The General Company of Grão-Pará and Maranhão ( Portuguese: ''Companhia Geral do Grão-Pará e Maranhão'') was a Portuguese chartered company founded in 1755 by the

Marquis of Pombal A marquess (; ) is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German-language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or widow) ...

to develop and oversee commercial activity in the

state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão The State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão () was one of the states of the Portuguese Empire. History The state was created on 31 July 1751 by order of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, the Secretary of the State for Jo ...

, an administrative division of the

colony of Brazil Colonial Brazil (), sometimes referred to as Portuguese America, comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal. During the 300 years of Brazilian col ...

. Employees of the company were officially considered to be in the service of the

Portuguese Crown This is a list of Portuguese monarchs who ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of Portugal, in 1139, to the deposition of the Portuguese monarchy and creation of the Portuguese Republic with the 5 October 1910 revolution. Through the n ...

and were responsible directly to

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

. The company greatly increased the volume of trade in Grão-Pará and Maranhão, though after the Marquis of Pombal fell from power

Queen Maria I '' Dona'' Maria I (Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana; 17 December 1734 – 20 March 1816) also known as Maria the Pious in Portugal and Maria the Mad in Brazil, was Queen of Portugal from 24 February 1777 until her de ...

ordered it to be shut down in 1778.

History

In 1755, Portuguese Prime Minister the

founded the ''Grão Pará and Maranhão Company'' as a

chartered company A chartered company is an association with investors or shareholders that is Incorporation (business), incorporated and granted rights (often Monopoly, exclusive rights) by royal charter (or similar instrument of government) for the purpose of ...

to oversee and develop commercial activity in the

, an administrative division of Portuguese

. The company was granted a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

on Grão-Pará and Maranhão's foreign trade for two decades, including the

Brazilian slave trade The Atlantic slave trade to Brazil occurred during the period of history in which there was a forced migration of Africans to Brazil for the purpose of slavery. It lasted from the mid-sixteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. During t ...

, which formed a major component of colonial Brazil's economy; as the enslavement of

indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

had been abolished, white Brazilian

planters Planters Nut & Chocolate Company is an American snack food company now owned by Hormel Foods. Planters is best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gent ...

had increasing turned to enslaved Africans as sources of labor. Employees of the company were officially considered to be in the service of the

and were responsible directly to

. The fact that the company was under Crown control meant the Portuguese government was able to use it to cover up

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

and

tax evasion Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...

in the Portuguese Empire. Local elites in Brazil quickly grew to resent the monopoly granted to the company, which the Marquis of Pombal ignored out of a desire to protect his economic interests in the region. After the company's founding, trade between Grão Pará and Maranhão and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, which had previously been small in volume, began to increase exponentially. Company

merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...

s would leave the colonial settlement of

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

to engage in the

triangular trade Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset ...

, transporting

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

medicinal plants Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including Plant defense against h ...

and

enslaved Africans Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the Ancient history, ancient and Post-classical history, medieval world. When t ...

between Brazil, Africa and Portugal. Between 1755 and 1778, the company transported 28,083 enslaved Africans to Brazil. In 1773-4, corrupt company agents played a prominent role in aggravating a deadly famine in

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

, selling scarce food to passing ships for personal profit.Patterson, K. David. “Epidemics, Famines, and Population in the Cape Verde Islands, 1580-1900.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 1988, pp 307. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/219938. Accessed 28 Dec. 2023. After the death of King Joseph I of Portugal in 1778 and the subsequent fall of the Marquis of Pombal from political power, a period in

Portuguese history The history of Portugal can be traced from circa 400,000 years ago, when the region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by ''Homo heidelbergensis''. The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted almost two centuries, led to the est ...

known as the '' Viradeira'' began. The successor to the Portuguese throne, Queen Maria I of Portugal, undertook a review of all of the policies implemented by the Marquis of Pombal. She ordered that the company's monopolies be revoked and shut down the company the same year.

References

Citations

Books

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Journals

* * Chartered companies Defunct companies of Portugal 1750s establishments in Brazil Slavery in Brazil Trading companies established in the 18th century Trading companies of Portugal Companies established in 1755 Portuguese Empire 1755 establishments in South America {{Brazil-company-stub

History

See also

References

Citations

Books

Journals