A família Costa Monteiro, os couros do sertão e as escalas mercantis no séc. XVIII

Abstract

This article analyzes the leather business in the North of the State of Brazil, that is, in the colonial region between the coastal and sertanejo territories of Alagoas, Pernambuco, Itamaracá, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará in the 18th century. We start from the history of a Portuguese family, without context of the ‘War of the Barbarians’, obtained sesmarias and formed farmer ranches in the sertão. These Portuguese first became involved in the meat supply business in Recife and Olinda, only to have the first leather tanning factory established in Portuguese America. Using the concept of mercantile scales, analyze the business in a continental / regional perspective looking at the productive process and a structure of the meat market; Atlantic in relation to its marketing and transport in the Portuguese fleets, as well as the employment of African and global labor in the perspective of re-exporting the hides of the region via Lisbon to other parts of the world.