Rio de Janeiro 1650-1659: ecos e desassossegos

Abstract

The present article was born from an imposing element: those people which biography had relevant connections with Rio de Janeiro, in the second half of sixteenth century, had left us testimonies of a restless attitude. This restlessness had, of course, a geographical meaning-the travels between Brazil and the other points of the Portuguese Empire, the displacements inside the South American colony- but also a social and an economic perspective. Naturally the social and the economic incidences were the main concern of this analyse: the motivations of those who crossed different seas, strange lands, the consequences for those soldiers, bureaucrats, clergymen and others, of such an adventurous way of life. This is so an attempt of understanding so much travelling and, consequently, so much daring.