Rio de Janeiro and the silver mining economy of Potosi

trans-imperial, global, and contractual approaches to South Atlantic markets (18th Century)

Abstract

This paper’s main goal is to advance some considerations on
the interrelations between port cities and capital. More specifically,
it sheds light on how these interdependencies took place
in the eighteenth-century Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic
world. This paper thus seeks to draw an urban political economy
in transimperial, global, and contractual perspectives.
For so doing, particular attention will be put to Rio de Janeiro’s
projection far beyond the South Atlantic, and in particular,
its interconnections with the Rio de la Plata basin and Potosi
markets. Attention will also be paid to the impact of and repercussions
that far-flung economic phenomena had for the urban
domestic markets.