Capitalism and nature in Colonial Brazil: the cattle in Capitaincy of Ceará and the continentality of game of exchanges (ca.1680-1750)

Abstract

Between 1680 and 1750, the Portuguese colonization in America acquired a continental dimension. Amidst economic activities that boosted the advance of commerce and edifica-tion of colonial environments we highlight the cattle breeding. The livestock expansion in Capitaincy of Ceará transformed the environment and promoted the commerce with the production of goods supplying the internal and external markets. We dis-cuss the bases of the relation between colonial exploitation and European world-economy dynamics, the livestock expansion in the capitaincies of the North, mainly the capitaincy of Ceará and the geography of trade that absorbed the livestock production in their nets of circulation and accumulation. Thus, we aim demonstrate that studies attentive to interface between economic history and environmental history may benefit of ap-proaches which locates the cattle as part of a totality of space-time which structure the world-economy.