José Joaquim de Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho contributed to the introduction of the Enlightenment into colonial Brazil and, thus, unintentionally, albeit significantly, to Brazilian independence. His role as an essayist and educator speaking for the Enlightenment, at first glance, might seem to be in conflict with his role as royal official and General Inquisitor of the Realm. On the one hand, Azeredo Coutinho’s secular, scientific, philosophic, and literary studies and pursuits were those of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Yet on the other hand, Azeredo Coutinho held fast to certain traditional opinions and professional orientations as exemplified by his several positions with the Portuguese Inquisition. Whatever the psychological problems resulting from the conflict of roles, this essay is concerned solely with the contributions to the Enlightenment in Brazil made by the remarkable Bishop Azeredo Coutinho.
Born on September 8, 1742,1 at Campos dos Goitacazes in the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, into a wealthy, sugar-owning family, Azeredo Coutinho spent a rustic childhood on his father’s country estate. At the age of six he was taken to Rio de Janeiro to begin his formal education. He studied Latin, grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy with the best teachers of that growing colonial center. Young Azeredo Coutinho had an able mind but was of delicate health. After his graduation in 1762, his father sent him to Minas Gerais on a trip intended to improve his health. The extended journey into the interior gave the youth an opportunity to gain a firsthand familiarity with Brazil’s mining industry and the conditions surrounding it. Gold extraction was near its height.
Upon the death of his father in 1768, Azeredo Coutinho became even more closely connected with another important aspect of the Brazilian economy: as the eldest son, he became director of the family sugar plantations and mills. Ably administered, the family fortunes did not suffer under his supervision. The young man, however, became disenchanted with rural life, and he inclined increasingly toward a religious and scholarly career. Information about the reforms of the University of Coimbra and about the contributions of his own relatives to those innovations reached him in Brazil, and he renounced his inherited rights and migrated to the metropolis in order to enroll in that venerable university.
At the age of thirty-three, Azeredo Coutinho began his studies in the school of canon law at the University of Coimbra, which Pombal had reformed three years earlier, in 1772.2 Whether that able Prime Minister of José I cared to admit it or not, there is little doubt that those reforms were influenced by the Enlightenment extant in the Europe of that period.3 With a new emphasis on the importance of the natural sciences, Pombal introduced Cartesian methods into the teaching of all subjects, ordering experiment and practice to take the place of dogmatic doctrine and speculation. Pombal allocated funds to build a new observatory, a medical amphitheater, a botanical garden, and physics and chemistry laboratories. He hired the most intelligent men of the kingdom as professors, and, to the extent that the resources of Portugal were sufficient, he induced a number of Italian scholars to come to Coimbra. Concurrently, the philosophy of the French physiocrats gained popularity among the faculty.4 In a modest way at least, Coimbra became aware of the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Azeredo Coutinho began his university studies when this reform atmosphere, reflecting as it did certain tendencies of the Enlightenment, was at its peak at Coimbra. The creole student read widely, by no means limiting himself to canon law. He became interested in natural history, physics, and chemistry, and studied them enthusiastically.5 Azeredo Coutinho quickly proved himself to be a true son of the new university reforms. At the end of five years of study he received his first university degree and was ordained. He returned to Coimbra five years later to complete an additional year of study and to earn his licenciado degree.
An appointment in 1784 as a deputy of the Holy Office in Lisbon dissuaded him from returning to Brazil and kept him in Portugal for over a decade. During his residence in Lisbon, he probably served Brazil better than he could have had he returned to his native land. It was during this period that he wrote his two most significant economic essays concerning Brazil, essays which were to have a profound repercussion in the colony.
