Portuguese Invasions in Paraguay-Río de la Plata During the Iberian Union: Moving Between Local Conflicts and Imperial Projects

• Autor(a) principal: Sposito,Fernanda
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1645-64322023000100103
• topic: Río de la Plata; Paraguay; São Paulo; Bandeirantes; Iberian Union

Abstract This article analyzes the expeditions of residents of the captaincy of São Vicente (in Brazil) into the provinces of Paraguay and Río de la Plata (part of the Viceroyalty of Peru) during the late sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century. Initially, the main question that we aim to analyze is why these expeditions-bandeiras-occurred, as well as the conflicts that triggered them. The bandeiras involved crossing the not so well-defined frontiers at that time between the Spanish and Portuguese dominions in Southern America. This leads us to the second point: understanding whether this circulation was favored by agreements established by Portugal and Spain during the Iberian Union (1580-1640). While both crowns had plans that aimed to strengthen these connections, we will try to understand if this intention was expressed directly through treaties or royal authorizations, or if the permissiveness occurred more through omission or veiled connivance by the colonial and metropolitan authorities. Finally, the last possibility raised here is whether the fact that the bandeiras took place during the Iberian Union period was the result of a mere temporal coincidence.