Old letters, new readings: the Post in the written communication of the ultramarine Portuguese monarchy (XVII-XVIII)

Abstract

This review aims to analyze the book Guerras de papel: comunicação escrita, política e comércio na monarquia ultramarina portuguesa, written by Romulo Valle Salvino. Adapted from his PhD thesis, the book dedicates to investigate the failed attempts of the Portuguese monarchy to create a postal system in its American colonies between the XVII and XVIIIth centuries. Investigating political conflicts and judicial disputes between different social actors, Salvino connects many scales of analysis – individual, corporative, institutional and structural – that were intertwined through complex colonial relations between the Metropolis and its American domains. The transformation of a jurisdictional conception of power in a political economy, and the end of the legitimacy of a patrimonial logic in the administration of the State formed the conditions in which the Luso-American merchants seek to oppose, in the city Councils, the Correio-mor assistants in Portuguese America. This book is an important historiographical landmark in the context of renewal of studies on material forms of circulation of writings, especially considering the recent efforts of scholars towards the history of the Post in Brazil.