General Society of Brazil Trade
The General Society of Brazil Trade (Portuguese : Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil) was a trading company that was founded by decree of the Portuguese King John IV on March 10, 1649 and officially liquidated on February 1, 1720 by the Portuguese crown. It was based in Lisbon . It was led by a council of nine directors, each elected for three years.
aims
With the establishment of the company, which combined both state and private capital, the Portuguese monarchy pursued several strategic goals:
- Establishment of a convoy system in order to minimize the losses of merchant ships to sea powers and pirates at war with Portugal;
- Guarantee of the supply of the sugar-growing areas in Brazil with slaves and technical equipment;
- Securing supplies of Brazilian sugar to Europe .
In contrast to the Dutch West India Company (with which the General Society of the Brazilian Trade fought for supremacy in the Brazilian Pernambuco region) the company was not founded to discover or develop new colonial territories, but mainly to deal with existing trade with the secure Portuguese possessions. Mainly because of the chronic lack of money, the Portuguese crown had to transfer this task of securing the trade routes to Brazil to an independent company.
founding
The actual reason that the company was brought into being was to support the uprising in Pernambuco, Brazil, against the Dutch invaders, which had been going on since 1645, and the associated curbing of the range of action of Dutch squadrons and pirates, whose activities in 1647 and 1648 were lost had operated almost 250 Portuguese merchant ships.
The formation of the company went a. at the suggestion of the Jesuit and influential advisor at the Lisbon court, Father António Vieira , both a society for trade with Brazil and one for trade relations with India (should replace the Casa da Índia , but never got beyond this proposal) to found. With this project it was intended to make the experiences of the successful English and Dutch trading companies available for Portugal. Associated with this was the intention to acquire domestic and foreign private capital, with the express use not only of funds from new Christians ( conversos or cristãos novos) who are still active in Portugal , but also of the resources that have been available since the beginning of the 17th century Amsterdam and other places re-operating Jewish communities was targeted. In general, anyone, whether Portuguese or foreign, could participate in society by subscribing to at least 20 cruzados .
When it was founded, the company received a royal license with exclusive rights (monopoly) for the export of the most important staple foods wine , wheat flour , olive oil and stockfish ( bacalhau ) from Portugal to Brazil and for the import of redwood ( Brazilian wood ) to Portugal and Europe. A number of tax privileges were associated with this. So u. a. the imposition of an export tax known as avarias on all Brazilian products, which ranged from 100 réis for an animal hide to 3,400 réis for a box of white sugar. In addition, she received the exclusive right, which at the same time included the obligation to assemble convoys from Portugal to Brazil and back and to escort them through warships to be equipped at their own expense. As the exclusive Portuguese ports, Lisbon and Porto were set as the only ports in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro , Bahia (Baía) and Recife (after the reconquest in 1654).
All shareholders were guaranteed their property by the Portuguese king, i. H. The expropriation of new Christians who were accused by the Inquisition of secretly practicing the Jewish faith, but also the expropriation of foreigners in the event of a war with their homeland, were prohibited. Shares were not only sold in Portugal, but also across Europe in Amsterdam , Paris and Venice .
However, the society suffered from a chronic lack of capital from the start. Even after the king , at the request of the shareholders, in a decree in 1650 actually forced all new Christians living in his empire to subscribe for shares, since the inquisition was threatened if they refused, the company's precarious financial situation changed little. In total, no more than 1.255 million cruzados were subscribed, a sum that was well below the target, but above all drastically below the calculated demand. In addition, a considerable part of this sum was not private but capital of the Portuguese state.
The company therefore only performed its tasks to a limited extent. Above all, it was never able to secure the supply of the Brazilian population with their basic needs for wine, wheat flour, olive oil and stockfish. This provoked growing dissatisfaction among the inhabitants of the Brazilian colonies, which was compounded by society's high price policy for these products. However, by building the required convoy system, the company succeeded in significantly reducing ship losses, although the company was at no time able to maintain the number of 36 warships required by the crown. Overall, the directorate of the company, which was formally independent of the Portuguese crown, managed to generate only a comparatively low return of an average of 15% even up to the early 1960s.
The activity of the Brazil company was exposed to strong resistance from Portuguese society. The Portuguese Inquisitor General, Bishop Dom Francisco de Castro, tried from the beginning to thwart the establishment of the society, since the Inquisition was denied access to the new Christians active in the society. Further resistance came from a large number of smaller traders, for whom the company's monopoly deprived or severely restricted important livelihoods in trade with Brazil. The beneficiaries of the smaller Portuguese ports, such as Caminha , Viana do Castelo , Aveiro , Peniche , Nazaré , Setúbal , Lagos but also Madeira and the Azores , who were now excluded from the Brazilian trade, also ran a storm against the privileges of the company.
development
The society had to begin its activity under very complicated circumstances, because between 1650 and 1654 there was open war between England and Portugal, as John IV supported the English royalists against Oliver Cromwell . The English fleet exercised the command of the sea and threatened all Portuguese shipping due to its superiority (sea blockade of Lisbon). On September 14, 1650 , the English admiral Robert Blake attacked the company's convoy coming from Brazil, sank three ships and captured four more. Especially Portuguese (old and new Christians) and English shareholders of the General Society of Brazil Trade therefore supported the conclusion of a quick peace treaty that took place in 1654 and opened the Portuguese colonies that had been closed until then to English trade.
Due to the rather poor economic results of the company's activities, the sustained resistance of important sectors of Portuguese society and the drastic decline in the influence of Vieiras at court through his missionary work in Maranhão and the death of John IV in November 1656 , important privileges were soon given to the company withdrawn again. In 1657 it lost protection from the Inquisition's investigations, which meant a direct attack on the interests and safety of private investors. In 1658 the company lost its monopoly on imports of wine, wheat flour, olive oil and stockfish for Brazil, and as early as 1662 it was more or less reduced to a kind of state authority which, as the Junta do Comércio, was mainly responsible for the organization and maintenance of the convoy system between Portugal and Brazil. As compensation, the shareholders received shares in the royal tobacco monopoly. The official dissolution of the company took place on February 1, 1720 by means of a royal decree.
Although the General Society of the Brazilian Trade was not able to meet the commercial expectations placed in it, its role in the military security of overseas trade between Portugal and Brazil in the second half of the 17th century should not be underestimated. The society made a significant contribution to the retaking of Recife and the final expulsion of the Dutch from the Brazilian northeast in January 1654 .
annotation
As in the case of a number of other historical events and institutions has 1755 the Lisbon earthquake destroyed the vast majority of the documents of the estate of the Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil. In particular, this includes all documents relating to the port of Lisbon.
literature
- CR Boxer: O Império Marítimo Português. 1415-1825. Edições 70, Lisbon 2001, ISBN 972-44-0846-9 , pp. 220 ff. (Original edition: The Portuguese Seaborne Empire. 1415-1825 . Hutchinson, London 1969).
- Gustavo de Freitas: A Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil (1649-1720). Subsídios para a História Econômica de Portugal e do Brasil. Magalhães, São Paulo 1951, ( Coleção da "revista de história" 3).