Having become intimately acquainted with the Brazilian sugar economy through his experience in the administration of his family’s sugar plantations for seven years, Azeredo Coutinho was disturbed by a law proposed in Lisbon to fix the price of sugar, which could have worked to the serious disadvantage of the Brazilian producers because of the rising price sugar was commanding in a world market temporarily deprived of Haitian sugar. Aware of the injustice to the Brazilians of this contemplated legislation and of the financial harm it would cause his own family, Azeredo Coutinho vociferously opposed the artificial stabilization of the price of sugar. In 1791, as a consequence, he wrote his first important economic essay, A Memorial on the Price of Sugar, as an argument against the proposed act. According to the prelate-economist, the revolutionary tumults and adverse weather in the Caribbean evidenced the hand of Divine Providence, and the Portuguese ought to take advantage of the situation to sell increasingly scarce sugar on the world market. Price rises, due to the sudden sugar shortage, encouraged production, which, in turn, could accelerate the development of Brazil. Increased production and high prices would enable the Brazilians to buy more from Portugal, and, of course, more trade would give an impetus to the Portuguese merchant navy. The chief beneficiary of rising sugar prices would be the Portuguese empire, and those benefits would offset any higher price the Portuguese would have to pay for their sugar. Azeredo Coutinho also argued that any governmental regulation of the price of sugar would thwart the natural economic order —a classical idea of capitalism of the period. The clear economic reasoning of the Memorial apparently convinced the Portuguese authorities that price-fixing would be unwise. At any rate, the influence of that essay has been given as the cause for the defeat of the proposed artificially fixed price of sugar.6
As a result of the impact of that essay on the intellectual class of Lisbon, Azeredo Coutinho received an invitation to join the prestigious Royal Academy of Science, a high distinction for a creole. The Royal Academy in Lisbon, established in 1779, was modeled after the Royal Academy in Paris, and to a large extent it carried out within the Portuguese world the same objectives as the Parisian Academy did within the French world. The Royal Academy in Lisbon published the Memorial, and, thereafter, Azeredo Coutinho’s name and activities were closely associated with that institution of the Portuguese Enlightenment.
Doubtless the Royal Academy of Science had a deep impact on the thinking of Azeredo Coutinho. Already introduced to the physiocrats at Coimbra, in the Academy he was exposed still further to the school of economic thought inspired by François Quesnay. Physiocrat philosophy pervaded the Lisbon Academy as it had its model, the French Academy.7 Thus, the Secretary-General of. the Lisbon Academy, José Correia de Serra, could write in 1789, “The first step of a nation, in order to profit from its advantages, is to become acquainted perfectly with its own territories, what they contain, what they produce, and of what they are capable.”8 This statement was but a rephrasing of the fundamental idea of the physiocrats. Azeredo Coutinho absorbed those ideas and acted accordingly.
Knowledge of the physiocrat philosophy and practical experience in and first hand observations of the Brazilian economy formed the background for Azeredo Coutinho’s second essay, An Economic Essay on the Commerce of Portugal and Her Colonies. The careful exercise of economic logic apparent in his second essay was destined to have a great importance in Brazil and to be one of the first notes of a hymn to Brazilian independence.9 In 1794 the Royal Academy in Lisbon published this essay with considerable commendation. In addition to two more Portuguese editions, 1816 and 1828, the essay had three English editions, 1801, 1807, and 1808; two German editions, 1801 and 1808; and two French editions, 1803 and 1808. The English, French, and German newspapers and magazines commented on and recommended this essay. In short, one of the effects of this essay was to elevate the Portuguese (or Brazilian) prelate to a position of prestige in the enlightened economic circles of Europe.
Although this essay suggests some far-reaching adjustments to the Brazilian economy, it does not intimate that they should be instituted by any other means than by reform within the empire. Belonging to a small group of enlightened reformers in the metropolis who sought to modernize and to improve the Portuguese empire, Azeredo Coutinho preached neither revolution nor independence. In other words, no one can or did classify the essay as a “revolutionary” tract. Its most potent effect undoubtedly was that for the first time it classified and clarified a series of economic reforms highly desired by the Brazilians. Azeredo Coutinho wanted those reforms to be carried out within the empire. When those basic economic reforms were not forthcoming from Portugal, Brazilians came to realize that only by control of their own destiny could needed economic reforms be enacted. Hence, by indicating the path to economic reform, Azeredo Coutinho’s essay had the unexpected effect of increasing the Brazilians’ desire to be economic masters in their own house.
