Business and Government in Imperial Brazil: the Experience of Viscount Mauá

Abstract

On January 28, 1808, the ports of Brazil, hitherto restricted to Portuguese vessels, were thrown open to direct trade with all friendly nations. Two months later, the ban on manufacturing in the colony was lifted. In October theBanco do Brasilwas authorized as a bank of issue designed to supply the government's credit needs and to foster internal and external trade. The most urgent financial needs of the Portuguese government, which in November 1807 had fled to its American colony in order to escape the invading forces of Napoleon I, were met by negotiating a loan in London, the leading market for capital in the Atlantic economy. Two years later, in 1810, the Portuguese government signed a treaty with Great Britain admitting British goods into Brazil at a standard duty of 17 per cent for the next fifteen years.