Salvador da Bahia: Economic and Social Aspects of a Proto-global City in Brazil, 1650-1750

Christopher Ebert, associate professor of history, Brooklyn College/CUNY. Second only to Lisbon in importance in the Portuguese Empire, and containing a large population of African slaves, Salvador da Bahia was a key node in a proto-global economic system. However Salvador, the capital of Portuguese Brazil from 1549 to 1763, has often been understood as merely an appendage of one of South America’s largest plantation societies.