Holy and Unholy Alliances: Clerical Participation in the Flow of Bullion from Brazil to Portugal during the Reign of Dom João V (1706-1750)
2000; Duke University Press; Volume: 80; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1215/00182168-80-4-815
ISSN1527-1900
Autores Tópico(s)Colonialism, slavery, and trade
ResumoIn his História da America Portugueza, the Bahian historian Sebastião da Rocha Pitta noted two qualities essential to a monarch. The first was religion, “a mais firme columna das monarchias.” The second was generosity, “a generosidade é o segundo atributo nos príncipes.” Rocha Pitta observed that both qualities were not merely present but superabundantly so in the persona of Dom João V. The former found its expression in his financial and spiritual support for churches in Lisbon, the unprecedented splendor of the royal chapel, his appointments to bishoprics and high ecclesiastical office of persons of exceptional spiritual and scholarly gifts, and the unparalleled splendor of processions, most notably Corpus Christi, whose magnificence and pomp bedazzled visitors from other Catholic nations. His generosity (generosidade and liberalidade) found expression in his financial support for wars against Islam and in his unstinting satisfaction of infinite requests for financial assistance which he was able to provide with gold from Minas Gerais. Rocha Pitta would have been far too circumspect to comment that it was that selfsame Brazilian gold that permitted Dom João V to be the most absolutist monarch of Europe, but in his often baroque vision of the world, the Coimbra-educated scion of a leading planter family of Bahia made the connection between riches and the church and suggested how Brazilian gold—in the right hands—could contribute to the greater glory of the church (and by extension, of Portugal and her king).1The impact on the Portuguese-speaking world of the discovery of the first placer mines on the Rio das Velhas in Minas Gerais was but a small sampling of what was in store. With further strikes in Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Bahia and as far afield as Ceará and Sergipe, the first half of the eighteenth century witnessed the irresistible attraction exercised by Brazil over men and women of every vocation or profession, civil status, slave or free. They came from Portugal, the islands of the Portuguese Atlantic (Madeira, the Azores, and Cape Verde), Angola, and the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. Some who were homeward-bound from Macao, Goa, or Cochin stayed in a Brazilian port rather than continuing to Lisbon. Some achieved wealth beyond their wildest dreams and invested their new found riches in their new found land; others returned to hamlets in the Alto Douro or Trásos-Montes or to fishing communities in Portugal or the Atlantic islands and discovered that their gold could acquire for them lands, respect, and social status to which they would not otherwise have been entitled. But the vast majority discovered physical hardships and disillusionment, finding employment other than in mining, eking out a living in Brazil, or suffering destitution and death. Gold enabled the more successful entrepreneurs to offset the chronic shortage of capital and invest in commerce. The burgeoning of Rio de Janeiro as the major commercial entrepôt of the South Atlantic in the eighteenth century was attributable to gold “from them thar hills.”The original name for what came to be known as Brazil was “Land of the True Cross.” We do not know when the first clerics arrived in Portuguese America, but their presence was evident during the donatarial period (1532–49). Accompanying Tomé de Sousa, charged by Dom João III with the establishment of royal government in the colony and the building of a capital, were six Jesuits under the leadership of Father Manuel da Nóbrega to whom the king had entrusted spiritual leadership in the colony.2 A papal bull of 25 February 1551 created the bishopric of Bahia, which was elevated to an archiepiscopal see in 1676. Before the end of the colonial period Brazil had six bishoprics. During the ensuing two centuries, the Society of Jesus prospered, both spiritually and materially. Other religious orders, most notably the Carmelites, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Benedictines also established monasteries in Brazil. The convent of Nossa Senhora do Desterro in Salvador was the first to be established in Brazil (1677), but several other conventual institutions were set up soon afterwards. It is extremely difficult to estimate the aggregate number of Brazilian ecclesiastics, with or without requisite authorization, during the colonial period, but the following breakdown for Salvador in 1759 confirms the strong clerical presence in the colony. There were at least 2000 secular clergy in Salvador, of which nearly 66 clerics—ranging from the archbishop down to parish priests and their assistants—were on the royal payroll. Besides, there were 201 Jesuits (excluding the 80 seminarians). Among the regular Orders, there were about 