History of European Overseas Expansion

The expanding sugar trade linking Portugal, Brazil, and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries required enforcement mechanisms to guarantee that overseas agents would act honestly and diligently. While the recent literature emphasizes that multiple mechanisms were substitutes in addressing this problem, this article highlights that merchants chose different mechanisms to govern distinct types of transactions and explains why. A reputational mechanism relying on social and economic constraints within an ethnic diaspora governed more complex and higher-value arrangements. A different mechanism linking economic incentives to professional reputations across the diasporas plying this trade route predominated in simpler and smaller transactions. Finally, long-distance and transnational judicial enforcement supplemented these two reputational mechanisms. Capable of matching the value and complexity of transactions with the attributes of governing mechanisms, merchants were able to diversify their transactions, expand the market for agents, better allocate agents to tasks, and stimulate competition among them. The resulting decrease in agency costs was critical in such a significantly competitive market as the sugar trade. Evolving institutional choice thus reinforced the expansion of trade. These hypotheses are corroborated by data from a prosopography of merchants of Jewish origin, derived from notarial records from Oporto and Amsterdam, and from Inquisition files. A t the turn of the sixteenth century, Europe experienced rapidly growing urban populations and dependence on trade for supplies of staple products, while overseas possessions contributed to a surging output of marketable commodities, including sugar. Brazil was turned into the first large-scale plantation economy and became the world's main sugar producer, with Amsterdam emerging as its main distribution and refining centre. Most of the Brazilian sugar trade was intermediated by merchants in Portugal, and traders of Jewish origin scattered along this trade route played a prominent role in the sugar trade. The rapid expansion, growing complexity, and increasing integration of these markets required traders to be confident that the parties with whom they were considering working would not cheat, renege on, or neglect their commitments.

Power Point presentation in support of the
Seminar de Historia Global Prof. Dr. Guido Abbattista (Università degli Studi di Trieste https://www.units.it/) Rotte marittime globali. Un geodatabase storico della navigazione globale (1500-1900) martes 1 de junio 2012 h 10 am -11:30 am Lima time, 5 p. m. CET
Link meet.google.com/yxk-rirj-qre

Dieses Buch beleuchtet in kompakter und gut lesbarer Form die Wurzeln und den Beginn der maritimen europäischen Expansion. Dabei führt der Weg mitunter weit zurück in das Mittelalter bis zur Herausbildung von elementaren Ideen – geographischen Vorstellungen, aber auch Hoffnungen und Sehnsüchten – als Grundlage für die frühe Erforschung der Ozeane, anfangs speziell des Atlantiks. Eine entscheidende Rolle kommt ebenso den vielfältigen und meist auf Austauschprozessen beruhenden Innovationen des mittelalterlichen Europa zu. Erste spätmittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche ­Entdeckungen europäischer Seeleute am Atlantik und später auf anderen Weltmeeren bauten auf den zuvor gewonnenen Erkenntnissen und kulturellen Errungenschaften auf und legten umgekehrt den Grundstein für die Eroberungen und die Errichtung der frühen Kolonialreiche in Übersee (im Zeitraum vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert). Mit diesem Ausgriff Europas auf die Weltmeere wurde schließlich eine erste Phase der Globalisierung eingeläutet.

Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea reveals the long-hidden story of those who lived in the region before Liberia was created.

Here are a few of the inspiring revelations it contains:

• The different languages and ethnic groups in Liberia share a common root.
• The barkless hunting dog found in Liberian villages were a favorite pet of Ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
• Kola - once used as an ingredient in soft drinks - was discovered by the ancestors of Liberians.
• Early European explorers learned from early Liberian seafarers how to navigate some dangerous currents and winds of the Atlantic Ocean.
• Rice growers from West African's "Grain Coast" helped teach Americans how to grow rice. Today, the United States exports rice to West Africa, including Liberia.

Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea took 30 years of research and uses documents first published in Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and French. It draws on oral traditions, archaeological digs, historical linguistics, studies of cultural patterns embedded in masks and other forms of material culture, regional and continental histories, and even biological anthropology.

Just as West African farmers burn a field to remove weeds, Between the Kola Forest and the Salty Sea demolishes many negative stereotypes. For centuries, African cultures have been portrayed as "strange," "weird," even "evil" through the use of words like "fetish," "witch," and "country devil."

