On Correcting the Historical Record: Ernst Pijning’s Assessment of the Role of Contraband Trade in 18th Century Brazil

A fundamental work for the History of Brazil and Portugal

I

After almost three decades of incomprehensible lack of interest on the part of Brazilian and Portuguese publishers in a text of exceptional importance for the History of Brazil and Portugal, American publisher Robbin Laird (Second Line of Defense) has decided to bring to light this doctoral thesis defended in 1997 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland/USA, by Dutch historian Ernst Pijning (1963), who has been a full professor of History at Minot State University in North Dakota/USA since 1999.

This partially corrects this inadmissible gap, since it seems that a Portuguese version of this thesis is also due to be published soon by a Brazilian publisher.

The subject of Pijning’s research is the contraband trade in colonial Brazil and its relations with Portugal and the Netherlands (Holland), especially in the period from 1690 to 1808. In his work, the researcher discusses not only the mechanics of smuggling and the actions of the participants in this illegal trade, but also the various factors that led to Portuguese, metropolitan and colonial measures to prevent this clandestine trade from spreading.

In other words, the historian analyzes how these measures represented a compromise between different interests, such as the role of the monarch, the integrity or malleability of royal authority, the application of this legislation and the types of penalties imposed on offenders. In this sense, he raises questions about what constituted legal or illegal actions, as well as broader questions about ethics and public morality in colonial Brazil.

II

For Pijning, smuggling was not seen by the Portuguese authorities as an ethical or moral contravention, but as part of Portugal’s commercial interests. In this way, depending on the social scale of the possible offender, the practice was tolerated. Not to mention that the authorities who were supposed to combat smuggling often acted as intermediaries in this trade, which was illegal to begin with. And several viceroys returned to Portugal overly enriched, which always allowed suspicions to arise that they had profited greatly by contributing to smuggling running wild.

“But if smuggling was a ubiquitous and acceptable practice, how can we explain the fact that some people were arrested and persecuted?” asks the historian. And he himself replies: “It’s because there were two types of smuggling: one condemned and the other permitted by the authorities.” In other words: illegality depended on the social status ofthose who practiced it and the interests of the government that represented the Portuguese Crown.

Pijning points out that, in order to understand this dubious position, it is necessary to take into account the context in which Portugal lived, since the country was militarily and economically dependent on other nations in order to survive. Not to mention that neighboring Spain was threatening to occupy Portuguese territory and was only waiting for a valid pretext to extend its rule, as it had already done in the province of Galicia, whose language is practically a sister language of Portuguese.

Faced with the weakness of the Portuguese Crown, some internal groups had an inordinate influence over the economic and social policy put in place: for example, various branches of commerce, such as salt, fishing or whaling and coastal fishing, were monopolies. And those who held these monopolies were practically above any law.

This was also the case with the illegal trade with Buenos Aires and the entire Río de la Plata, which was openly encouraged by the Portuguese authorities. Trade between Lisbon and Falmouth, in Jamaica, would also, in theory, be prohibited, but the Crown used to sign licenses so that it could take place.

Pijning notes that any estimate that can be made of the magnitude of this illegal trade will be highly speculative, since there are no official statistics in the Portuguese or Brazilian archives. In any case, the researcher points out that, among other documents, there is one in which Dom Pedro Miguel de Almeida Portugal e Vasconcelos (1688-1756), Count of Assumar, governor of the captaincy of São Paulo-Minas do Ouro from 1717 to 1721, estimates the illegal gold trade in 1733 at 166 arrobas from various ports in Portuguese America, such as Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, São Luís do Maranhão and Belém do Pará, to Lisbon, Angola, the Azores, Colônia do Sacramento, Mozambique, Madagascar and Guyana. The legal gold trade during this period would have reached 990 arrobas.

III

Pijning also recalls that, as Portugal depended on other European countries, such as England, France and Holland in particular, to maintain its independence from Spain, it had to make many concessions to these nations, to the point of functioning virtually as a British colony.

