De capitania donatária à capitania régia: o senhorio de João de Barros na "Terra dos Potiguara": século XVI

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the process of transformation of the landlord of João de Barros in the "Land of Potiguara", from private to royal captaincy, which would be further the captaincy of Rio Grande. The chronological period chosen, (1535-1600), starts at the date when king D. João III (1521-1557) granted the captaincy to the high rank official of the Portuguese overseas administration, João de Barros, in 1535, and goes through the long period in which the territory remained under the landlord of Barros, and, later, his son and heir Jerônimo de Barros. The guiding question of this investigation is why the captaincy kept for so long the private jurisdiction, taken into account that the granted captain did not take effective possession of the land and was not able to conquer it. In order to deal with this question, it became necessary to analyze the situation of João de Barros in the court, both as official at the service of the Portuguese empire, given his post of feitor of the Casa da Índia, and as historian of the Portuguese Expansion in the East. It was also necessary to examine the claims presentend by Barros to the Crown in defense of his rights to the captaincy in the “Land of the Potiguara”, and to investigate the jurisdictional change of the captaincy, from private to royal.