This book will change Liberian history - and Liberians - for good!

This essay focuses on the relations between Italy and China in the early1930s, when Italian Fascism and Chinese Nationalism created a ten-year political and economic cooperation. Today, the historical archives allow a more complete reading of Italian foreign policy towards Asia and the Far East in that controversial historical period. When Italy strengthened political relations with Chiang Kai-shek in China, its government also committed to strategic ties with Japan, at the most critical moment of the relations between the two Asian nations. This research study presents unpublished evidences concerning those issues of diplomatic history and international relations.

Up until the earlier part of the twentieth century 10th and Page, Starr Hill and Vinegar Hill were a trio of predominantly African-American neighborhoods, located adjacent to each other, between the University of Virginia (UVA) and downtown Charlottesville, with portions of Vinegar Hill bordering the downtown Court House. In 1960 the city approved a resolution adopted by the to “redevelop the Vinegar Hill neighborhood” because of the ‘poor conditions’ of some of its structures. The entire neighborhood was leveled resulting in total destruction of homes, churches, businesses and ways of life. To make up for the more than 500 people displaced, Charlottesville chose to erect the Westhaven public housing project within the 10th and Page neighborhood but designed it to be literally ‘out of the line of sight’ from the West Main Street shopping district, the University Hospital, and the ‘non-African-American’ zone. This paper contends that the City of Charlottesville, through the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA), went to deny an entire segment of its population access to the community at large and thus confine and segregated then within a site chosen by the city’s leaders. The location was deliberately excavated to render the public housing complex ‘invisible’ to the white pedestrians. In light of the Vinegar Hill incident, this attempt to ‘hide’ a segment of the population, although blatant, was done in a very matter-of-fact manner. This paper contends that the City of Charlottesville, through the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA), intentionally denied an entire segment of its population access to the community at large in a pseudo-panoptic manner: confined and segregated then within a site chosen by the city’s leaders.

Estudo sobre a presença portuguesa no vice-reino do Peru, entre 1580 e 1640, com base em fontes documentais de arquivos espanhóis, peruanos, mexicanos e paraguaios, designadamente, processos inquisitoriais, fiscais e judiciais, testamentos e cartas privadas.
Redes comerciais inter-regionais, mecanismos de integração nas elites coloniais, versatilidade social, espaços de sociabilidade, são alguns dos caminhos abertos para revelar a presença de portugueses no espaço hispano-americano.
Esta obra contém um apêndice documental inédito e um quadro geral de estantes e residentes no espaço peruano e no Novo Reino de Granada, no período considerado.

Este artículo propone analizar las divergencias entre los propósitos y el destino de dos expediciones que, en la segunda mitad de la década de 1520, exploraron el Océano Austral. El piloto mayor Sebastián Caboto (c. 1484-1557), cuyo viaje de exploración de 1526 fue comisionado directamente por el rey español, recibió órdenes precisas. Diego García de Moguer (c. 1480-1544), piloto de la Casa de la Contratación de La Coruña, tenía en cambio directivas más ambiguas. Ambas armadas recogieron, en sus obligatorias recaladas en la tierra del brasil, insistentes rumores que prometían el acceso a inimaginables riquezas navegando el (por entonces temible) Río de Solís. Por su causa, Caboto decidió desobedecer las órdenes recibidas al partir de España, abandonado su viaje al Oriente; García de Moguer, optó por investigar un atractivo prospecto comercial en un área no asignada aún a ningún otro explorador. Ambas acciones tuvieron como consecuencia la apertura del ciclo de exploración y conquista del promisorio Río de la Plata. Pero también iluminan las tensiones emergentes entre las órdenes dadas por un centro político lejano y atractivas oportunidades locales en el proceso de conquista de un nuevo mundo.

