Raynal and the defence of the Portuguese colonization of Brazil: diplomacy and the Memoirs of the Visconde de Balsemão

Abstract

This article addresses and discusses the Memoirs of Luís Pinto de Sousa Coutinho (1735-1804), 1st Viscount of Balsemão, which were used as sources for the production of the 1780 edition of the Histoire des deux Indes, in respect of Brazil. The Memoirs offer a singular and exceptional portrait of the Portuguese empire – in the most precise and well-informed manner known for the time –, and represent a substantive addition to Abbé Raynal’s text and, in particular, a reorientation of its rather uncritical and even apologetic view of the Portuguese colonial administration and of slavery in Brazil.