The great strategy of the Portuguese empire: D. Luís da Cunha and the origins of the Luso-Brazilian enlightened reformism

Abstract

The article presents the reform proposals of D. Luís da Cunha (1662-1749) in the context of the transition from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century in Portugal. For this, the article begins with the contextualization of the changes in the balance of power and political thought associated with the emergence of Great Britain as the centralizing Empire of the events of the 18th century. In this transition, important intellectual developments are in process, for example the rise of the Political Economy as an autonomous discipline and its relevance to the management of the interests of the Kingdom and the Empire. It follows with the characterization of the proposed reforms made by D. Luís da Cunha which aimed at raising the relative power of Portugal. In this way, D. Luís enumerates the need to increase the population contingent both in the Kingdom and in the areas of the sea, to facilitate the flow of goods and coins, to reduce certain privileges and even to review the statutes of the Inquisition.