Since 2000, there have been fewer studies released about the ‘formal aspects’ of the operation of colonial powers, such as Portugal, in the East during the Early Modern period. Prior, the fall of Communism, in the last decade of the twentieth century, gave a boost to liberal ideology, while research into topics related to autocracy or state apparatus have become unfashionable. The Portuguese role in the East is usually overlooked, being less high-profile than that of the Dutch or British. Drawing on unpublished materials from the Overseas Historical Archive, and other libraries in Portugal, this book considers Portuguese leadership and organization at home, where it pertained to the governance of the eastern colonies; as well as the formal and ‘soft’ instruments of state applied on the ground in these colonies in first half of the eighteenth century.
