Maria Fernanda Bicalho

As Câmaras Municipais no Império Português: o exemplo do Rio de Janeiro

The present article analises the role played by the overseas municipal councils in Portuguese Colonial Empire. It focus the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in order to illustrate the composition of the municipalities, their routine functions, their action in times of crisis and war, and the kind of its demands to the Crown representatives on both sides of the Atlantic. As the center of political administration, tax collection, commerce, and defense, Rio de Janeiro was the privileged stage for the exercise of metropolian dominance over the vast South-Atlantic world. This article intends to discuss the tensions, negociations, and compromises between metropolitan politics and the role of one of the most important luso-american municipalities.

A cidade do Rio de Janeiro e o sonho de uma capital americana: da visão de D. Luís da Cunha à sede do vice-reinado (1736-1763)

This article explores the 18th century notion to transfer the capital of the Portuguese empire from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, based on the proposals of D. Luis da Cunha, one of the most prominent advisers to D. John V (D. Joao V). In order to contextualize da Cunhas Political Policies (Instrucoes Politicas), written in 1736, and to analyze the choice of Rio de Janeiro to host the Portuguese court, the following pages seek to examine not only the growth of the city as a centre of influence, but notably the increasing importance of the jurisdictions and the concerns of those who ruled the colony. These individuals having been the main exponents in the transformation of Rio de Janeiro into a hub of great strategic and geopolitical significance to the Portuguese monarchy throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

“Possuidores despóticos”: Historiografia, denúncia e fontes sobre a corrupção na América portuguesa

Este artigo, dividido em quatro topicos, defende o argumento de que havia na cultura politica do Antigo Regime uma distincao entre o que era visto e vivenciado como licito e ilicito e, portanto, que o conceito de corrupcao -embora com contornos e nuances proprias, e concepcoes especificas de acordo com diferentes conjunturas historicas- aplica-se igualmente as sociedades da epoca moderna. Nas duas primeiras partes do texto nos propomos a uma breve discussao sobre o tema da corrupcao no espaco social luso-brasileiro, tanto a partir da historiografia recente, quanto por meio de obras de autores que viveram e escreveram nos seculos XVII e XVIII. Em seguida analisaremos uma representacao dos moradores do Rio de Janeiro a rainha D. Maria I, de 1779, acusando os oficiais da Câmara de intrusao, despotismo e usurpacao de direitos em relacao a posse de terrenos urbanos, que lhes haviam sido garantidos desde a fundacao da cidade. Por fim, abordaremos, ao destacar as fontes sobre as quais nos debrucamos, as vias e as estrategias utilizadas, individual e coletivamente, para denunciar a corrupcao na monarquia pluricontinental portuguesa, sempre atentas a centralidade do rei e a eficacia da justica regia.

A França Antártica, o corso, a conquista e a "peçonha luterana"

Toward the end of 1555, some French ships under the command of Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon arrived in Guanabara Bay. There had been many French vessels navigating in those areas, trading with the native Indians, shipping away heavy loads of brazilwood trees. Villegagnon’s expedition and the creation of the French Antarctic, though having much more complex and lasting aims, will be analysed here based on the Portuguese-French dispute for wealth, for trade and for domination of the high seas. In other words, this article intends to argue, from the experience of the French Antarctic, the recurrent threats represented by the French Corsair in the South Atlantic. An approach toward the corsair’s dynamism permits us to comprehend the greater movement within the European dispute for the seas and territorial colonies. The feeling of fear it provoked at that time, influenced the contexture of modern colonialism, making it possible to interpret the seals and the significant printed matter in Rio de Janeiro in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.