En este artículo se analiza la conquista normanda de las Islas Canarias a través de la conocida crónica "Le Canarién", prestando especial atención a la descripción de los nativos y a las ilustraciones de las islas que acompañan al códice Montruffet, una fuente excelente para analizar la alteridad europea en el atlántico en los comienzos de la era de los descubrimientos

DR. RAPHAEL PAT AI is a noted anthropologist, Biblical scholar, and author. He taught Hebrew at che Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and served as professor of anthropology at Dropsie University and at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and as visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton, Columbia, Ohio State, and New York U niversitics. He was also consultant to the Department of Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, director of the Syria-Lebanon-Jordan research project of the Human Relations Area Files, director of research at the Herzl Institute, and editor of the Herzl Press. Dr. Patai is the author of twenty-six books, including Hebrew Myths (with Robert Graves>. Man and Temple in Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual, Golden River to Golden Road: Society, Culture and Change in the Middk Emr.
Israel Between Emt and West. The Kingdom of Jordan, Tents of Jacob: The Diarpora Yesterda)' and Today. Myth and Modern Man. The Arab Mind, The Myth of the Jewish Race (with Jennifer Patai-Wing), and The Jewish Mind His two latest books, The Hebreu: Goddess and The Messiah Texts, were published by Avon Books in 1978 and 1979

CONTENTS -SUBJECTS- PARTS OF BOOK BELOW

1. BIBLE
2. APOCRYPHA
3. TALMUD 159 - Of God 162 Creation, Eden, Gehenna 164 Sea Lore 173 Angels and Demons 177 Biblical Heroes 190 Between Israel and Edom 209 Sages and Saines 221 Sin and Repentance 248
4. MIDRASH 257 - Creation, Eden, Gehenna 262 Biblical Heroes 282 The Exile: Woes and Triumphs 349 Warriors and Martyrs 353 Men of Virtue: Sages and Saines 3 71 Of Birch and Death 3 78 Angels, Demons, and Ghosts 386 The Messiah 410
5. KABBALA 419 - Of Body and Soul 424 The Mysteries of Eden 432 Death and Punishment 439 Mysterious Worlds 445 The Matronic -The Legend of Lilith Mysteries in History Sages and Saines Of Safed Kabbalists
6. FOLK -  Tales of Origins Rewards and Punishments Angels and Demons Animal Tales Satirical Tales Heroic Tales Wisdom Stories Miracle Men Biblical and Other Heroes
7. HASIDISM About the Ba'al Shem Tov R. Leib Sarah's R. Yitzl)aq, the "Seer" of Lublin R. N al)man of Bratzlav Other Tzaddiqim
                                        PREFACE
This anthology is intended to serve as a guide and an introduction to the vast storehouses of the Agada (legend) literature accumulated by the Jews in the course of three thousand years. It contains selections from the seven major genres of Jewish literature that are, among other things, repositories of legends: the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Kabbala, folklore, and Hasidism.
The background notes which precede each of these parts give essential information about the genre.
Only a very few legends about the Messiah have been included, since about a year ago I published all the material I could find on that subject in a separate volume entitled The Messiah Texts (New York: Avon Books, 1979, liii, 373 pp.).
In making the selections, preference was given to texts thus far not available in English. However, whether previously translated or not, all the selections contained in this volume were translated anew by me from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Yiddish, or German sources, because I found the existing translations to be not quite satisfactory. An exception is the story "The Six Days and the Seven Gates" by Yitzhak Navon, which was translated by Misha Louvish, and which appears as prologue to the book. I wish to express here my thanks to President Navon for his permission to include his beautiful legend in this volume. In preparing my own translations I endeavored to retain, as far as possible, the flavor of the original texts,

A not so well-known case of Portuguese diaspora was the community that lived in the Ethiopian highlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The roots of this group go back to the early 1540s and survived as a distinct community until the second half of the next century. A large part of the Portuguese were occupied in military roles, as members of the army of the Christian negus. Historical sources reporting on this group are relatively abundant, but they have been little used to date. With this study, I will draw on Portuguese and Ethiopian sources and reconstruct the dynamics of this Portuguese diaspora. The genesis and development of this group will be addressed as well as issues concerning their identity and integration into Ethiopian societies. An important focus will be the relationship between this foreign group and the Jesuit mission, active in Ethiopia from 1556 to 1632.

Aveiro e as suas gentes na abertura de Quinhentos. In Atas das 8as Jornadas de História Local e Património Documental de Aveiro. Aveiro e a Expansão Marítima Portuguesa. 1400-1800. Aveiro: Câmara Municipal de Aveiro e Âncora Editora, 2017, pp. 85-166.