96 Carmelites, 70 Benedictines, 45 Capuchins of St. Anthony of Padua, 28 Italian Capuchins, 24 of Santa Theresa, and 6 Barefoot Augustinians. In addition, there were 65 nuns in the convent of Santa Clara, 20 in the convent of Nossa Senhora da Lapa, and 50 in the Mercê convent of the Ursulines. In short, in the city of Salvador alone, there were at least 2000 secular priests, 201 Jesuits, 269 friars, and 135 nuns out of a population of 40,263, excluding children under 7 and “pagans” (pagãos in the contemporary source), a term used by the author to refer to the continual influx of slaves from Africa.3 Governors and members of the city council often complained about the excessive numbers of priests and friars in the colony, and advocated stricter control by parent houses in Lisbon.The Society of Jesus most notably, and all religious orders to a greater or lesser extent, were inexorably drawn into the colonial economy. This was attributable to their entrepreneurial acumen in some instances; in others, it was the result of being the beneficiaries of legacies, such as land, urban properties, slaves, cattle, mines, plantations, and cash, whose administration religious houses accepted in anticipation of the revenues which they would generate for the order. Religious orders in Portugal viewed Brazil not only as a fertile land for evangelization but also as a resource to be tapped in their efforts to rescue themselves from financial straits. Regularly, friars and clerics were dispatched from the mother country to solicit alms from the colonists, to the anger and dismay of town councillors who objected to what they regarded as unfair competition. And yet it was those selfsame homens bons who were at the forefront of sending daughters to convents in Madeira or Portugal, accompanied by dowries of such magnitude as to constitute a severe drain on colonial currency resources. Nor did the tonsure render immunity to more worldly ambitions. While there were doubtless saintly men and women in the colony, there were many priests and friars who forsook their vows and blatantly engaged in commerce and business practices. This was especially prevalent in the mining areas. In his Cultura e Opulência do Brasil, the Italian Jesuit Antonil noted a strong clerical presence in the mining areas. Within a decade of the founding of townships in Minas Gerais, Dom Pedro de Almeida (governor of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, 1717–21) referred to the Doctrina da Igreja Mineral characterized by clerical ambition, avarice and self-interest, and where simony, embezzlement of ecclesiastical tithes, usury and charging exorbitant fees for baptisms, marriages, and funerals were rampant.4The Brazilianization of the secular clergy, religious orders, and the Society of Jesus, led them to engage in the same practice as many lay men and women, namely, to remit to Portugal monies derived from the discharge of their responsibilities as administrators of legacies and from commercial or eleemosynary activities. Many such consignments which religious institutions remitted to Portugal were in payment for services or goods received, or in their roles as executors for persons who had died in Brazil. Those remitted by individual men of the cloth might have been honestly earned, but in some cases clearly represented the lucrative fruits of activities which were not compatible with vows of poverty or abstinence. The purpose of this paper is to examine the full range of such remittances during the reign of Dom João V (1706–50) as revealed in the manifests of gold, silver, and jewels recorded for homeward-bound vessels from Brazil. These number some 756 bound volumes for the period 1710–50, housed in the mint (Casa da Moeda) of Lisbon. While the record prior to 1720 is chequered, for 1721 to 1750 the manifests are fairly complete for some 237 vessels homeward- bound, predominantly from Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, to a lesser degree from Pernambuco, and more rarely from São Luís and Paraíba. In the case of Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, these included carracks originating in Macao and Goa.The historiography on American bullion from either Spanish or Portuguese America has focused primarily on three aspects: production in the Americas; exports from the New World to the Old; and the impact of American silver and gold on prices, political economies, societies, and commerce in Europe. From the era of the seminal work of Earl Hamilton until the 1960s, most scholars focused on Spanish American silver and the price revolution in Europe. More recently, scholars such as Michel Morineau have examined the export of silver and gold to Asia from Europe. However, the last 30 years have witnessed increasing interest in, and reassessment of, the Luso-Brazilian dimension: gold rushes in Minas Gerais, Goiás, and Mato Grosso, inter alia; regulation; production; taxation; contraband; export quantities; and the impact of Brazilian gold on the political economy of Portugal, on the policies of Dom João V in particular, and