This thoroughly patriotic essay discussed the rich resources and potential of Brazil and recommended policies which would permit the best utilization of them. Azeredo Coutinho emphasized and repeated frequently the physiocrat doctrine that agriculture is the true source of wealth. Gold was a false wealth which, instead of enriching the empire, had impoverished it. Sugar, wood, coffee, cacao, and a myriad of other natural products of the immense empire were the true sources of wealth. In that connection Azeredo Coutinho ably discussed the natural resources and economic possibilities of Brazil, which, if developed with a minimum of restrictions and a maximum of liberty, he claimed would reinvigorate the entire Portuguese empire. Specifically he urged the abolition of the salt monopoly so that cheap salt would encourage a salted meat and fish industry, which Brazil was highly capable of developing. He recommended the abolition of restrictions and monopolies of forest products, so that the Brazilians could engage more easily in shipbuilding industry and in the export of lumber. Aware of the Indians’ pleasure in fishing, Azeredo Coutinho encouraged the development of a large fishing industry based on Indian labor. In this way the Indians could also be trained as sailors. The essay called for the withdrawal of Portuguese restrictions on the manufacture of basic necessities in Brazil and spoke frankly in favor of expanded trade outside the empire. Azeredo Coutinho concluded his Economic Essay with sage advice, probably beyond the comprehension of his times, which, if followed, would have benefited Portugal considerably. He wrote:
If Portugal, in fine, keeps up a considerable navy and large merchant fleets; if, satisfied with her vast dominions in the four quarters of the globe, she renounces all conquests; if she promotes by every means the development of the riches which her possessions are capable of producing; if she establishes manufactures only of the most indispensable necessities, and abandons those of luxury to foreigners, in order to afford them an opportunity of purchasing her superfluities:—if Portugal, I say, does all this, no enemy will molest her, or disturb her quiet: for all the nations will feel in her preservation an interest closely connected with their own.10
One of the direct results of his essay was the abolition of the salt monopoly in 1801. Speaking as a Brazilian who saw his native land’s future hindered by unjust regulation by the metropolis, Azeredo Coutinho had written with irrefutable logic in opposition to the salt monopoly. His sentiment and some of his contentions are conveyed in such remarks as the following:
On account of the vast sum of money which is thus every year drawn from Brazil for the sole purpose of enriching the individual to whom the salt trade has been farmed out, all the rest of the inhabitants of these countries are made losers; at least their gain is materially prejudiced by the monopoly. The whole commerce of Portugal, indeed, is made forfeit, by this abuse, infinite emoluments and advantages, which would otherwise accrue to it from a greater abundance of salt, fish, butcher’s meat, bacon, cheese, and butter, than would be preserved and brought to market.11
Possibly more than any of his other writings, this essay revealed the foreign influence, the influence of the Enlightenment, present in his thought. The prologue to the Economic Essay demonstrated that Azeredo Coutinho possessed a wide knowledge of eighteenth-century French history. Throughout the essay, the ideas of François Quesnay and the French physiocrats were discernible.12 The influence of the ideas of Adam Smith were also seen, for Azeredo Coutinho was wont to cite Smith occasionally in his works.13
There is no doubt that Azeredo Coutinho was acquainted with the works of Montesquieu, L’esprit des lois in particular, because the Economic Essay took special pains to combat the French philosopher’s remarks on the influence of climates.14 In doing so Azeredo Coutinho became one of the first of a long line of Brazilians who have contended that the tropics do not breed inferior men. Arguing vigorously against Montesquieu’s celebrated and universally received theory of climates, Azeredo Coutinho set out to prove that, contrary to the French philosopher’s theory, the people of Brazil were valiant and energetic. In chapter five of part one of the Economic Essay, he attacked Montesquieu in the following manner:
Montesquieu and the partisans of his system of the climates, having laid it down as a general principle that the inhabitants of hot countries are feeble and faint-hearted from their birth, and that, by the same inference, the Indians under the torrid zone are unfit for seafaring life, particularly for the service of the navy; I find myself called upon to examine the reasons by which an opinion so general is supported—an opinion from which inferences have been drawn not only absurd of themselves, but offensive to the nations inhabiting hot countries, nay even to those of the south of Europe.15
A third essay, A Discussion of the Present State of the Brazilian Mines, published in 1804, completed the economic triptych on Brazil written by Azeredo Coutinho while he was in Portugal.16 In this essay the author correctly attributed Brazil’s economic illness to an overemphasis on mining and an underemphasis on agriculture. He held that agriculture should be given first place in the Brazilian economy and that mining should be made more efficient through the introduction of the latest scientific mining knowledge and machinery from Europe.
The ideas expounded in the three essays found a response in the depressed Brazilian economy of that period. Sugar, unable to enter many former European markets because of the continental wars, and unable to meet the competition of Haiti and Jamaica, sold poorly abroad. Gold, because of overproduction, glutted the market and brought a low return. Not finding a ready market for her two principal products, Brazil staggered along an uncertain and rugged economic road. The future looked bleak if not hopeless. In such a crisis it is understandable that the creoles were receptive to new economic ideas.
