An economic history of the slave trade in Angola: finance, taxation and transport (c. 1730-1807)

• Grant number: 14/14896-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: December 01, 2014 - November 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Maximiliano Mac Menz
• Grantee: Maximiliano Mac Menz
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims to study the organization of the slave trade in Angola between 1730 and 1807, considering the connection between Portugal, Angola and Brazil, with special attention to its financing, its relation to taxation and the role of the transportation business. That is, we want to understand how it was financed the purchase of slaves, the articulation with the collection and payment of taxes, the definition of different spheres of business in the Atlantic and the hierarchical structure of networks and merchant communities, particularly around the separation between the transport and trade of goods.We start with a hypothesis originally developed by Joseph Miller on the slave trade in Angola: through the control of the slave contract, Lisbon merchants monopolized business financing, making use of a number of privileges guaranteed by the contracts, and thus provided most of the goods that were used for the purchase of slaves in the country. It also aims to deepen the original hypothesis Miller, addressing other forms of finance and its relation to taxation (eg. Carreira das Índias, the Pombal companies and the Board of Finance of Angola). We also need to deepen the analysis of freight market, the connection to the marine industry and food production for provisions to the vessels in Brazil.Thus, we intend to analyze a large number of commercial, customs and notary sources. It is, therefore, a work of economic history, where seriation techniques will be used to handle a large body of quantitative material, while trying to reconstruct some biographies linked to the slave trade. (AU)