A reclusão feminina no Brasil colonial

Abstract

Portuguese policy prevented the foundation of convents in Brazil until the second half of the seventeenth century for demographic reasons. As many young women travelled to Portugal and the Atlantic islands to become nuns, a 1732 royal decree controlled this exodus from the colony. Only the two main cities, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, had convents and in the other captaincies «recolhimentos» were founded for those women who wished to live in seclusion.