Descrição
x, 240 pp.; Ilustrado; 22 cm.
«As the great colonial empires of the European nations crumble, a whole pattern of life vanishes. Historians are faced with the important and difficult task of recording and studying the elaborate institutional structures, the councils and committees, the complex methods by which European countries organized their remote dominions. Of all European powers, the Portuguese were the forerunners in establishing an overseas empire, and appear to be the last to maintain one. Their navigators were the first to reach India, their colonists conquered and held vast areas of South America. In Portuguese Society in the Tropics, C. R. Boxer explores a relatively unknown aspect of the Portuguese Empire: the municipal governments of their Asian, Latin-American, and African colonies.
The author shows that these infrequently considered governmental bodies were of crucial importance in holding together the far-flung and ramshackle Portuguese Empire. Unable itself adequately to administer its domains, the over-extended and financially undernourished Portuguese Crown allowed local councils great latitude in the raising and administering of funds for a wide variety of purposes. The councils were often responsible for naval and military establishments and expeditions, and were actively concerned with the economic sinews of Portugal’s maritime empire. The entrepôt trade of Goa, the silver and sandalwood trade of Macao, the sugar trade of Bahia, the slave trade of Luanda – all these fell in part within the compass of the councils.
Although this book is basically a study in institutional history, forty-five years of research in Portuguese colonial history have given Professor Boxer intimate knowledge of the society and social attitudes of those colonies. In the course of his examination of the municipal councils – their composition, their relationships with the Crown and with the local civil, ecclesiastical, and military authorities – he offers a colorful and many-sided portrait of colonial society.
His comparison of the Portuguese councils with the better-known Spanish town councils, and his analysis of the way national character affects colonial settlement, will be of interest to students of all colonial attempts as well as to students of comparative tropical history.»
