War, Military Forces, and Society in Colonial Brazil

War played a crucial role in the political and administrative development of colonial Brazil. The adoption of different government solutions, from the initial naval expeditions and proprietary captaincies to the establishment of a general government, were, in part, a response to the military challenges the Portuguese faced in the New World. In the 17th century, the leading municipalities in Brazil expanded their political prominence and reinforced their autonomy precisely when they assumed the commitment to feed the troops and pay for the army’s wages. War and military conflicts also played an important role in the formation of the colonial society in Brazil. There was a natural overlay between the hierarchical structure of the military institutions created in, or transplanted to, the colony and the hierarchical society the Portuguese established in America. The armed forces consolidated the social status of local elites; while they provided opportunities for the more marginalized groups of blacks, mixed-race, and Indians—active participants in the defense of Brazil from the outset—they also helped colonial administrators organize society along racial lines. Regulars, militias, ordenanças, and other military units filled different functions in the territory. They often took part in different military operations in a territory that was hardly suitable for large-scale operations, prolonged siege warfare, or coordinated deployment of mass infantry formations. In Brazil, similarly to other colonies in America, a distinct kind of warfare emerged, marked by a synthesis of European, Indian, and African military knowledges. It was called Guerra Brasílica, and it was both admired for its effectiveness and disparaged for not fitting nicely in traditional European military orthodoxies and for being undisciplined and supposedly “uncivilized.” The negative imageries attached to military campaigns in Brazil persisted in the minds of colonial administrators for a long time, underpinning the territory’s undeserving military status (when compared with India and North Africa)—a status that the colony seldom escaped.

Digital Resources: Colonial Brazilian History

Research on questions related to colonial Brazil has always been a challenge for historians of the period. In addition to the habitual adversities of historiographic research, studies of the colony have presented some specific difficulties as it involves documentation with at least three centuries of existence. For this reason, these primary sources have often seriously deteriorated due to the actions of time, environmental factors, or bad conservation. In addition to these problems, there exists the question that these documents are scattered among various archives in different regions of Brazil and on the other side of the Atlantic in Portugal, since the central administrative bodies of the Portuguese Empire were concentrated there, from where they communicated with their colonies and conquests. To shorten these distances, preserve the sources, and allow wide-ranging democratic access, websites have emerged to host the digitalized documentation of archives, libraries, and research collections. Since the 2000s, websites with both specific and more general subjects have been created, covering a wide range of content related to colonial Brazil, organized in digital collections. Various types of sources, such as cartographic, iconographic, and textual which allow aspects from social, political, economic, and cultural history to be dealt with, among others, can currently be found and analyzed without researchers having to physically visit institutions, which can be many kilometers from their residence. Much work which previously was either not done or which was limited due to the lack, or even the complete absence, of documents can now be carried out, which above all collaborates with the growth of the area.

Lojalni portugalskim monarchom – militarne oddziały czarnoskórych w kolonialnej Brazylii

[Being loyal to the Portuguese monarchs – the black regiments in colonial Brazil] The present paper discusses the “racial” loyalty and “class” solidarity of black soldiers towards other fugitive black slaves during colonial Brazil. Having sworn loyalty and allegiance to the Portuguese monarchs, those soldiers joined the war against the quilombos located far from major urban centers. This study examines black soldiers’ petitions and official correspondence regarding their military careers. The documents are part of the collection of the Historical Overseas Archive in Lisbon.

The Defense of Brazilian Civilization from the Criticism to the use of Perfumes: Doctors in Medicine in Bahia of the XIX Century

In academic theses written by doctors in the 19th century state of Bahia (Brazil), we are confronted with the statement that perfumes are an evil to be avoided. Concerned with promoting the health of the population and establishing themselves in a country strongly marked by the dispute between different agents dedicated to healing, doctors trained at the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia, inaugurated in 1832, will insist on the pathological character of the aromatics and, with that, will place themselves against certain customs of colonial Brazil, as well as practices brought at the beginning of the century by the Portuguese Crown. The arguments simultaneously articulate body and morality in the construction of a discourse of truth that would constitute the scientific and aims at the same time to discuss and institute civilization in Brazil. Our goal is, based on the theses, to identify and understand some of the tensions that involve the different ways in which smells and perfumes were thought in the period.

New Christian Family Networks in the First Visitation of the Inquisition to Brazil

This chapter provides a case study of João and Diogo Nunes during the First Visitation of the Inquisition to Brazil (1591–1595). The Nunes brothers were part of a broader commercial network of New Christian merchant families who controlled the sugar trade in northeastern Brazil during its rapid expansion in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. However, the social ascendency of New Christians in colonial Brazil threatened the existing elite who used the Inquisition to banish them via spurious denunciations. Using Inquisition testimony, this chapter will underscore the importance of New Christian networks to the sugar trade. It was their success, which both brought them to the attention of the Inquisition and saved them by virtue of royal intervention.