on Portuguese relations with other European powers, notably England. As is the case of textiles and spices, the flow of precious metals must be studied globally, and the recent historiography on Brazilian gold reflects an international dimension with references to sources in France, the Nether-lands, and England in addition to Portugal and Brazil. As a result, even the estimates for production so recently (1979) postulated by Virgílio Noya Pinto must be revised in light of figures on shipments arriving in Lisbon calculated by Michel Morineau, using Dutch gazettes, reports of the French consul in Lisbon and the Gazeta de Lisboa.5 These sources, and the registers of ships’ manifests in the Casa da Moeda in Lisbon have been used solely for quantitative purposes.6 My purpose here is to illustrate, taking but one sector of Luso-Brazilian society, how such sources can be profitably mined by social historians.7Regardless of rank or civil status, all persons homeward-bound from Brazil were required to manifest gold, silver, and jewels. By a royal decree of 1711, each year livros de registro were to be sent to Brazil specifically for this purpose and the provedormor of the royal treasury in Brazil was to sign and number the pages of each register.8 After the fleet left Brazil, the captain was to post on the main mast an order requiring everybody on board who was carrying gold in any form on his own account or on behalf of third parties, to manifest this gold. Such a declaration could be made at any stage of the voyage prior to the vessel reaching the latitude of Madeira (32°40’ N). Thereafter, denunciations of undeclared gold would be accepted. Penalties for failure to declare gold and other consignments were confiscation and the additional penalty of being refused a certidão by the scribe of the mint in Lisbon confirming that such a declaration had been made. Without such a certificate, it was difficult to sell the gold except through illegal channels. On arrival at a Portuguese port, vessels were visited by a judicial delegation usually headed by a juiz do crime. A further edital was fixed to the mast affording one final chance to make a declaration. This threat and the prospect of a rigorous search could flush out the most recalcitrant. Once such enquiries and searches had been completed, the judges were responsible for ensuring that all monies and gold were delivered to the secretary of the mint who issued a receipt. Only then, and by presenting copies of their manifests, could individuals claim coins or gold consignments. Two minor modifications occurred in the first half of the eighteenth century. An alvará of 1 February 1720 ruled that all coins and other gold remitted to Portugal had to be contained in chests (arcas) on board and bound volumes of printed manifests were issued for the first time for the homeward-bound fleet from Rio de Janeiro that year. The same alvará also imposed a one percent tax on coins, gold leaf, gold dust, and gold bars, also enforced for the first time for this fleet.9 The 1720 ruling was relaxed by a new law of 28 February 1736 that gave people the option of personally transporting gold.10 Manifests for the period from 1710 to 1750 numbered between 200,000 and 250,000 individual declarations.The form of consignments included gold in dust, bars (barra, barreta, barrinha), leaves, nuggets, coins, or jewelry in the form of chains or bracelets (cordões, correntes de braço), statuettes, religious artifacts, or buckles. At no time during the reign of Dom João V were gold dust, bars, or coins absent from any fleet. Changing production patterns in colonial mints of more coins and of different denominations were reflected in a general trend away from coins of 4$800 reis to dobrões valued at 12$800 reis and 24$000 reis. In addition, there were Spanish silver patacas of 750 reis and half patacas. Containers ranged from boxes (baulzinho com pó), to parcels (embrulhos), borrachos and bolacha de ouro em pó. Quite often the container was an embrulho cozido em pano de estopa. An unlucky person once lost a lot of coins when his folha de flandres burst open in a storm. Gold dust was often carried in a borracha encapada e lacrada or in a folha.These manifests are an extraordinarily rich source for historians. The manifests provide information on financial transactions, business partnerships, and on private, corporate, institutional, and royal fiscal matters. They can provide insights into the distribution and circulation of wealth, occupation, place of residence, civil status, gender, and race of the consignors and consignees. They afford ample opportunity for scholars to study the role of women and the gendering of commerce. Above all, there is a multicontinental component, embracing remittances from China, India, Africa, and Brazil. The lesson that bullion can only be studied in the global context is obvious. The importance of Catholicism throughout the Portuguese-influenced world has led me to focus on one dimension of this flow of bullion, namely, clerical participation (individual and institutional) in