First published in 1999, this volume is an ambitious attempt to provide a wide-ranging introduction to local government in the overseas empires of Portugal, Spain, England and France, with further reference to the English East India Company and the Dutch East and West India Companies. In an exercise in compensatory history, the book examines government of empire not from the metropolitan perspective but at the local level, where government was most likely to impact on the everyday lives of both persons of European birth and indigenous peoples. The first part examines the institutional framework of local and regional government at the municipal, parish and county levels, extending this to include law and order, social welfare and education. The second part examines the social dimension of local government: governance in pluricultural societies; elite formation; creolization; representation and oligarchies; oversight, and negotiated authority. The work includes a comprehensive introduction, together with an extensive bibliography and a detailed index.

First published in 1999, this volume is an ambitious attempt to provide a wide-ranging introduction to local government in the overseas empires of Portugal, Spain, England and France, with further reference to the English East India Company and the Dutch East and West India Companies. In an exercise in compensatory history, the book examines government of empire not from the metropolitan perspective but at the local level, where government was most likely to impact on the everyday lives of both persons of European birth and indigenous peoples. The first part examines the institutional framework of local and regional government at the municipal, parish and county levels, extending this to include law and order, social welfare and education. The second part examines the social dimension of local government: governance in pluricultural societies; elite formation; creolization; representation and oligarchies; oversight, and negotiated authority. The work includes a comprehensive introduction, together with an extensive bibliography and a detailed index.

Professor Russell-Wood's detailed studies of Brazilian social history in the colonial era have long been recognised as model contributions to the history of class, race, gender and religion. This collection combines work on particular persons and groupings with survey articles on the role of the port and the frontier in colonial Brazil and on its historiography. The author describes the administration and structure of government, and the realities of royal power, with examples drawn from the port cities and the mining townships of the interior, then moves on to examine the interplay of class, religion and race with reference to brotherhoods of persons of African descent and the racially exclusive Third Orders. One group who overcame legal, physical and social constraints were women who, whether of European or African descent, contributed decisively to the economy and society of Brazil. To conclude, there are accounts of three individuals, each of whose experiences illustrate facets of the judicial system, governance and education in Portugal's richest colony. Les etudes detaillees du professeur Russell-Wood sur l'histoire sociale bresilienne durant la periode coloniale ont longtemps ete reconnues comme un modele de contribution A histoire des classes, des races, des genres et des religions. Cette collection allie des travaux au sujet d'individus specifiques et de groupements A des resumes d'enquAte sur la rAle du port et de la frontiere dans le Bresil colonial et dans son historiographie. L'auteur decrit l'administration et la structure gouvernementale, ainsi que les realites du pouvoir royal, s'appuyant d'exemples tires des cites portuaires et des communes minieres de l'interieur. Il passe ensuite A l'examen de l'interaction des classes, des religions et des races en faisant reference aux liens de fraternite qui unissaient les personnes de descendance africaine, ainsi qu'aux Troisiemes Ordres qui pratiq

Combining modern scholarship with a wealth of documentary and archival evidence, this is an authoritative portrait of the lives of slaves and free persons of colour in colonial Brazil. The author charts the working conditions, domestic lives, preoccupations and aspirations of slaves and their fellow freed men. In a work which underlines the validity and importance of minority histories, he argues that the slaves and freedmen of colonial Brazil maintained and preserved their own cultural identity, taking decisions independently of the white ruling class. The result is not a history of extremes - black and white, slave and master - but instead an account of the ambiguities surrounding issues of race, freedom and the individual, which provides an insight not only in to the past and present of Brazil, but also into areas of racial and social identity. With an extensive preface outlining recent developments in the field, and a full and updated bibliography, this edition of aims to provide information for students and historians alike.

This is the story of the first and one of the greatest colonial empires: its birth, apotheosis, and decline. By approaching the history of the Portuguese empire thematically, A. J. R. Russell-Wood is able to pursue ideas and make connections that previously have been constrained by strict chronological approaches. Using the study of movement as a focus, Russell-Wood gains unique insight into the diversity, breadth, and balance between the competing interests and priorities that characterized the Portuguese culture and its expansion spanning four centuries' events on four different continents.