La búsqueda de los metales preciosos condujo a que los asentamientos
se realizaran preferiblemente en las regiones ricas o potencialmente ricas en minas. Ciertas aristas de los efectos que este modo de expansión y esta forma de búsqueda de riquezas produjeron en América, más allá de lo que significaron económica y socialmente para el Nuevo Mundo, o económicamente para Europa, no han sido atendidos por la historiografía clásica dedicada al tema.

MA Thesis in Maritime History (Faculty of Letters, Lisbon University FLUL, 2014) - revised version

The present thesis Shipwrecks of the “Carreira da Índia” (1595-1623) – Sources
for the Study in Portuguese Maritime History deals with factors which caused losses of
ships of the Carreira da Índia which linked the European metropolis Lisbon with its
Goa based Estado da Índia between 1595 and 1623. Although Portuguese-Asiatic
shipping was formally separated from the Habsburg Empire during the Union of the
Two Iberian Crowns (1580-1640), the European policies of the Spanish Kings,
especially towards the United Provinces and the Netherlands had its influence and
effects on the Portuguese side.
Shipwrecks, either on the outward bound or homeward bound voyages had
occurred for various reasons since the early days of the Carreira da Índia yet the
emergence of the two private European Companies, the Dutch United East India
Company (founded in 1602) and the British East India Company (founded in 1600)
were a new momentum by which’s characteristics of concurrence and struggle for
supremacy of the European-Asiatic spice trade, losses of Portuguese ships were caused
by planned and executed military operations as well.
Focusing on the geographical region of the Mozambique Channel in which the
losses have taken place, the thesis combines a historiographical approach with records
of underwater archaeology analyzing questions related to the political environment and
planed military operations in which shipwrecks have occurred as well as causes of
shipwrecks observing ship building and design modifications and effects related to
economic patterns such as the monetary flows of the Portuguese outward bound
shipping during the period of observation.

Naufragios da Careira da Índia (1595-1623)

The conquests of Afonso de Albuquerque from 1507 to 1513 were the starting point of a century-long period of theoretical hegemony of the Portuguese monarchy on the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The Red Sea, however, remained a failed conquest of the Lusitanians. Neither the construction of a fort on Socotra island in 1507 nor the regular patrolling of the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb up to about 1550 could grant them sound control of the area. This paper will survey the main stages of Portuguese involvement in the Red Sea. Drawing on secondary literature and on original, mostly Portuguese, sources, it will propose a periodization of the geopolitical history of these contested waters in the early stage of the European expansion. Besides military leaders, mercenaries, and spies that served Portuguese interests, the involvement of religious agents, mostly Jesuit missionaries, will also be taken into consideration. The paper will also assess the impact of the Portuguese involvement in the area.

This article analyses French privateering in relation with the carreira da Índia, in the first half of the sixteenth-century. Deriving its argument from a wide array of differing sources, it is shown that Portuguese vessels sailing from India were a primary target for the French, in a scope not always fully grasped by traditional historiography. In fact, long before the 1580s, Portuguese ships loaded with spices faced an organized network of enemies, which acted on intelligence collected by espionage networks operating within Portugal.

El presente trabajo examina la incidencia de una serie de textos fundacionales e imágenes cartográficas en la paulatina identificación de América como cuarta parte del mundo. Para ello, propone diferenciar los primeros intentos por articular y presentar en Europa la “novedad” americana de los esfuerzos posteriores por integrar ese espacio-otro dentro de una historia y representación cartográfica de carácter global. Las siguientes páginas se conciben, en consecuencia, como un ensayo o ejercicio de interpretación en el cual se examina cómo, en el transcurso del siglo XVI, la fabricación de mapas, grabados y relatos de viaje dio sustento a una determinada imagen de América.

La historiografía ha abordado el naufragio de la fragata Wager como un episodio puntual dentro de la expedición de George Anson al Pací co (1740-1744), sin prestar mayor atención a sus cuatro fuentes. En este artículo identi camos cada una de ellas y ediciones, destacando su valor para el estudio y reconstruc- ción de realidad geográ ca y étnico-cultural de la Patagonia Oc- cidental en el siglo XVIII. Destacamos también su valor como re- latos de viaje, favoreciendo una comprensión más completa del contexto de la expansión ultramarina europea y la Ilustración.

