Strangford Treaties (1810)

The Strangford Treaties (1810) comprised a series of agreements between Portugal and Great Britain that granted the British special commercial privileges in exchange for their defense of Portugal and its colonies during the Napoleonic War. Earlier, in 1807, Britain had threatened to destroy Portuguese naval forces and merchant fleets and to seize Portugal's colonies if Portugal acceded to Napoleon's demand and closed its ports to British ships. At that time, the Portuguese royal family agreed to British demands in exchange for protection during a forced retreat resulting in an imminent invasion by the French army. The English envoy to Lisbon, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, Viscount Strangford, negotiated the evacuation of the Portuguese royal family and followed them to Brazil, where in 1810 he negotiated the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation and the Treaty of Alliance and Friendship. These agreements, known as the Strangford Treaties, set preferential tariffs of 15 percent on British goods imported into Brazil and effectively undermined Brazilian industrialization. British merchants were granted the right to live in Brazil while they sold British products in both wholesale and retail establishments, but they were subject only to British-appointed magistrates when accused of wrongdoing. Portugal also agreed to restrict the importation of African slaves and to consider the abolition of such trade.

Brazilians were angered over the preferential treatment the Strangford Treaties gave to the British and considered them another example of Portuguese interests taking priority over colonial concerns. For example, British duties on Brazilian sugar and coffee imports were not reduced. Furthermore, Great Britain established itself as a major economic force in Brazil, and the British navy patrolled the coastal waters as a protective force for British commerce and a deterrent to the African slave trade.

See alsoCommercial Policy: Colonial Brazil; Trade, Colonial Brazil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barman, Roderick. Brazil: The Forging of a Nation, 1798–1852. Stanford University Press, 1994. See pp. 257, 263.

Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. See pp. 168-177, 203-204

Burns, E. Bradford. A History of Brazil. Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 111-113

Clarence-Smith, Gervase. The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825–1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1985.

Graham, Richard. Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850–1914 Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Miller, Joseph C. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.

Seckinger, Ron. The Brazilian Monarchy and the South American Republics, 1822–1831: Diplomacy and State Building. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

                                     Lesley R. Luster