Early Brazil

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.

Original unpublished documents
Materials that reflect ordinary people and popular culture
New views of slave life and culture

Reviews & endorsements

"Nothing like this collection exists in English. These documents offer well-selected representations of the given issues and many of these are translated into English for the first time, making the volume an invaluable addition to the currently quite limited English language literature on the first two centuries of Brazilian development." – Herbert S. Klein, Stanford University

"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

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Product details

Published: August 2009
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780521124539
Length: 336 pages
Dimensions: 229 × 153 × 19 mm
Weight: 0.46kg
Contains: 4 maps
Availability: Available

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Contents

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.

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Editor

Stuart B. Schwartz , Yale University, Connecticut
Stuart B. Schwartz is George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University. His books include All Can Be Saved (2008), Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (2000), The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: South America (1999), Implicit Understandings (1994), Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels (1992), Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society (1985), Early Latin America (1983), A Governor and His Image in Baroque Brazil (1979), and Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil (1973). Professor Schwartz specializes in the history of colonial Latin America, especially Brazil, and the history of early modern expansion.

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