruzados.

54 Alam da Silva Lima, ‘Do “dinheiro da terra” ao “bom dinheiro”: moeda natural e moeda metálica na Amazônia colonial (1706–1750)’, unpubl. MPhil thesis, Universidade Federal do Pará, 2006, p. 47; Raimundo Moreira das Neves Neto, Em aumento de minha fazenda e do bem desses vassalos: a Coroa, a fazenda real e os contratadores na Amazônia colonial (séculos XVII e XVIII) (Jundiaí: Paco Editorial, 2019), pp. 188–9.

55 Raimundo Moreira das Neves Neto, Um patrimônio em contendas: os bens jesuíticos e a magna questão dos dízimos no Estado do Maranhão e Grão-Pará (1650–1750) (Jundiaí: Paco Editorial, 2013), pp. 111–50.

56 ANTT, Conselho Ultramarino, livro 2, ff. 117–117v and 151v–152.

57 For comparative reasons, between 1730 and 1739, cacao exports from Amazonia to Portugal represented a little more than half of the exports from Caracas to Spain. See Fattacciu, Empire, Political Economy.

58 See AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 80, doc. 6627 (31 Aug. 1778).

59 Alden, ‘The Significance of Cacao Production’; data for 1796–7, 1799–1806: Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Lisbon, ‘Balança Geral do Commercio do Reyno de Portugal com os seus Dominios’; 1798: Arquivo Histórico do Ministério de Obras Públicas, Lisbon, Superintendência Geral dos Contrabandos.

60 AHU, Bahia-Avulsos, Caixa 30, doc. 2711 (3 April 1727).

61 In April 1749, for example, Francisco Alves traded two barrels of ‘cacao from the Indies’. More than two years later, he bought two barrels of ‘cacao from Caracas’: ANTT, Alfândega de Lisboa, Casa da Índia, Direitos de Entrada, livro 143, fo. 27 and livro 37, fo. 78.

62 Archives Départementales – Pyrénées Atlantiques, Bayonne, document 2ETP1, 104.

63 Archivio di Stato di Genova (Casa di San Giorgio), Imposte e tasse, carati i diritti, transito, no. 1829.

64 Paul Cohen, ‘Was there an Amerindian Atlantic? Reflections on the Limits of a Historiographical Concept’, History of European Ideas, 34: 4 (2008), pp. 388–410.

65 See Heather Flynn Roller, Amazonian Routes. Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014).

66 For a recent discussion, see Barbara A. Sommer, ‘Colony of the sertão: Amazonian Expeditions and the Indian Slave Trade’, The Americas, 61: 3 (2005), pp. 401–28; Márcia E. A. S. Mello, Fé e império: as Juntas das Missões nas conquistas portuguesas (Manaus: EdUA, 2009), pp. 243–317; Camila Loureiro Dias, ‘L'Amazonie avant Pombal: politique, économie, territoire’, unpubl. PhD diss., École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2014, pp. 91–178; Fernanda A. Bombardi, ‘Pelos interstícios do olhar do colonizador: descimentos de índios no Estado do Maranhão e Grão-Pará (1680–1750)’, unpubl. MPhil thesis, Universidade de São Paulo, 2014; Alexandre de Carvalho Pelegrino, ‘Donatários e poderes locais no Maranhão seiscentista (1621–1701)’, unpubl. MPhil thesis, Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2015, pp. 60–161; Rafael Chambouleyron, ‘Indian Freedom and Indian Slavery in the Portuguese Amazon (1640–1755)’, in John Donoghue and Evelyn P. Jennings (eds.), Building the Atlantic Empires: Unfree Labor and Imperial States in the Political Economy of Capitalism, ca. 1500–1914 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 54–71; Camila Loureiro Dias and Fernanda Aires Bombardi, ‘O que dizem as licenças? Flexibilização da legislação e recrutamento particular de trabalhadores indígenas no Estado do Maranhão (1680–1755)’, Revista de História, 175 (2016), pp. 249–80; Almir Diniz de Carvalho Júnior, Índios Cristãos. Poder, magia e religião na Amazônia colonial (Curitiba: Editora CRV, 2017); Camila Loureiro Dias, ‘O comércio de escravos indígenas na Amazônia visto pelos regimentos de entradas e de tropas de resgate (séculos XVII e XVIII)’, Territórios e Fronteiras, 10: 1 (2017), pp. 238–59.

