Resumen de Política ilustrada e ações urbanísticas na América portuguesa (segunda metade do século XVIII)
Antonio Cesar de Almeida Santos
In this paper I try to focus upon the existing relationship between enlightened policies and urbanistic actions in Portuguese America, debating the main aspects of such actions by the crown during the second half of the 18 th Century. The intend is to show and analyze policies aimed at driving the inhabitants of the hinterland in America to live in cities and townsestablished according to guidelines written up by the monarchy. The debate approaches some peopling actions which appeared in every captaincy of Portuguese America: all inhabitants, of any quality, should be submitted to the administration rules the crown was trying to establish. As such, to civilize had a political meaning, in an attempt to transform the population of Portuguese America in subjects of the king, members of a civil society in which municipal institutions were its most concrete expression. It is evident that suchpolicies by the crown were meant to gather its subjects in America, ensuring the possession of territories in face of dispersion and foreign threat.
