Creditors and the State: Social Origins of the Public Debt in Imperial Brazil

With the unexpected flight of the Portuguese royal court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, Brazil colonial elites confronted previously unimagined calls for capital to support the new state.  At independence in 1822, the elite and merchants again faces demands for capital from rulers.  This papers examnes these loans and "donations," and identifies the key participants.  Donors and lenders were drawn heavily from the men who enjoyed monopoly contracts for tax collection, and who were leading international merchants and slave traders in Rio de Janeiro.  They formed the foundation of a domestic class of state creditors, illuminating the process by which Brazil came to rely far more heavily on domestic capital for state finance than did other Latin American nations.