The general governor Francisco Barreto de Meneses (1657-1663): trajectory, relations and correspondence in the Portuguese archive

• Grant number: 11/23835-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2012
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Leila Mezan Algranti
• Grantee: Caroline Garcia Mendes
• Supervisor: Tiago C. P. dos Reis Miranda
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 10/13870-5 - The exchange and act of writing letters of the state of Brasil's general governor Francisco Barreto (1657-1663), BP.MS

Abstract

The General Government of Brazil was performed between the years 1657 and 1663 by Francisco Barreto de Meneses. This vassal borned in Peru, even during the Iberian Union, was a great service provider to the Portuguese Crown, having fought against the Dutch in Pernambuco and against the Spanish during the Restoration period. As a reward for his service provider, in 1657 he was designated general governor of the State of Brazil. The general governor was the king's exponent in the colony, being responsible for the administration and protection of these lands so far from Lisboa. To exert his activities, was necessary, however, to inform to the king all that happened of important from the other side of the Atlantic and to act on the king's own orders. The only way that allowed keeping this relationship, was the sending and the receiving of letters. Furthermore, it was also this way that the general governor administered the rest the State of Brazil: through letters sent in ships to the south or by messengers on earth. Only during the Barretos's government, hundreds of letters were written by him, so for the Portuguese king, as for the governors and captains of captaincy. The research in the Brazilian collections, even in the series of the Documentos Históricos from the Biblioteca Nacional as in the documents from the Projeto Resgate, had already answered some questions of this search. In Documentos Históricos we could see the intense sending letters from Francisco Barreto de Meneses to other authorities in the State of Brazil captaincy as general governor. In the same documents and in those recovered by Projeto Resgate was able to locate one part of the letters sent by him to Portugal, like general governor and like as Pernambuco governor. To understand more this interesting character from the seventeenth century and rebuild their exchange of letters, official or not, is the subject of this research. We try to understand how Franciso Barreto de Meneses apprehended the world in which he lived and the relationships he built or strengthened, using for this the only way he knew and had access: the letters. The research internship at the Nova Universidade de Lisboa - in the Centro de História de Além-mar - aims to reconstruct the trajectory of services from this Portuguese vassal and further expand the discussion of epistolary culture in with falls the society of that period. Therefore, the investigation in files is essential: for example in the Torre do Tombo, in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal and in the Biblioteca Eborense. The professor Tiago dos Reis Miranda, who agreed to guide this stage, in addition to deep knowledge of the Portuguese archives and author of interesting material about the written culture in the modern era in Portugal, is also specializes in the reconstruction of trajectories, which demonstrates the importance of his teachings have in our research. (AU)