The scientific travels by the enlightened naturalist Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada in the São Paulo Captaincy (1800-1805)

Abstract

Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada is known for historiography above all his political performance in the Independence period, when he took part of the “Gabinete dos Andradas”, as the first Brazilian treasury Minister. Hisscientific studies work, however, was less studied. He fulfilled a series of scientific travels to São Paulo Captaincy in the range of the General Director of the Gold, Silver and Iron mines. These travels will be analysed as being part of the political-reformist project headed by the principal minister of “Viradeira”, D. Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, that aimed to rationally take advantage of the natural resources, above all the minerals, of its most important colony, Brazil. Such “natural productions” were seen as richness sources essential for the modernization of the Portuguese Empire.