One significance of the three economic essays is that Azeredo Coutinho applied the ideas as well as the methods of thinking of the Enlightenment to Brazilian economic problems. Certainly physiocrat thought, with its emphasis on agriculture as the true producer of wealth, was well suited for a discussion of Brazil’s economic problems. By focusing the beacon of the Enlightenment on the Brazilian economy, Azeredo Coutinho was able to clarify and to suggest remedies for many Brazilian problems. In terms of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, he expressed to the Brazilians hitherto unformulated economic ideas and reforms. Azeredo Coutinho was the first, then, to organize and to enunciate many of the economic desires of the Brazilian creoles, such as the desire for less confining trade and for removal of monopolies and restrictions.
As various Brazilians have pointed out, one of the important results of those essays was that they spiritually and mentally helped to prepare Brazil for independence.17 Azeredo Coutinho expressed a series of economic ideas which the Brazilian creoles wanted to implement. The creoles became willing to declare Brazil’s independence from Portugal in order to put into practice some of those ideas. As a colonial economist formulating and expressing economic complaints and desires of the colony vis-à-vis the metropolis, Azeredo Coutinho played a role in the declaration of Brazilian independence somewhat analogous to the role played by the better-known Mariano Moreno in Argentine independence.
Azeredo Coutinho made still another contribution to Brazilian independence by his direct transfer of some of the enlightened ideas of eighteenth-century Europe to Brazil. In 1794 he was named Bishop of Pernambuco. Due to delays not at all uncommon in that period, he did not depart from Lisbon until late in 1798, and did not assume his post until January 1, 1799. In the interval between appointment and arrival, he dedicated himself to his plans to establish a new school in Pernambuco. He wrote a long series of statutes for his school, which, when published in 1798 by the Royal Academy of Science, comprised 109 pages. In 1796 he obtained from Maria I permission to use the lands and buildings of a former Jesuit college at Olinda for his new school.18 Azeredo Coutinho persuaded several Portuguese religious to accompany him to Pernambuco as professors in the new school of Olinda.19 Father Miguel Joaquim, for example, emigrated to Olinda to teach mathematics. The Franciscan Father José da Costa Azeredo, a native of Rio de Janeiro who had been educated in Portugal in the sciences and taught natural history in Lisbon, was persuaded to go to Olinda to give classes. (Later he became a professor of mineralogy at Rio de Janeiro and first director of the National Museum.) In all these tasks in Lisbon, the writing of the statutes and the acquisition of buildings and faculty, the enthusiasm of Azeredo Coutinho for his educational mission was evident.
On February 16, 1800, classes commenced at Nossa Senhora da Graça, the official name of the Seminary of Olinda, with thirty-two students in attendance. The influence on Azeredo Coutinho of Pombal’s reforms at the University of Coimbra was visible. In the first place, the curriculum emphasized the sciences. Instead of the customary concentration of theoretical lectures on theology and philosophy, the center of academic attention tended to focus more on scientific preparation of the students, exactly as had happened in Coimbra over a quarter of a century before when Azeredo Coutinho was a student there. Science, experiment, and practical application were the bishop’s contributions to the colonial educational system. The traditional classes in Latin, philosophy, ecclesiastical history, dogma and morals were also taught, but for the first time they competed with such novel classes as chemistry, design, physics, natural history, geometry, French, geography, and universal history.20 The general goal was to make the student more adaptable to Brazilian surroundings and to Brazilian needs, which were shifting from patriarchal agriculture to incipient industrialization and more diversified agriculture.21 Azeredo Coutinho apparently understood these new needs created by the growth of Brazil, and the curriculum he introduced was his method of satisfying them.
