The Slave Trade to Grão-Pará in the correspondences of Governors during the Commercial Monopoly (1757-1778)

Abstract

This article is the result of the collection of new historical sources and the treatment of the slave trade to the northern region of the colony, particularly to Grão-Pará, during the period of validity of the monopoly exercised by the General Company of Commerce of Grão-Pará and Maranhão (1757-1778). The existence of a consolidated historiography on the slave trade during the Pombaline period did not establish a complete history that cannot be investigated or researched from other places and historical records. In this sense, based on the inquiry of the “Original correspondence of the governors of Pará with the court” (20 books, 4 used in this article), we seek to analyze the transit of slaves in Pará, but from other perspectives, mainly the dimension of the presence of slaves and their agents, here emphasized from the administration of the Company, its masters/captains and, when possible, also owners of slave ships). The methodology for analyzing the data was essentially quantitative, since it prioritized the aridity of the numbers and the organization and tabulation in tables. However, it established a dialogue and understanding of the figures in the context of the government of José I and the policy implemented by the Pombaline ministry and its interlocutors, in particular the governors of Pará, regarding the issue related to labor. The results lean towards an analysis of the people who were involved in the slave trade in the Amazon in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, as well as their agencies as subjects equally necessary for understanding the functioning of mercantile logic.