From an early stage of carreira da Índia route, slaves embarked in the ships which performed the return voyage. It remains to be determined an exact figure, as well as how often did the slaves went on this voyage. They usually came from China, India and other parts of Asia, Mozambique, Angola and Cape Verde. Most of them did not make it to Lisbon, as they were used in several illegal acts of trafficking and smuggling along the way, thus being mostly traded in the Azores, off the Portuguese coast, or even in Brazil and Galicia. Since mid-sixteenth century, at least, hundreds had been shipped: the sources record a single ship in which the total number of slaves amounted to 300. Despite Crown's policies aimed at putting a stop to illegal activities and slaves' mass transportation, the problem resurfaced throughout this period, even if it seems to have caused greater concern in early-seventeenth century.

The essays in this volume provide a new perspective on the history of convicts and penal colonies. They demonstrate that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were a critical period in the reconfiguration of empires, imperial govern-mentality, and punishment, including through extensive punitive relocation and associated extractive labour. Ranging across the global contexts of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Japan, the Americas, the Pacific, Russia, and Europe, and exploring issues of criminalization, political repression, and convict management alongside those of race, gender, space, and circulation, this collection offers a perspective from the colonies that radically transforms accepted narratives of the history of empire and the history of punishment. In this introduction, we argue that a colony-centred perspective reveals that, during a critical period in world history, convicts and penal colonies created new spatial hierarchies, enabled the incorporation of territories into

present study examines with the possible detail a vital aspect of the Iberian King-doms economy at the start of the xvii century: the leasing of royal revenues of the tobacco monopoly in connection with the overseas mercantile activity and the slave trade. It empha-sizes the existence of a vast financial business based on the leasing of said revenues, within which economic and political interests co-existed, leading to the creation of networks of economic patronage and political pressure groups. Finally, the study highlights the strong presence of merchants with Jewish roots in the tobacco revenues and the role played by the Inquisition. In fact, the group of great merchants of tobacco seems to have coincided with the profile of the suspects in the faith, particularly in 17th century and 1st half of the 18th century.
Keywords:  merchants, new-christians, tobacco, slaves, overseas networks

Introduction to the edition of the Seventeenth-Century "Relazione delle Quattro Parti del Mondo" written by mons. Francesco Ingoli (1631) and published in 1999 by Fabio Tosi with the Urbaniana University of Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide (plus the original drawn titles of the different sections of the manuscript).

Nombre d'auteurs ont remis en cause la manière de l'OMS de conduire la question du SIDA au cours des années 1980 et 1990, sans expliquer de manière substantielle pourquoi l'OMS a été sujette à des erreurs. Nous avons tenté de comprendre dans quelles mesures les divergences autour du projet des « soins de santé primaires » adopté à Alma-Ata en 1978 influencèrent le leadership de l'OMS dans la direction mondiale de la lutte contre le VIH/SIDA. Il ressort que ces clivages resurgirent à différentes périodes de la lutte notamment après la mise en place du Programme global de lutte contre le SIDA au sein de l'OMS, au moment de la décentralisation du Programme global dans les différentes régions de l'OMS, tout comme au moment de la création et de l'action de l'ONUSIDA. Ce qui était surtout en jeu était la recherche du pouvoir de contrôler l'orientation de la lutte contre le SIDA, d'une part, et, d'autre part, celle des ressources y afférentes.

La Tesis aborda y analiza el americanismo que se expresa en Chile entre 1861 y 1871. Éste se gesta y desarrolla en el contexto de las relaciones de solidaridad o de indiferencia de parte de la sociedad chilena frente a las acciones de intervención, ocupación y anexión europeas sobre Chile e Hispanoamérica. En dicho proceso se ponen de manifiesto una variedad de sentidos de pertenencia, individuales y colectivos, entre quienes participan de los acontecimientos del período, y donde el americanismo constituye una de estos sentidos de pertenencia. Por lo tanto, en las reflexiones y prácticas de los actores se podrán en tensión no sólo sus distintas formas de identidad americana. Sobre ésta operarán también aquellas identidades y adscripciones que se asocian a sus significaciones del pasado, presente y futuro que conforman sus distintas identidades, su cultura y su proyección en relación con el poder. Es éste conjunto de sentidos de pertenencia los que en determinado momento entrarán a operar con mayor o menor simultaneidad alrededor del americanismo del período, conforme sea interpelado, y es la intensidad de la interpelación la que determinará su prioridad, la cual, a su vez, no significa que los otros sentidos de pertenencia se diluyan. Conforme baje la intensidad de la interpelación al americanismo, este sentido de pertenencia perderá prioridad entre los individuos y pasarán a ser prioritarias otras adscripciones identitarias, que no permanecieron inconmovibles al proceso en el que el americanismo es la expresión de identidad más relevante.