To this end, Lisbon only obliged foreign merchants to trade with Portuguese America through Portuguese intermediaries. “It should be noted that a significant proportion of products imported by Portugal from England were destined for Brazilian ports,” he adds.

At one time, merchants from England and Holland had greater privileges both in Portugal and in the Atlantic possessions, which made it easier for them to engage in illegal activities through Portuguese merchants. In addition, they were judged by their own magistrates and according to the laws of their countries. They also had discounts on customs and freedom of belief.

According to Pijning, while King João V’s (1689-1750) policy against illegal trade was characterized by passive resistance, his successors would adopt a more active stance against smuggling, especially after the actions of Minister Sebastião José Carvalho e Mello (1699-1782), the Marquis of Pombal, secretary of the kingdom of Dom José I (1714-1777), who sought to reduce the presence of the high nobility and clergy in state affairs and encourage the creation of a new class of aristocratic merchants. “Pombal advocated reforms in industry and agriculture, restructuring education as well as reorganizing the royal administration,” he says.

According to Pijning, direct moral condemnation of smugglers was rare. “Portuguese legislation called illegal trade ‘pernicious’, not because it was immoral, but because the smuggler was stealing the king’s wealth or defrauding the people of their property, while at the same time damaging the smooth running of honest trade,” he observes. “

“But if smuggling didn’t harm the royal treasury or complement normal commercial activities — as in trade with Buenos Aires —  then it was tolerated and even encouraged. In other words, sometimes breaking the law was seen as something very positive,” he concludes.

IV

Professor Ernst Pijning, who specializes in the history of Latin America in the 18th century, received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Leida in the Netherlands and his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is co-author of the book La Guinée équatoriale aux archives nationales – XVIIIe-début XXesiècles (Editions L’Harmattan, 2016), together with historians Valérie De Wulf, Jean-Marc Lefebvre, Gustau Nerin and Jacint Creus Boixaderas, which tells the story of the slave cycle in Equatorial Guinea, based on research into original documents from the National Archives in Paris. It is a study that allows the reader to discover how the histories of all parts of the world were intertwined, in particular the three continents that surround the Atlantic Ocean.

After completing his doctorate, he expanded his research into smuggling in the 18th century, also gathering information from French and English archives. He has published several articles and chapters in journals and collections in Brazil, Portugal, Canada, Colombia, France and the Netherlands. He has given several lectures at international symposia, especially at the University of São Paulo (USP), at universities in Goiás and at other university institutions in Brazil, Portugal and various Latin American and African countries.

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(*) Adelto Gonçalves, journalist, Master in Spanish Language and Spanish and Hispano-American Literatures and PhD in Letters in the area of Portuguese Literature from the University of São Paulo (USP), is the author of Gonzaga, um Poeta do Iluminismo (Rio de Janeiro, Nova Fronteira, 1999), Barcelona Brasileira (Lisbon: Nova Arrancada, 1999) (São Paulo, Publisher Brasil, 2002), Fernando Pessoa: a Voz de Deus (Santos, Editora da Unisanta, 1997); Bocage-o Perfil Perdido (Lisbon, Caminho, 2003), (São Paulo, Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo – Imesp, 2021), Tomás Antônio Gonzaga (Imesp/Academia Brasileira de Letras, 2012), Direito e Justiça em Terras d’El-Rei na São Paulo Colonial(Imesp, 2015), Os Vira-latas da Madrugada (Rio de Janeiro, Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1981, Taubaté-SP, Editora LetraSelvagem, 2015), and O Reino, a Colônia e o Poder: o governo Lorena na capitania de São Paulo – 1788-1797 (Imesp, 2019), among others. He wrote the preface to the book Kenneth Maxwell on Global Trends (Second Line of Defense, Arlington Virginia, 2024).

Controlling Contraband: Mentality, Economy, and Society in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro