A puzzle almost solved: the sugar mills at the Rio de Janeiro Region, 16-17th centuries

Abstract

Given the importance of sugar cane production for colonial Brazil, it is surprising that we have so little information about it today. Due to the fire that destroyed the municipal archives in 1790, this ignorance is even more serious with regard to the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro. Despite these drawbacks, it is still possible to shed light upon Rio’s early rural life. Based on an detailed analysis of existing primary sources, this work (a) reviews the debates on the economy of Brazil in the seventeenth-century; (b) proves that our knowledge about sugar cane production in colonial Rio is indeed very poor; (c) solves a part of this historical puzzle by identifying and locating the captaincy’s sugar mills in the 16th and 17th centuries; and (d) presents and discusses the methodological steps that were taken to uncover this important dimension of Rio’s colonial times.