In the second place, the influence of the reformed Coimbra on Azeredo Coutinho could be seen in the method of teaching adopted at Olinda. When Azeredo Coutinho arrived in Pernambuco, Brazilian education was in its doldrums. Since the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, few new schools had been established and the quality of the old ones had declined precipitously.22 The Jesuit pedagogic methods, strongly influenced by Aristotelian theory, still held a rather half-hearted sway over the effete colonial educational system. Azeredo Coutinho broke sharply with this Jesuit tradition and introduced pedagogic innovations based on Cartesian doctrines.23 With this transformation of teaching methods, the seminary was able to initiate a change in the intellectual atmosphere of the captaincy.24
The third reform of Coimbra noted in the bishop’s educational measures was the effort exerted to hire an outstanding faculty to staff the seminary. As previously mentioned, Azeredo Coutinho persuaded several intellectuals to accompany him to Pernambuco to teach. In the captaincy itself he attracted some of the most learned men, both lay and clerical, to his seminary as professors. The first rector, Canon Dr. José de Almeida Nobra, and the first vice-rector, Father José Pinto de Carvalho, are examples of the talented local men associated with the school. In short, Azeredo Coutinho was successful in obtaining a faculty distinguished both in ecclesiastical subjects and in the sciences.25 Because of the notable faculty, the use of the latest European teaching methods, and the new emphasis on science, the Seminary of Olinda, in its own modest way, became known as a “new Coimbra.”26
Those educational reforms implemented the plans of the founders of the school. Professor of Rhetoric Father Miguel Joaquim de Almeida e Castro, in a learned speech at the seminary’s opening, called for a new enlightened age of glorification of the sciences and arts to replace the “dark centuries” of the past.27 Quoting from and referring to Lacombe, Voltaire, Millot, Fleury, and a host of other Frenchmen, Almeida e Castro told his audience that only the sciences could illuminate the darkness” and dispel the ignorance and superstition of the past.28 His interest in French thought did not cause him to forget the Bible, and he made frequent references to the Holy Scriptures. Instead of the customary blind acceptance of life, however, he supported the principal concepts of philosophers of the French Enlightenment and urged the students to explore through science the world around them. That was the path which the first students of the new school tended to follow.
In accordance with Azeredo Coutinho’s wishes, the school accepted poor as well as rich students. The principal criterion for admission was intellectual ability. The board, room, and studies for the talented but impoverished students were gratis. A small scholarship fund even aided needy students in defraying such expenses as clothing.29
The fame of the new school spread quickly throughout Brazil, indeed, apparently, throughout the empire. Soon students were arriving from other captaincies, and a few students from the Portuguese African colonies matriculated at Olinda.30 The seminary was acknowledged as the best school of secondary instruction in Brazil.31 It was only natural that the creoles were proud of their new institution, but foreigners who visited Pernambuco shortly after the establishment of the school concurred with the praise of the natives.32 Henry Koster in his travel account of Brazil commented favorably about the school on several occasions. He remarked, “The public institutions are not many; but, of those that exist, some are excellent. The seminary at Olinda for the education of young persons is well conducted: and many of the professors are persons of knowledge and liberality.”33 More expansive and laudatory in his praise was the French traveler, L. F. de Tollenare, who observed:
The next to the last bishop of Olinda [Azeredo Coutinho] was a man of great merit, a protector of the sciences, a friend of order, and the possessor of an enviable reputation. I saw in the hall of natural history in Belem, Portugal, very fine specimens, the result of his investigation and care. To him is owed the establishment of the Seminary of Olinda. Lay students are admitted there, and one can take regular studies in the humanities, courses in logic, ethies, and mathematics. There was a chair of physics and a class in design which are no longer given since the bishop left the diocese.34
Later in his account, Tollenare commented again on the seminary, comparing it to a French lyceum:
The Seminary, founded by the predecessor of the next to the last bishop [Azeredo Coutinho], is a building of vast proportions; it arouses interest because, in addition to a theological education, one can take instruction in fine arts and in some sciences, more or less similar to our departmental lyceums.
Upon finishing his education there, the student is prepared to enter a European university, most usually Coimbra.
This establishment is one of the major benefits left by that worthy prelate who was animated by liberal ideas and was capable of making a useful reform of local customs.35
The school had been operating only slightly more than a year when Bishop Azeredo Coutinho was summoned back to Portugal to assume new duties as the Bishop of Braganza and Miranda. He departed from Pernambuco on July 5, 1802.36 Some have suggested that his brief tenure in Pernambuco was due to royal displeasure with his liberal ideas. Perhaps the prince-regent was wary of keeping such a talented Brazilian in his native land. It is known that after Azeredo Coutinho departed, the courses in physics and design were dropped from the curriculum of the seminary,37 and that at least one liberal professor, Father João Ribeiro Pessoa, retired from the teaching staff.38 From this indirect evidence it could be intimated that perhaps the seminary might have veered a bit too far into the enlightened orbit for royal tastes in Lisbon. No charges were ever made against the bishop which might have hastened his recall to Lisbon. The records indicate that Azeredo Coutinho carried out his duties as bishop, interim governor of Pernambuco, Director General of Studies and President of the Treasury Committee in an exemplary manner. As a matter of fact, he increased the royal treasury receipts by nearly 800,000 cruzados annually.39 Nothing was better calculated to please the authorities in Lisbon. It can hardly be claimed that he returned to Lisbon in disgrace since he subsequently was given such ranking positions as Bishop of Braganza and Miranda, Bishop of Elvas, and General Inquisitor of the Realm. The significance of the early recall would seem to be that the prince-regent felt more at ease having the learned Brazilian in Portugal rather than in Pernambuco making educational reforms. Azeredo Coutinho served king and country well for the remaining nineteen years of his life, and he died in the service of Brazil on September 12, 1821, just two days after he had taken his seat in the Constituent Côrtes in Lisbon as a deputy of Rio de Janeiro.
