Poor Free People in Portuguese Colonial Amazonia, 1640–1750

Written in conjunction with Wania Alexandrino Viana, the aim of this paper is to discuss the multiple experiences of poor free people (Portuguese and their descendants, including those of mixed blood) in the colonial Amazon region, throughout the mid-seventeenth until the mid-eighteenth centuries. Barely studied, this complex group of colonial population can be detected from many sources, such as official correspondence and Inquisition records, which reveal aspects of their occupations, the relations established with other social groups, and social practices in a frontier colonial society.