A Misericórdia da Bahia e o seu sistema de concessão de crédito (1701 – 1777)

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the lending with interest of the Santa Casa de Misericordia da Bahia between the years 1701 and 1777. The absence of financial institutions combined with monetary shortages during the colonial period made this credit a key element for the production and circulation of goods. The Bahian Santa Casa worked as an important tool to finance various types of economic activities, such as sugar, tobacco, and cassava production, cattle breeding, retailing, the Atlantic slave trade, and subsistence agriculture. Its role in the eighteenth-century Bahian economy can be attested by the diversity of its debtors. The brotherhood loaned at interest to individuals from different social classes. Its credits were not restricted to its brethren or to more affluent groups of Bahian society. It lent to all credit-worthy borrowers.