The enlightened spirit once introduced into Brazil was not eradicated by the recall of Azeredo Coutinho. Although his stay in Pernambuco was relatively short, Azeredo Coutinho, through his educational reforms, had succeeded in acquainting a generation of young Brazilians with some aspects of the European Enlightenment. The fleeting glimpse of the Enlightenment given by Azeredo Coutinho in his new school seemed to have had the effect of awakening Brazilian curiosity, at least in the Pernambuco area, for the latest philosophical ideas of Europe. The Brazilian historian, Francisco Muniz Tavares, described this phenomenon in the following manner:
The situation originated by the seminary [of Olinda] was favored by the entrance, much freer since 1808, of foreign books. The author of Revoluções observes in this respect that ‘the people of Pernambuco anxiously looked for the new catechisms, grabbed them hungrily and devoured them greedily!’ and he concludes: ‘from such enthusiasm who would not hope to see momentous progress?’40
The classes in French at the seminary taught the young intellectuals to read a language which gave them direct access to some of the most challenging literature of the Enlightenment. In this respect the Frenchman Tollenare was able to make the following remark about the book trade in Pernambuco before the Revolution of 1817: “The French works are the most sought after and among those all the writers . . . of the philosophy of the eighteenth century. As in Portugal, all the imported books ought to pass through the censor, but it is easy to evade that restriction.”41 Apparently during the period after the opening of the seminary and before the Revolution of 1817 many individuals were building their own private libraries, and among the books collected “naturally figured as the most important works of the eighteenth-century French philosophers who had become the political bible of South America.”42
A large number of the graduates of the Seminary of Olinda entered the priesthood, and it seems significant that the clerical influence in the Revolution of 1817 in Pernambuco was profound.43 A number of priests belonging to the generation educated by Azeredo Coutinho himself played an important role in that premature revolution for regional independence and a republic.44 Father João Ribeiro Pessoa serves as an excellent example of this group. An investigator engaged in botanical and mineralogical research, a professor of design, a bibliophile, a Brazilianist, a dabbler in physics experiments, “nurtured in the reading of the ancient and modern philosophers,”45 Ribeiro Pessoa was a product of the influence of Azeredo Coutinho. As a member of the governing junta, Ribeiro Pessoa was one of the leaders of the Revolution of 1817. Others from the Seminary of Olinda became martyrs for the republican revolution. Father Miguel Joaquim de Almeida Castro, professor of rhetoric and poetry at the seminary from 1800 to 1817, for example, gave his life for the revolution.46 The contribution of the seminary to the revolution was so marked that one prominent Brazilian historian even termed it “a revolution of priests.”47
The ideas enthusiastically planted by Azeredo Coutinho in his school, ideas which were essentially a part of the European Enlightenment, grew vigorously in the Brazilian climate. Azeredo Coutinho had absorbed those ideas during his studies at Coimbra. He expressed many of them in his writings. When he returned to Brazil as the Bishop of Pernambuco, he brought these ideas with him and gave them form and expression in the Seminary of Olinda. Knowingly or, what is more probable, unconsciously, through his essays and through his school, Azeredo Coutinho became one of the most active agents in the transference of the Enlightenment from Europe to Brazil
Pereira de Silva, Plutareo Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1847), II, 90. Heliodoro Pires, “Azeredo Coutinho,” Revista do Institute Archeológico e Geográphico Pernambucano, XVIII (Oct.-Dec., 1916), 381. Fernando de Azevedo, Brazilian Culture (New York, 1950), p. 368. Although 1742 seems to be the date most frequently given, occasionally a writer gives 1743 as the date of Azeredo Coutinho’s birth. See J. da C. Barboza, “D. José Joaquim da Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho,” Revista Trimensal de História e Geographía, I (April, 1839), 337.
