The Economy of Spices and Beverages in the Backlands of the Amazon during the Colonial Period (First Half of the Eighteenth Century)

Abstract

Since the 20th century, Brazilian historiography has pointed out certain characteristics that marked the economy of the Amazon, including that it was an exclusively extractive economy, centered on beverages and spices from the backlands and, consequently, an impoverished economy doomed to ruin. Furthermore, historiography shows little concern with the functioning of the extraction and sale of beverages and spices of these backlands. The present text, then, is concerned with elucidating the beverage and spice businesses in the backlands as an economic mainstay of Amazonian society. This present text intends to demonstrate how this economic activity worked and how it dominated the society of the Portuguese Amazon.