The Commercial House of João da Costa Soares in Recife: merchant institutions and overseas merchants in the eighteenth century

ABSTRACT

This article lists and analyzes three different mercantile institutions and their levels of interaction regarding commercial regulations and practices throughout the eighteenth century. The operation of the Chamber of Commerce in Lisbon changed the institutional relations first within the own institution of the Portuguese State, such as the Lisbon Customs and its similar institutions within the reign and its possessions and, second, among traders and Mercantile Societiesor trading houses. The Portuguese State sought to regulate the activities, the limits and possibilities of each deal and each merchant, as well as formulate taxes, fees and charges which should be paid to the State. On the other hand, traders, aiming to fulfill their interests -mainly the entrance in the colonial trades world business, concessions of privileges and exclusives and the need to solve disputes in legal terms, due to the difference in mercantile justice and civil justice -, pursued these same institutions to satisfy their private demands.

Keywords
mercantile institutions; Portuguese State; overseas traders