For an interesting discussion of the Pombal reforms at Coimbra and their relation to the new ideas in Europe see Ernani Cidade, Ensaio sobre a crise mental do século XVIII (Coimbra, 1929), pp. 53-182.
Cruz Costa, Esbozo de una historia de las ideas en el Brasil (México, 1957), p. 23.
Moses Amzalak, “Les Doctrines Physioeratiques au XVIIIe et au Debut du XIX Siècles au Portugal,” in Melanges economiques, ed. by René Gonnard (Paris, 1946), p. 1 et passim.
J. J. Pedro Lopes, “D. José da Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho,” Revista Trimensal de História e Geographia, VII (April, 1845), 104. Annaes do Seminário (Recife, 1921), p. 4.
Pires, p. 387.
Amzalak, “Les Doctrines Physlocratiques,” p. 1 et passim.
Ibid.
“That work [the Economic Essay] had a great influence in disseminating the doctrines of economic freedom, and thereby it mentally prepared the Brazilians for Independence.” Francisco Muniz Tavares, História da revolução de Pernambuco em 1817 (Recife, 1917), p. 34. “Azeredo . . . was preparing us with his books and his action for our Political spiritual separation and autonomy.” Pires, p. 394.
George W. Robinson, Brazil and Portugal in 1809 (Cambridge, 1913), p. 23.
José Joaquim de Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho, An Essay on the Commerce and Products of the Portuguese Colonies in South America (London, 1807), p. 9.
“In the works of Azeredo one sees that the Brazilian bishop read a great deal of Quesnay.” Pires, p. 391
“I find in the books on economies by Azeredo Coutinho an influence of the ideas of Adam Smith, whose work he has cited many times.” Moses Amzalak Economistas brasileiros: D. José Joaquim da Cunha Azeredo Coutinho (Porto, 1942), p. 33. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda believed that Azeredo Coutinho’s ideas were similar to those of Adam Smith but doubted that Azeredo Coutinho read Smith before his work was translated into French in 1794. J. Joaquim da Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho, Memória sobre o prego do assúcar, Introd, by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda (Rio, 1946), pp. 21, 28. Azeredo Coutinho quoted Adam Smith in his Dtscurso sobre o estado atual das minas published in 1804.
Azeredo Coutinho, translator’s preface, p. v. Amzalak, Economist as brasileiros p. 23. Sílvio Romero, História da literatura brasileira, 3rd ed (Rio de Janeiro, 1943), II, 315.
Robinson, p. 16.
The principal published works of Azeredo Coutinho are as follows:
Memória sobre o preço do assúcar, 1st ed. published in Vol. III of Mem Econ. da Acad. Real das Sciencias de Lisboa (Lisbon, 1791). 2nd ed. published in 1816 as a companion piece to Ensaio econòmico.
Estatutos do seminário episcopal de N.S. da Graça da cidade de Olinda (Acad. Real, Lisbon, 1798).
Estatutos de recolhimento de N.S. da Glòria do logar da Boa-vista de Pernambuco (Acad. Real, Lisbon, 1798).
Ensaio económico sobre o commércio de Portugal e suas colónias (Acad. Real, Lisbon, 1794, 1816, 1828).
Analyse sobre a justiça do commércio do resgate dos escravos da costa d’Africa (Lisbon, 1797 and 1808).
Discurso sobre o estado actual das minas do Brasil (Imp. Regia, Lisbon, 1804).
Allegação jurídica sobre o padroado das igrejas e benefícios do Cabo Bojador para o sul (Lisbon, 1804).
Concordância das leis de Portugal e das bullas pontificais, das quaes urnas permittem a escravidão dos pretos d’Africa, e outras prohibem a escravidão dos índios do Brasil (Lisbon, 1808).
Defeza de D. José Joaquim de Cunha d’Azeredo Coutinho, sendo governador interino da capitanía de Pernambuco (Lisbon, 1808).
Commentário para a intelligéncia das bullas que o doutor Dionysio Miguel Leitão Coutinho juntou á sua ‘Refutação contra a allegaçâo jurídica sobre o padroado das igrejas e beneficios do cabo do bojador para o sul’, etc. (Lisbon, 1808).
Informação dado ao ministro d’estado dos negócios de fazenda (Lisbon, 1808).
Bespostas dadas âs propostas feitas por alguns parochos da diocese de Pernambuco (Lisbon, 1808).
