Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to discuss the manifold actions undertaken by the Crown to foster economic activity in the colonial Amazon region related to agriculture, such as the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, as well as the development of native local products like cacao, indigo, and bark-clove.

Paper long abstract:

The development of colonial Amazon region's economy during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was precarious and strongly dependent on Crown incentives. There existed many policies for the increase of economic activities - such as grants of privileges for producers, land grants, exemption from taxes, financing and granting the supply of the labour force. These policies consisted not only in incentives to assist production and commerce, but also they were means for the Crown to maintain royal power and administration in the region. For the Portuguese crown, therefore, the development of Amazonian precarious economy was intimately linked to the financing of its own bureaucratic and military apparatus in the region. Indeed, one could assert that, in a certain measure, Crown intervention was triggered by its own fragile financial situation in the Amazon region. The development of agriculture and the gathering of the Amazonian spices were continually connected to the possibility of increasing the royal treasury's revenues, in order to cover the costs of troops, fortresses, bureaucracy, and hence, to guarantee the Portuguese dominion. The aim of this paper is to discuss the manifold actions undertaken by the Crown to foster economic activity in the colonial Amazon region, especially the one related to agriculture, such as the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, as well as the development of native local products like cacao, indigo, and bark-clove.

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