Tendo  em  vista  o  expansionismo  dos  principais  reinos  ibéricos  em  fins  do  século XV,  buscamos  trazer  uma  breve  análise  do  conjunto  documental  conhecido  como “bulas  papais”.  Basicamente,tratam-se  de  textos  diplomáticos  e  jurídicos  que balizaram  a  expansão  e  a  missão  inerente  à  mesma.  Sobretudo,  são  importantes ferramentas  geopolíticas,  estabelecendo  diretrizes  de  domínio  e  áreas  de  influência. Nossa análise versa sobre sua importância para a época e seus efeitos na conjuntura estudada.

Quest'anno si celebra il VII centenario della scoperta delle Canarie, l'arcipelago che rappresentò il " trampolino di lancio " della traversata dell'Atlantico e quindi della scoperta delle Americhe.
Quando pensiamo al periodo delle grandi esplorazioni, i primi nomi che ci vengono in mente sono quelli di Colombo, di Vespucci o di Magellano. In realtà i loro successi furono preparati e resi possibili da navigatori che salparono verso l'ignoto molto tempo prima, quando l'Europa si trovava ancora in pieno Medio Evo.
Tra questi precursori si colloca Lanzarotto Malocello, nato a Varazze nel 1270 che, come usava a quei tempi, fu mercante ma anche navigatore ed esploratore.

Here are three chapters from the latest proof version of my book "The Company Fortress". Order the book with Leiden University Press (https://www.lup.nl/product/the-company-fortress/) or Chicago University Press (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo69302854.html)

This article analyzes the links between the first travel accounts of the New World and the production of cartographic images of America in Guillaume Le Testu's Cosmographie Universelle (1556). Produced in 1556 and dedicated to Admiral of France Gaspard de Coligny, the Norman pilot's manuscript atlas was created in the context of growing French colonial interest in Terra Brasilis. The transposition of America's founding narratives into cartographic images as presented in Le Testu's Cosmographie is interpreted here as an act of translation lato sensu. The translation of the continent's travel accounts in the strictest sense of the word, and the adaptation of New World information to new audiences and political contexts are also examined in the analysis of this manuscript nautical atlas.

Full text: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/93747

As Santas Casas da Misericórdia portuguesas, instituições laicas, de matriz católica, mas com proteção régia, caracterizaram-se, entre outros aspetos, pela sua importância na configuração das elites locais. O papel na organização dos rituais religiosos e da assistência social aos pobres e excluídos e, não menos importante, de controlo social, assumiram-se como instrumentos essenciais para a afirmação ou confirmação de estatuto e do prestígio local. Socialmente hierarquizadas, como qualquer outra instituição de Antigo Regime, a eleição para os seus cargos de governo reveste-se de especial importância, ou não fossem estas confrarias que geriam grandes rendimentos e confirmavam privilégios, tanto efetivos, como honoríficos nas comunidades onde se inseriam.

A provedoria (cargo máximo da instituição) permitia aos que a ocupavam o poder de controlarem de forma quase discricionária o mercado de capitais e o acesso aos fundos, exercendo poder sobre as várias partes envolventes, desde os trabalhadores e funcionários. Além disso, decidiam quem beneficiava da assistência social e que socorros recebiam, detendo o controlo da vida de centenas de pessoas e das suas famílias. Deste modo, identificar e compreender quem eram os provedores torna-se indispensável para um maior conhecimento do passado histórico das comunidades e das suas elites locais.

A presente dissertação pretende dar um contributo para o estudo das elites e do poder local em Macau, entre 1750 e 1848, tomando como objeto de estudo os Provedores da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Macau. Através da utilização do método prosopográfico e do cruzamento de fontes, pretendemos identificar os grupos dirigentes, as suas redes de afinidades e dependências, localizando-os em cronologias e espaços e tentando captar estratégias e comportamentos (individuais ou coletivos) de forma a aproximar esses grupos dos processos da ação política e da estrutura e mobilidade social.