Rio de Janeiro
- LAST REVIEWED: 15 August 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0137
- LAST REVIEWED: 15 August 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0137
Introduction
From the 17th century on, the city of Rio de Janeiro was an important urban center in the southern Atlantic, connected to Lisbon, Buenos Aires, Angola, the Mina Coast in western Africa, and Mozambique. Later on, the city began to receive ships heading for the southern Pacific, in particular the British fleet on its way to Australia. Dating from the 16th century, the foundation of the city gave rise to war waged by the Portuguese, French, and Tupi Indians over the control of Guanabara Bay. The city’s prominence as a regional center only began after Angola was freed from the subjugation of the Dutch. Without support from the metropolis, the local elite formed a victorious army and navy and resumed the slave trade from the ports of Angola. This trade promoted the growth of both the city and the sugar plantations, just as later on it supplied the labor force to exploit the gold deposits discovered in Minas Gerais. Rio de Janeiro was a port of entry and departure, connected as it was both to the vast interior, with the gold mines, and to the Atlantic, where merchants traded African slaves, sugar, rum (cachaça), and later on textiles from Asia. Indeed, urban growth was linked not only to the production of gold and to the influx of adventurers hailing from the Portuguese kingdom and the Crusades, but also to the production of sugar and rum. Even before it gained the status of capital of the State of Brazil, the city bore an enormous political and military influence on the captaincies of the south, all of which were subordinate to the governor of Rio de Janeiro. In 1763, already as capital, it was the center of the struggles against the Spanish on the southern borders and intensified the circulation of merchandise, arms, and soldiers. The great administrative, military, and judicial apparatus that survived until Brazil became independent was created for this very purpose. In 1808 the city received the Prince Regent and the Portuguese nobles taking flight from the Napoleonic Wars. Rio de Janeiro then became the capital of the pluricontinental Portuguese Empire after Lisbon was taken over by French troops. In addition to its political prominence, the city that was previously populated by a multitude of slaves, freed people of color, mestizos, and a few white people began to receive European immigrants, merchants, and agents from the Old World spurred on by the opening of the ports to “friendly nations.” In such circumstances, the city enjoyed remarkable growth and modernization. Mention should also be made of the fact that the transfer of the court included the first official printing press, museums, academies, libraries, newspapers, and leaflets; the last in particular, which had been prohibited, played a crucial role in refining the habits of the population and stimulating political debates, especially during the process of independence between 1821 and 1822. Thereafter, the city was transformed into the political center and the cradle of the nation, developing into a highly efficient web that was responsible for keeping Brazil’s regional elites united.
Research Resources
Gathered together here are the principal instruments of research on the history of Rio de Janeiro. In fact, in the catalogues can be found parochial and administrative documents, as well as travel chronicles. For research dedicated to social history, the books Belchior 1965 and Rheingantz 1965 are indispensable for consultation of parochial archives. For current approaches to the history of power, the best material is found in the Overseas Historical Archives of Lisbon, catalogued by Castro e Almeida 1917–1951. The catalogue Camargo and Borba 1993 is the most authoritative reference on the first printing press in Brazil. Finally, it is worth mentioning França 1999, a catalogue dedicated to the reports on journeys made throughout the colonial period. Such books are indispensable for research on the social, cultural, and administrative history of the city. It should be noted that the above-mentioned documentation privileges the period between 1750 and 1808. In fact, data on the first centuries of colonization are scarcer.
Belchior, Elysio de Oliveira. Conquistadores e povoadores do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Brasiliana, 1965.
Comprised of small biographies of the early conquistadores and settlers of the city, this work also provides information on the origin of the data presented and adds bibliographic references, as well as indexes with respect to the posts, functions, occupations, and titles of the subjects of the biographies.
Camargo, Ana Maria de Almeida, and Rubens Borba de Moraes. Bibliografia da Impressão Régia do Rio de Janeiro. 2 vols. São Paulo: Edusp: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1993.
The book lists the titles published in Rio de Janeiro between 1808 and 1822, when the court settled in the city. This work contains brief comments about each publication and is the best compendium and study on the birth of the press in Brazil.
Castro e Almeida, Eduardo de, ed. Inventário dos documentos relativos ao Brasil existentes no Archivo de Marinha e Ultramar. Anais da Biblioteca Nacional. Vol. 39, 1917; Vol. 46, 1924; Vol. 50, 1928; Vol. 71, 1951.
The Overseas Historical Archives in Lisbon boasts the largest holdings of manuscripts on Rio de Janeiro; these catalogues cover the period between 1616 and 1757. These inventories and the respective digitized documentation (Projeto Resgate-Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino) are also available at the University of Brasília website.
França, Jean Marcel C. Visões do Rio de Janeiro colonial. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1999.
A guide to the travel chronicles dedicated to colonial Rio de Janeiro, this anthology is comprised of information on the journey, a small biography of the traveler, and extracts of the narrative referring to the city, translated into Portuguese. It should be mentioned that Portuguese-speaking travelers are not included.
Rheingantz, Carlos G. Primeiras famílias do Rio de Janeiro. 3 vols. Rio de Janeiro: Brasiliana, 1965.
Genealogical survey of families based on research in the parish registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths in the period between 1616 and 1700. Family trees or lineage are enumerated alphabetically and refer to the parishes of Rio de Janeiro, São Gonçalo, and Niterói.
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- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern Amazonia
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European Enslavement of Indigenous People in the Americas
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
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- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Maritime Literature
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Phillis Wheatley
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
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- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Potosi
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science and Technology (in Literature of the Atlantic Worl...
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Swedish Atlantic World, The
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The Danish Atlantic World
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Travel Writing (in the Atlantic World)
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- William Blackstone
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)
- William Wilberforce
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets