Early Brazil
A Documentary Collection to 1700

Presents original sources that illustrate the process of conquest, colonization, and settlement in Brazil.

Stuart B. Schwartz (Edited by)

9780521124539, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 August 2009

336 pages, 4 maps
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.46 kg

'This collection of documents - many of which are being published in English translation for the first time - opens up the study of early Brazilian history to students and scholars. It will allow Brazil to be much more widely included in comparative discussions of institutional, economic, and religious histories of Latin America.' Alida C. Metcalf, Rice University

Early Brazil presents a collection of original sources, many published for the first time in English and some never before published in any language, that illustrates the process of conquest, colonization, and settlement in Brazil. The volume emphasizes the actions and interactions of the indigenous peoples, Portuguese, and Africans in the formation of the first extensive plantation colony based on slavery in the Americas, and it also includes documents that reveal the political, social, religious, and economic life of the colony. Original documents on early Brazilian history are difficult to find in English, and this collection will serve the interests of undergraduate students, as well as graduate students, who seek to make comparisons or to understand the history of Portuguese expansion.

1. The 'discovery' and first encounters with Brazil
2. The donatarial system
3. Royal government
4. The French interlude
5. Indians, Jesuits, and colonizers
6. The world of the engenhos
7. Government and society in Dutch Brazil
8. Burdens of slavery and race: the war against Palmares
9. Public and private power
10. Religion and society
11. Frontiers.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History of the Americas [HBJK]