Pequeno comércio, escravidão e dinâmicas de mestiçagens em Vila Rica, Minas Gerais (primeira metade do século XVIII)

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to present a study on the dynamics of small-scale food and beverage trade, abundantly documented in Vila Rica during the first half of the eighteenth century. Based on administrative and fiscal sources, such as laws, licensing records, nominative lists, and judicial proceedings, it demonstrates how commercial activities fueled the dynamics of mestizaje in that context. In this regard, it is argued that small-scale trade was continuously shaped by slaves, freed, and free individuals through practices of selling and consuming. These individuals learned, reproduced, and adapted practices to promote their activities (whether fixed or itinerant) and, by engaging in various forms of market, fostered exchanges that went beyond monetary transactions. Thus, the spaces where these products were traded (sales outlets, taverns, and the places where negras de tabuleiro and other itinerant vendors circulated) were also sociability environments, where biological and cultural mixtures were encouraged. Furthermore, it discusses how the administrative strategies employed to control small-scale trade triggered and strengthened alliances, businesses, networks of solidarity, and sociabilities among slaves, freed, and free individuals of different qualities and who occupied distinct positions in the social hierarchy of that period.