the flow of bullion from Brazil to Portugal as recorded in the volumes of manifests in the Casa da Moeda in Lisbon. There were three components to the process: (1) delivery to the vessel in a Brazilian port; (2) declaration of assumption of risk, either by the consignor or consignee; and (3) delivery in Lisbon (usually) to the consignee. In the following pages, I present examples to illustrate clerical participation at every stage.Greatest personal involvement would be the case of a priest who was identified as consignor in a Brazilian port, who assumed risk, and was also the consignee who received delivery in Lisbon. Here it is safe to infer that he was returning from Brazil to Portugal and had the bullion or coin in his possession or at least on the boat on which he was traveling. An example was Father Manuel Ribeiro Caldas who returned to Lisbon on the 1722 fleet from Salvador; a native of the parish of São Miguel das Caldas, he had handed in in Salvador, assumed risk for, and took delivery on arrival in Lisbon, of 130 gold coins (moedas) each of 4$800 reis.11 The second example would be the cleric whose participation was limited to delivering the consignment on board or to being the consignee in Lisbon. In such a case, either the consignor or the consignee assumed risk, depending on whether the former or the latter had the greater personal investment in the consignment. In the third example, the cleric had no personal interest in the consignment and his role was limited solely to delivering the consignment on board or to receiving it in Lisbon, with risk being assumed by a third party. In this latter example, it is reasonable to assume that the cleric, be he in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, or Lisbon, was acting on behalf of that third party and was either working on a commission basis or was discharging the terms of a legacy. Particularly prominent in this last role was Dr. João Calmon whose office as precentor (chantre) of the Cathedral of Salvador in the early eighteenth century required him to deliver multiple consignments to vessels in Sal-vador with risk being assumed by the consignee who might be an individual Carmelite friar or the Câmara Apostólica in Lisbon.12Secular clergy and Jesuits, and friars to a lesser degree, were involved at least in some aspect of the flow of bullion. Secular clergy acted as consignors, assumed risk, and were consignees both for themselves and on behalf of others. Although there were indeed priests homeward-bound with the proceeds of a visit to or sojourn in Brazil, it was rare for them not also to accept consignments on commission. Others, who had seen service overseas but had returned to Portugal, continued to receive consignments from their former place of residence. In 1723 Dom Luís Simões Brandão, former bishop of Angola, received in Lisbon at his own risk a consignment from Rio de Janeiro totalling 633$600 reis in coins each of 4$800 reis.13 In 1740 the archbishop of Bahia was a passenger on the homeward-bound Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem from Salvador, returning to Portugal as bishop designate of Guarda. He was accompanying a consignment of 1536$00 reis, presumably his own funds, because he assumed the risk and there is no reference to third parties.14 For his part, João Teixeira, Padre Mestre Escola of the Cathedral of Luanda, assumed the risk on 96$800 reis remitted to Lisbon on Nossa Senhora da Nazaré, which arrived in Lisbon on 5 January 1729, but he neither delivered this money on board nor took delivery in Lisbon.15 The bishop of Rio de Janeiro and Dom Bartolomeu do Pillar, bishop of Grão Pará, were also consignors, and assumed risk, on remittances to Lisbon, but these may have been in their official, rather than private, capacities.16 Similar uncertainty as to the private as opposed to the public role would apply to a remittance, via Salvador and which arrived in Lisbon in January of 1729, of 120$000 reis made in the name of António de Amaral Coutinho, inquisidor-mor in Goa who assumed risk. He made a further remittance to Lisbon of 300$000 reis, this time via Rio de Janeiro, in 1733.17Clearly personal was the 1727 remittance from Rio de Janeiro of the legacy of 24000$000 reis bequeathed by Bishop Dom Bernardo de São Jeronimo to the Monastery of São Bento de Xábregas in Lisbon. There were to be further consignments to Lisbon of coins for the saying of masses for his soul.18 Sometimes there was a familial connection. In 1725 Francisco de Seixas da Fonseca remitted on the homeward-bound Rio fleet 20 gold dobrões, each of 24$000 reis, to his son in Lisbon, the Benedictine friar João da Madre de Deus.19 The Nau Nossa Senhora da Pátria e São Pedro, homeward bound from Pernambuco and Salvador, arrived in the Tagus on 28 July 1722, with bullion which included 190 oitavas in gold dust and 120 coins of 4$800 reis. These had been delivered on board by the tesoureiro-mor of the Cathedral of Salvador and was a consignment from the Bishop of Angola, Dom Manuel Gonçalves da Costa (who assumed risk), to his brother in Lisbon.20 