Negotiations and reciprocities: social relations among local potentates and their armed slaves in Minas Gerais in the first half of the 18th century

Abstract

The text aims to research the habit of local potentates, from the district of Vila Rica, of using armed slaves when they rendered services to the Portuguese Monarch in order to gains royal favors. Hence, we will analyze how, by means of negotiations and reciprocities between potentates and their slaves, the first ones acquired and maintained their power; and, at the same time, what types of benefits and gains the slaves could aspire to obtain with these relations.