The Crown's men of science and the solutions for agriculture on this side of the Atlantic

Abstract

Abstract: At the end of the Luso-Brazilian 18^th century, dozens of booklets, academic memoirs, manuals, letters and reports were produced, recording impressions that were different from those that had hitherto marked the writings on Portuguese America. These productions, therefore, extrapolated the religious universe of contents about Brazil that characterized a large part of the colonial period and opened new paths for the intellectuals about the need to know the land rationally and take advantage of the riches it has to offer. Based on the analysis of these works, especially scientific memoirs and agricultural manuals, this essay seeks to investigate, albeit in an embryonic form, the role of agriculture in changing the view that the Portuguese started to have of this colony on this side of the Atlantic, that is, the questions revolve around a redimensioning of Luso-Brazilian studies on agriculture in the 18th century. In other words, the proposal is to make known what these documents, with an openly pedagogical discourse, reported about the possibilities of crop diversification, improvement in agricultural production management and techniques, and even about the errors of extractivism and the deforestation on Brazilian lands.

Keywords: Luso-Brazilian world. Academic memories. Agriculture. Nature.