Members of the Society of Jesus were well represented as individual consignors and consignees. Father Joseph da Cunha, S.J., homeward-bound as chaplain on the frigate Nossa Senhora da Penha de França e São Caetano, out of Salvador in 1713, carried 3911.5 oitavas of gold, of which 217 and 1540 respectively were consigned to the procurator-general of Malabar in Lisbon and the procurator of the Company in Lisbon, but a further 116 oitavas were intended for individual Jesuits and laymen.21 References to individual Benedictines, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Discalced Augustinians are more sparse, possibly reflecting their lesser profile and presence in Brazil.Institutionally, the single most active participant in such remittances was the Society of Jesus. Fascinating is the variety of consignors and consignees in Lisbon, Brazil, and elsewhere, reflecting the multiplicity of activities of the Society. For the most part, consignments were sent from and to different branches of the Society with Jesuit consignors and consignees, who served as procurators-general of specific provinces, missions, or colleges. In Brazil, Jesuitical consignors included Jesuit colleges in Salvador, Espírito Santo, Recife, São Paulo, and Maranhão, as well as the Jesuit mission of Maranhão, or they remitted funds, usually at their own risk but sometimes at the risk of third parties, to consignees in Lisbon, namely, most frequently to the procurator-general of the Province of Brazil; procurator or rector of the Jesuit College of Sto. Antão (Lisbon); rector of the Jesuit seminary in Belém; procurator of the Casa Professa de São Roque and to the procurator-general of the Jesuit mission of Maranhão.22 One series of consignments is especially interesting: monies— with the procurator-general of the Society in Lisbon as the consignee—were forwarded from Jesuit colleges in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro between 1725 and 1729 for the expenses of the canonization of the venerable father Joseph de Anchieta, S. J.23 Very different were remittances from Brazil to the Jesuit priest Domingos de Lemos, who served as a pharmacist (padre boticário) in Lisbon and presumably supplied Jesuit colleges overseas with their pharmaceutical needs. There was also a pharmacy at São Roque.24 Brazilian consignors sometimes merely served as forwarding agents for consignments originating in India or Africa and for which Brazilian ports were way stations for vessels homeward bound for Portugal. Consignments from the Jesuit mission in Malabar routinely passed through Brazil and were routed to the procurator-general of the Jesuit mission in Malabar (also referred to as the Mission of India Oriental, Malabar or Province of India) resident in Lisbon.25 He should not be confused with the procurator-general of the Province of Goa, also resident in Lisbon.26 More rarely there were consignments from the Jesuit province of Japan27 and from the “Provincia do Mallacia”28 in the 1730s and 1740s which were also routed through Malabar and Brazil and destined for the procurator-general in Lisbon of the Mission of India Oriental. This also applied to consignments from the Jesuit college in Luanda routed via a Brazilian port for final delivery to the procurator of the Province of Portugal. The college in Luanda was home to the Brotherhood of the 11,000 Virgins (Irmandade das Santas Onze Mil Virgens), which assumed risk on consignments to Portugal via Salvador and Rio de Janeiro.29Circuitous were the peregrinations of a consignment of 307$200 reis remitted from Rio de Janeiro in 1733, with the Jesuit college of Faial in the Azores assuming risk, to the procurator-general in Lisbon. Be it in the case of the Malabar or Maranhão missions or the Jesuit colleges of Angola or Faial, risk was usually assumed by the original consignor in Goa, Luanda, Brazil, or the Azores respectively. But when the Jesuit college in Angola sent two remittances totalling 667 moedas, each of 4$800 reis to Lisbon in 1722 with the homeward-bound fleet from Rio de Janeiro, there was no indication of involvement by the Jesuit college of Rio.30Jesuits also served as agents for third parties. Not all such consignments in their totality were destined exclusively for the various agencies of the Society in Lisbon. For example, when the Jesuit college in Salvador consigned a total of 448 gold coins of 4$800 reis each in six different consignments on the 1722 fleet, the college assumed risk on only one consignment for 197.5 coins and only this had the procurator-general of the Province of Brazil in Lisbon as the consignee.31 The remaining consignments belonged to non-Jesuitical third parties who assumed risk and delivery costs. The Society enjoyed a good record for reliability and thus might be listed as a tertiary consignee should the first two not be present in Lisbon to accept delivery of a consignment. The manifest on a consignment of 601 coins of 4$800 reis originating in Angola for delivery to an individual in Lisbon stipulated that, in his absence, either the treasurer of the