Os Cadernos do Promotor: as ações do Tribunal do Santo Ofício no Maranhão e Grão-Pará (1640-1750)

Abstract

This research aims to analyse how the actions of the Court of the Holy Office in the Portuguese Amazon – Maranhão and Grão-Pará – within the temporal space which extends from 1640 to 1750. The intention is to understand the strategies employed by the Holy Office as a way of spreading its power in a period prior to the Visitation of 1763 during Pombal’s rule within the reality of the colony market by its huge extension and its diverse populations. In this context, we search to identify its agents, as well as the forms used to implement moral and religious discipline in this space and in this society. We will base ourselves, as main source, on the manuscripts of the Promoter of the Inquisition of Lisbon, and through them, try to detect the procedures established by the inquisitorial agents; quantitatively and qualitatively, which were the most relevant complaints from the Court's point of view; and to identify, for which reason some complaints did not turn into processes.