Of evil and its medicine: the crisis of the Colonial Empire and mercantilism in Portugal in the 17th century

• Grant number: 24/21706-3
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Luis Puntoni
• Grantee: Pedro Luis Puntoni
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the formation of economic thought in Portugal in the second half of the 17th century, as a result of monetary changes and the development of protectionist and reactive policies to the first great crisis of the Colonial Empire. It is an offshoot of the research I have been carrying out on the evolution of the Portuguese Empire's monetary system and on economic thought in Portugal in the 17th century. Since the Restoration in 1640, the Portuguese monarchy faced great difficulties in resuming economic activity in its Empire. The decline of trade with the Orient and the difficulties of facing up to competition with other emerging colonial powers led the monarchy and merchants to focus more and more on the business of Brazil, which was both the production of sugar and the transatlantic slave trade. However, after the expulsion of the Dutch from the north-east in 1654, the sugar economy in Brazil went through major difficulties. The transformations of the Portuguese colonial empire (with the turn to the Atlantic and the need to resume sugar production) led to the formulation of various diagnoses and reform projects. The interpretation of the nature of this 'evil' and its 'remedies' is a constant in the economic thinking of the time, recorded in arbitrations, opinions, votes, decisions by councils and ministers of state. Portugal was faced with the need to find ways to recover and strengthen its Empire. The evolution of economic thought was also the result of foreign influences, notably the so-called Colbertism. In this project, we will study the Parisian experience of the Portuguese envoy to the court of Louis XIV, Duarte Ribeiro de Macedo, his political practice and his intellectual production. We will also study - among other authors - the contributions of Manuel Severim de Faria, Antonio de Sousa de Macedo and D. Luis de Meneses, the 3rd Count of Ericeira. Count of Ericeira. This is a study of the history of economic thought, but within the perspective of the economic and political history of the Portuguese Colonial Empire. In order to understand the formation of mercantilist thought and policy in Portugal, it is also necessary to analyse the historical context. Our proposal is also to study the decline of these mercantilist policies at the end of the 17th century and the reconfiguration of mercantile structures in Portugal, marked by the rise of gold from Brazil and the Treaty of Methuen (1703). (AU)