Bula da Santa Cruzada or of the Jesuits in Lisbon should take delivery.32Although participants in such transmissions of bullion and coin, other religious orders did not emulate either the intensity, value, or diversity of the Jesuitical remittances. The procurator-general of the Province of St. Anthony in Brazil (Franciscans) and the procurator-general of the Discalced Carmelites were probably next in line, after their Jesuit counterpart, as preferred consignees. Other consignees included the prior of the monastery of Discalced Carmelites (Lisbon), prior of the college of Discalced Carmelites in Coimbra, procurator for overseas monasteries of the Discalced Carmelites (Lisbon), and the procurator-general of the Discalced Augustinians (Lisbon).33 Consignors in Brazil included: monastery of São Francisco (Salvador); visitor of monasteries of the Discalced Carmelites; monastery of Nossa Senhora do Desterro of Discalced Carmelites in Recife; convent of Santa Theresa in Salvador (for delivery to the procurator-general of the Discalced Carmelites in the convent of Corpus Christi in Lisbon).34 Other orders engaged less consistently were the Discalced Augustinians of the monastery of the Piedade in Salvador (for delivery to the procurator-general of the Congregation of Discalced Augustinians in Lisbon); the abbot of the monastery of St. Benedict (Salvador) for delivery to the procurator-general of the Brazilian Province of St. Benedict in Lisbon, although probably final delivery was to the Benedictine monastery in Oporto which assumed risk; consignments to the procurator-general of the Order of the Jeronomites in Lisbon; delivery to the procurator-general of the Order of St. Bernard in the monastery of Nossa Senhora do Desterro in Lisbon; delivery to the prior of the monastery of St. Dominic (Lisbon); consignment (one of the few to be a mixed consignment of coins and gold dust) from the Congregation of the Oratory in Recife for delivery to the procurator-general of the Congregation in Lisbon; and consignments to the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Lisbon.35 In the 1720s and 1730s there were consignments from the monasteries of the reformed Carmelites (Carmo da Reforma) in Recife and Goiana to the procurator-general of the monasteries of the Reform housed in the Hospício da Reforma in Lisbon.36Consignments from Angola routed via Brazil included those of the Prior of the Carmelites and the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Angola for delivery to the procurator-general of the Discalced Carmelites in Lisbon.37 Consignments from India or East Asia were rare for Orders other than the Jesuits. This makes all the more noteworthy two consignments of 76$800 reis and 51$200 reis, respectively, on the flagships (almirantas) of the fleets from Salvador arriving in Lisbon in December 1727 and January 1729 and destined for the procurator-general of the Order of the Reform (Ordem dos Reformados) of the Province of Madre de Deus of India.38 Occasionally consignments from Brazil had destinations outside the Portuguese-speaking world. A consignment of 20 coins each of 4$800 reis from Salvador in 1723 was for delivery in Lisbon to the Trinitarian friar João de Mello, procurator-general of the Province of Andalucia. In 1725 a priest in Pernambuco handed in 9 coins of 4$800 reis for delivery to the friar procurator-general of the Province of Bada-joz.39 All religious orders also served as agents for third parties either by delivering consignments on board or taking delivery in Lisbon.Formulaic statements on the manifests do not reveal the motivation for such consignments. In fact, it is difficult to identify payments for a commercial transaction, unless the profession or vocation of the consignee is stated; however, there are exceptions. Consider the following examples. When Father Diogo de Santo António, procurator-general of the Carmelite Order of the Reform in Recife, sent a consignment of 5.5 coins of 4$800 reis to Lisbon in 1724, the consignee’s name was clearly stated as António Rodriguez Henriques and his profession was recorded as bookseller.40 In 1729 the risk for a consignment of 216$00 reis from Salvador to Lisbon was assumed by Father Dom António dos Mártires, boticário maior of the Mosteiro de Santa Cruz in Coim-bra, and the consignee was the Reverend Dom Caetano de Santo António, pharmacist of the monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon.41 In manifests of the 1730s and 1740s there are consignments of coins from Brazil to Portugal, specifically for the botica real (royal pharmacy) in the monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. During the 1730s the pharmacist in São Vicente de Fora was the Reverend Father Dom António dos Mártires, who was succeeded by Father Dom João de Nossa Senhora da Conceição (cônego regular de Santo Agostinho) in 1743.42Transmission of bullion was not an exclusively male domain. Individually and institutionally, nuns were involved in remittances from Brazil to Portugal, but the patter
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