"The Sponsors of the Crown: The Shareholders of the Bank of Brazil in the Portuguese Empire, 1808-1821"

The foundation of the Bank of Brazil on October 12th, 1808 was crucial for the rebuilding of the Portuguese monarchy in Brazil and even for the first years of the Brazilian independent nation. It represents a singular case in the banking history of the American continent in the early 19th Century, only preceded by the Bank of the United States, created by Alexander Hamilton in 1791. Amongst the Spanish American independent nations, the projects of the first national banks appeared lately at the beginning of the 1820s. While Argentina achieved the foundation of the Bank of Buenos Aires in 1822, they proved to be unsuccessful in Mexico and Peru. The establishment of Brazilian bank was also a landmark in the Portuguese financial and monetary history, considering the lack of previous banks in the kingdom. The importance of the Bank of Brazil was recently recognized by scholars, but we have several points that demand further research. In spite of being a quoted primary source, the general list of the shareholders of the Bank of Brazil, published in 1821, is an exquisite document for the study of the regulation and configuration of the bank shareholders, an objective intended by this paper. As an undeniable economic and political pole of the Portuguese monarchy, the bank revealed a microcosm of the relations established between the Crown and its elites during this critical age for the fate of Portuguese empire as well as the tensions of implementing a mercantile enterprise in an Old Regime and slavery framework.