History ETDs

Publication Date

8-28-1978

Abstract

During the late seventeenth century the ancien regime in Portugal encountered difficulties which fostered tentative movement toward fundamental socio-economic change. Largely in response to a lengthy recession which depressed economic activity throughout Europe after 1670, the government of D. Pedro II contemplated a variety of mercantilist programs as it sought to cope with a worsening situation. These measures included proposed financial support from New Christian merchants, establishment of domestic manufactures, and numerous projects designed to extract greater revenues from Portugal's farflung colonies. Two of these measures--receipt of New Christian funds in exchange for a general pardon from inquisitorial persecution and expansion of domestic manufacturing-­encountered stiff resistance from a social order unready for increasing mercantile class influence and establishment of an industrial mode of production. Yet both programs enjoyed some success, much to the discontent of groups opposed to merchants and manufacturing. Meanwhile, economic stagnation in Portugal's colonies gave way to expanding commodity production. After 1690, production of great quantities of Brazilian tobacco and gold heralded a return to the prosperity that had so long eluded Portugal. Expansion of wine exports from Portugal gave additional impetus to recovery and by 1703 the established order entered a gilded age reminiscent of the halcyon era which followed Vasco da Gama's voyage to India. Movement toward greater merchant influence and industrial expansion was soon inundated by the wave of commodity-borne prosperity. Portugal thereafter slipped into increasingly dependent relationships with more advanced economies, especially that of England, which absorbed great quantities of Portuguese commodities in exchange for its own manufactures. In Portugal the social order, having overcome the pretensions of the mercantile classes, found security under an increasingly absolutist government. And privileged consumers, who once were forced to buy less-desirable domestic manufactures, now spent lavishly on luxurious foreign goods. All of this, as the present study attempts to show, gives the little-known reign of D. Pedro II (1668-1706) special significance, for it was here that the middle sectors and an industrial mode of production together first shook the foundations of the ancien regime in Portugal.

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Degree Name

History

Department Name

History

First Committee Member (Chair)

Robert William Kern

Second Committee Member

Alicia Elena Tjarks

Third Committee Member

Donald David Sullivan

Fourth Committee Member

Peter John Bakewell

Language

English

Project Sponsors

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Document Type

Dissertation

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