Exhortaçôes pastorees do ex.mo Bispo d’Elvas aos sens diocesanos (Lisbon, 1811).
Còpia da analyse da bulla do Sanctìssimo Padre Julio III, que constitute o padrâo dos reis de Portugal, a respeito da unido, consolidaselo e incorporaselo dos mestrados das ordens militares com os reinos de Portugal (London, 1818).
Memòria lida na Academia Beal das Sciencias, em que se refutam as assersôes de Mr. Thomás no seu elogio ao almirante Du Guay-Trouin, e de outros escriptores franceses que louvam a prudencia do mesmo almirante na tomada da praça do Bio de Janeiro, etc. Published in the Mnemosine Lusitana, I. Nos. XIII anãd XVIII.
Collecção de alguns manuscriptos curiosos do Exmo Bispo d’Elvas (London, 1819). These papers included information and discussion of the Brazilian boundaries, a letter on the increase of the value of money, and a treatise on the problems of guidance of air balloons.
“It would not be too much to state that from more than one point of view Brazilian independence owes a great deal to Bishop Azeredo Coutinho . . . Scant justice has been done to the Economic Essay and to the role of Azeredo as factors in our Independence.. . . Time will reveal that among the antecedents of our autonomy a place of honor will be given to the Economic Essay of Bishop Azeredo Coutinho.” Pires, p. 394.
Cônego José do Carmo Baratta, História ecclesiástica de Pernambuco (Recife, 1922), pp. 70-71.
Annaes do Seminário, p, 63.
Carmo Baratta, p. 71; Barboza, p. 337; Pires, p. 408.
Gilberto Freyre, Sobrados e mucambos (São Paulo, 1937), p. 105.
Pires, p. 401.
Manoel da Oliveira Lima, Pernambuco e seu desenvolvimiento histórico (Leipzig, 1895), p. 216; Freyre, p. 105.
Muniz Tavares, p. 36.
Carmo Baratta, p. 72.
Annaes do Seminário, p. 61.
Miguel Joaquim de Almeida e Castro, “Orasam Académica,” Revista do Instituto Archeológico e Geográphico Pemambucano, XXXV (1937-1938), 180.
Ibid. p. 174.
Ibid., p. 8.
Carmo Baratta, p. 72.
Oliveira Lima, p. 216.
“About the Seminary, one traveler who visited it in 1808 writes, ‘The Seminary is perhaps the best in Brazil, not only because of the building. . . but because of the administration and economy not only in respect to the liberal and straight forward education but principally in respect to the scientific education.’” Carmo Baratta, p. 72.
Henry Koster, Travels in Brazil (Philadelphia, 1817), I, 50.
L. F. de Tollenare, “Notas Dominicaes Tomadas durante uma Viagem em Portugal e no Brasil en 1816, 1817, e 1818,” trans, by Alfredo de Carvalho, Bevista do Institute Archeológico e Geográphico Pernambucano, XI (March, 1904), 436.
Ibid. (June, 1904), p. 477.
The year 1802 is given uniformly in biographies of Azeredo Coutinho except by Carmo Baratta. He states that Azeredo Coutinho did not leave Pernambuco until December 25, 1806 (p. 68). Such a date does not agree with subsequent events in the life of Azeredo Coutinho.
Muniz Tavares, p. 36.
Ibid; Tollenare (June, 1904), p. 494.
Pedro Lopes, p. 108.
P. 38. In his book, Muniz Tavares frequently quoted from an anonymous manuscript known as “Revoluções do Brasil,” a few chapters of which have survived and were reprinted in the Rev. do Inst. Arch. e Geo. of 1884 under the title “Idéia Geral de Pernambuco em 1817.”
Tollenare, p. 436.
Muniz Tavares, p. 44.
“Brazilian Independence was still more directly served in its preparation by the seminary founded in Pernambuco by Azeredo Coutinho . . .. It is quite plausible to suppose that the seminary was converted into a nest of liberal ideas, and liberal ideas were subversive ideas contributing decidedly to the intellectual nucleus for the organization of secret academies.” Muniz Tavares, p. 35.
“The heroes of the Revolution of 1817, genuine representatives of our aspirations for autonomy, to a large degree came from the establishment of instruction of Azeredo.” Pires, p. 394.
Tollenare (June, 1904), p. 494.
Annaes do Seminário, p. 63.
Oliveira Lima, p. 75.
Author notes
The author is Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