67 Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon, codex 50-V-34, n. 43, fo. 199 (1692).

68 AHU, codex 274, fos. 69v–70 (7 Oct. 1690).

69 Regimento & Leys sobre as Missoens do Estado do Maranhaõ, & Parà (Lisboa Occidental: Na Officina de Antonio Menescal, 1724), pp. 36–9 (6 Feb. 1691).

70 Concerning these questions, see Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, pp. 474–527; Carlos A. M. R. Zeron, Linha de fé: A Companhia de Jesus e a escravidão no processo de formação da sociedade colonial (Brasil, séculos XVI e XVII) (São Paulo: EdUSP, 2011).

71 See Mathias C. Kiemen, The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1614–1693 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1954); Beatriz Perrone-Moisés, ‘Índios livres e índios escravos: os princípios da legislação indigenista do período colonial (séculos XVI a XVIII)’, in Manuela C. da Cunha (ed.), História dos Índios no Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras/FAPESP, 1998), pp. 115–32.

72 Regimento & Leys, pp. 1–15 (21 Dec. 1686).

73 See Kiemen, Indian Policy of Portugal; Márcia E. Alves de Souza e Mello, ‘O Regimento das Missões: poder e negociação na Amazônia portuguesa’, Clio, 27: 1 (2009), pp. 46–75; Karl Heinz Arenz, ‘Entre supressão e consolidação: os aldeamentos jesuíticos na Amazônia portuguesa (1661–1693)’, in Suely Creusa Cordeiro de Almeida et al. (eds.), Políticas e estratégias administrativas no mundo atlântico (Recife: Editora Universitária da UFPE, 2012), pp. 311–35.

74 See Rafael Chambouleyron, ‘A prática dos sertões na Amazônia colonial (século XVII)’, Outros Tempos, 10: 15 (2013), pp. 79–99; Nírvia Ravena and Rosa E. Acevedo Marin, ‘A teia de relações entre índios e missionários: a complementaridade vital entre o abastecimento e o extrativismo na dinâmica econômica da Amazônia Colonial’, Varia Historia, 29: 50 (2013), pp. 395–420; Dias, ‘L'Amazonie avant Pombal’, p. 292.

75 APEP, Sesmarias, livro 6, fos. 89v–90.

76 ‘Livro dos Termos da Junta das Missões’, transcribed in Paul D. Wojtalewicz, ‘The “Junta das Missões”: The Missions in the Portuguese Amazon’, unpubl. MPhil thesis, University of Minnesota, 1993, pp. 118, 137.

77 APEP, Sesmarias, livro 8, fos. 32v–33v.

78 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 32, doc. 3001 (1750).

79 APEP, Sesmarias, livro 6, fos. 47–47v.

80 APEP, Sesmarias, livro 10, fos. 27v–28.

81 Bombardi, ‘Pelos interstícios do olhar do colonizador’, p. 184.

82 ‘Livro dos Termos da Junta das Missões’, p. 135.

83 Dias and Bombardi, ‘O que dizem as licenças?’

84 David Sweet, ‘A Rich Realm of Nature Destroyed: The Middle Amazon Valley, 1640–1750’, unpubl. PhD Diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974; Robin Wright, ‘Indian Slavery in the Northwest Amazon’, Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, 7: 2 (1991), pp. 149–79; Rafael Chambouleyron et al., ‘“Formidável contágio”: epidemias, trabalho e recrutamento na Amazônia colonial (1660–1750)’, História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, 18: 4 (2011), pp. 987–1004; Bombardi, ‘Pelos interstícios do olhar do colonizador’, pp. 86–115; Antonio Otaviano Vieira Junior and Roberta Sauaia Martins. ‘Epidemia y esclavitud en la Amazonia (1748–1778)’, Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, 25 (2016), pp. 115–42.

