Negócios e negociantes em uma conjuntura crítica: o porto de Salvador e os impactos da mineração, 1697-1731

Abstract

The discovery and increasing gold production in Brazil from the late seventeenth century caused a sharp turnaround of the economy not only in the colony but throughout the Portuguese empire. The Crown turned back to the South Atlantic since the gold led there the axis of economic gravity of the empire and the interests of the central government. The turn of the seventeenth century to the eighteenth occurred critically, as Portugal could not maintain neutrality in foreign policy, being dragged to the War of Spanish Succession, thus aligning itself with England to the detriment of Bourbon pretensions, which caused the invasion of French corsairs in America. Therefore, toward the cost of bodyguards, the Crown commanded taxation by ten percent of the goods that would enter the Salvador port, i.e., the tithe of Customs. The purpose of this research is to study the tithe of Customs of Bahia: the first attempt to establish it in 1711 and the disorders which followed this attempt; their establishment in 1714 and the first two contracts tithe of Customs auctioned for the triennium 1723-1726 and 1727-1729. From a fiscal point of view, in the eighteenth century, the exponential growth of customs handling and what we call the shift of economic gravity of the Salvador commercial square to the Rio de Janeiro was remarkable, i.e., the preference of business men by the Rio de Janeiro Customs the expense of the Salvador Customs. Thus, this research aims to study the process of displacement of the axis of economic gravity of the commercial square of Salvador to Rio de Janeiro from the year 1697 – date on which the amount of gold increased in metropolitan ports – and 1731, taken as the year in which this process was fully consolidated.