85 Letter from Bettendorff (São Luís, Maranhão) to Superior General Giovanni Paolo Oliva (Rome), 20 Sept. 1677, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome (hereafter ARSI), codex Bras. 26, fo. 43v.

86 Letter from Consalvi (São Luís) to Oliva, 27 Feb. 1678, ARSI, codex Bras. 26, fo. 53v. More than 40 years later, the Jesuit chronicler Domingos de Araújo favourably remembered Bettendorff's efforts towards the economic consolidation of mission work in the captaincy of Pará. See ‘Chronica da Companhia de Jesus’, 1720, Biblioteca Pública de Évora (Évora), codex CXV/2-11, fo. 234v.

87 Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, ‘Portugal and her Empire, 1680–1720’, in J. S. Bromley (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), vol. 6: The Rise of Great Britain and Russia, 1688–1715/25, pp. 509–39; Frédéric Mauro, Des produits et des hommes. Essais historiques latino-américains XVIe–XXe siècles (Paris/The Hague: École Pratique des Hautes Études/Mouton, 1972), p. 80; Carl A. Hanson, Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal (1668–1703) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1981); Jean-François Labourdette, Histoire du Portugal (Paris: Fayard, 2000), pp. 344–422.

88 Letter from Bettendorff (São Luís) to Oliva, 7 May 1678, ARSI, codex Bras. 26, fo. 47. In this report, the Jesuit Superior mentions again his effort to diffuse the cacao tree among the settlers.

89 Letter from Pfeil (São Luís) to Oliva, 27 Feb. 1691, ARSI, codex Bras. 26, fo. 366v.

90 ‘Informatio de Marañonensis Missionis Statu’, 1701, Archivio Storico de Propaganda Fide, Rome, codex Scritture riferite nei Congressi – America Meridionale, vol. 1, fo. 518.

91 According to Dauril Alden, the Jesuits ‘depended primarily upon their Amerindian neophytes and catechumens in the interior missions to collect’ cacao: The Making of an Enterprise, p. 546.

92 Dauril Alden, ‘Economic Aspects of the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Brazil: A Preliminary Report’, in Henry H. Keith and S. F. Edwards (eds.), Conflict and Continuity in Brazilian Society (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press 1969), pp. 25–65; Paulo de Assunção, Negócios jesuíticos: o cotidiano da administração dos bens divinos (São Paulo: EdUSP, 2004); and Neves Neto, Um patrimônio em contendas.

93 Letter from Ferreira (São Luís) to Superior General Michelangelo Tamburini, Rome, 19 March 1709, ARSI, codex Bras. 26, fo. 211r.

94 Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, p. 546.

95 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 18, doc. 1645; AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 17, doc. 1628. See Roberta Lobão de Carvalho, ‘“A ruína do Maranhão”: a construção do discurso antijesuítico na Amazônia portuguesa (1705–1759)’, unpubl. PhD Diss., Universidade Federal do Pará, 2018, pp. 121–217.

96 ‘Parecer de João da Maia da Gama, governador que foi do Maranhão, sobre os Requerimentos que a El-Rei representou, Paulo da Silva Nunes contra os missionários’, Lisboa Occidental, 22 Feb. 1730, published in A. J. de M. Moraes, Corographia histórica, chronográphica, genealógica, nobiliária e política do Império do Brasil, vol. 4 (Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia Americana, 1858), p. 262.

97 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 29, doc. 2799 (20 Oct. 1747).

98 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 80, doc. 6627 (31 Aug. 1778).

99 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 13, doc. 1223 (c. 1732).

100 The Jesuits were expelled from Portugal and the Portuguese territories for a second time in 1759.

101 ARSI, codex Bras. 28, fos. 11–11v; 12; 13–14v; 17.

102 Cafusos (or cafuzos) are persons of mixed African and Indigenous descent.

103 AHU, Pará-Avulsos, caixa 13, doc. 1223 (c. 1732).

104 Daniel, Tesouro descoberto, pp. 244, 248, 259, 449 and 465.