Nuno Camarinhas

This text uses the generic concept of ‘imperial cities’ in a rather general sense. The concept is usually used in the literature to designate a category of 19th-century cities that followed the French model of Paris as capitals of empires extending their dominance over diverse populations and territories, most often with overseas dominions (Driver and Gilbert, 1999, pp. 1-17). These cities would be, in their materiality, the expression of the power that gave origin to and sustained this empire over territories and peoples.

The concept we use here is different. From the outset, it is not focused on the idea of a single capital of the empire, the central seat of political power, but rather on the quality that made each of the chosen cities – Lisbon, Goa, and Bahia – a pole of the Portuguese imperial experience. Within the chosen framework of “imperial city”, we consider the notion of regional political-administrative centers. If Lisbon is the indisputable capital, Goa and Bahia will be the first centers of the two main regions in which we can subdivide the Portuguese overseas dominions: the State of India (Estado da Índia) and Brazil. As imperial cities, both Goa and Bahia will be at the receiving end of a transposition of urban and administrative models. With their distinct genesis – Goa was conquered from the Sultanate of Bijapur, while Bahia was founded and built from scratch as a fortress city –, they will experience quite different political, social, economic, and cultural dynamics. Being cities built in the colonies, they are characterized by a complex intersection of influences, interactions, impositions, and adaptations (Nasr and Volait, 2003, pp. xi-xxxviii)^[1].

A city built overseas is always a synthesis of the knowledge, power practices and social interactions constructed by the society that promotes it. At the same time, it has a dynamic component of appropriation of local solutions, influence from indigenous cultures, and adaptation to territories with vastly different conditions. Finally, they are always the result of an imposition from an external power in a strange territory (Pinol, 2003, pp. 279-281). Unlike the Spanish imperial experience, where cities were “the backbone of the empire,” “instruments of conquest” and “instruments of colonization” (Pinol, 2003, pp. 287-290), in the Portuguese experience the first territorial settlements consisted essentially in the occupation or construction of coastal posts that were articulated with navigation and the shipment of goods. The development of overseas cities occurs at a more advanced moment in the colonization of these territories. However, Goa, a pre-existing city that was captured in 1510, will be an exception from an early stage, raised as the “the State of India’s central core of power” (Bethencourt and Curto, 2010, p. 213), and endowed, from the 1530s, with governing and administration institutions transferred from Europe (Santos, 1999). In the 17th century, Goa will be matched by the rise of Bahia as a political center. Both imperial cities will become centers of power in their respective regions, headquarters of the Crown’s delegated representatives (governors and viceroys) and, of particular interest for our text, poles that will structure a multi-continental system of justice administration —and, thereby, of government— and of circulation of agents, with the subsequent circulation of administrative culture, knowledge and power.

In early modern times, especially from the second half of the 17th century onwards, we witness the extension of the Portuguese Crown’s justice administration apparatus from mainland Portugal to some of its overseas territories. This movement certainly trails the increasing importance of overseas exploration, but at the same time constitutes itself as the logical consequence of the impulse given by King Philip I’s reforms. These reforms, however, did not suppress the previous reality, but contributed to better structure and regulate it, providing institutions of justice that sought to respond to the old demands of the kingdom’s population for a decentralized judicial structure, by attempting to systematize the accumulated legislative corpus. These are the main milestones of the transition from the 16th to the 17th century. Portugal and its overseas domains received a new compilation – the Ordenações Filipinas – which summed up and updated the pre-existing body of laws,^[2] while the judicial system was equipped with an institutional structure extending from the center of power in Lisbon to a series of municipalities in the kingdom. This logic of territorial hierarchy aimed to be more rational, while accommodating previously granted privileges and autonomies, as well as the habitus of the former dynasty. The end of the union of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns (1581-1640) and the first decades of the new Braganza dynasty would see the consolidation of these structures, especially in mainland Portugal.

The first Portuguese experience of creating judicial posts in overseas territories took place in the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, where judges (ouvidores and corregedores) were appointed at the end of the 15th century^[3]. In the mid-16th century the islands witnessed the creation of municipal judges (juízes de fora): in 1554, both in Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, and in Funchal, Madeira.^[4] While these territories could be seen as the first trials of the transposition of judicial administration structures from mainland Portugal, the launching of the Courts of Appeal (relações) in the Portuguese overseas dominions would not occur until the 1580s. Earlier, in the 1540s, a first step towards the creation of the Ouvidorias-gerais was taken in the State of India and Brazil. This was a special itinerant jurisdiction held by a judge called ouvidor-geral. In the case of the ouvidor-geral of the State of India, the regulation of 1544, proposed by chancellor Francisco Toscano and ouvidor-geral Simão Martins, draws the rudiment of a future appeals court in Goa. This text sought to respond to the need for “more officials to administer justice-related issues”^[5] due to the increasing number of people sent there or converted to Christianity (Rivara, 1865, p. 177). This first regulation already defined a mixed judicial body which received the proceedings that took place wherever the court was held but also reviewed appeals from lower instances. These appeals were revised by a collegiate body, called relação, including a special judge with jurisdiction over the affairs of orphans and deceased people (provedor dos defuntos) and a judge in charge of the Crown’s interests (juiz dos feitos da coroa). The appeals could be brought before the Central Court of Appeals in Lisbon (Casa da Suplicação). Thus, in the first half of the 16th century, we have a first line of judicial appeals which, despite the existence of a viceroy or governor in Goa, linked this territory directly to Lisbon in matters of justice administration. We do not have any documentation to clarify whether it was effective or used by litigants.

Four years later, in 1548, a second regulation sought to respond to the logistical difficulties posed by the mission of the three Goa judges, “as they are few [the judges] and the cases, many”^[6] (Rivara, 1865, p. 206). The regulation of September 26, 1548, increased the number of judges, although it did not mention their number. In 1554, thanks to a provision of viceroy Afonso de Noronha, we learn that it was difficult to gather five judges to decide on death sentences, for example, commanding that those cases should be heard by just three magistrates instead.

Less than two years later, a new regulation was issued to clarify the duties of the prosecutor (promotor da justiça) appointed for Goa. We realize that this first experience of a Court of Appeals was still somewhat organic and advanced hesitantly, trying to face local needs and always tied to the possibility of sending qualified people to India. At that moment, the Goa Court of Appeals was not yet a territorially fixed institution; it was itinerant, actually consisting in the assembly of the judges who composed it. The document refers to “the city or fortress, where said Court is”^[7] (Rivara,1865, p. 227), just as in mainland Portugal. However, with this third regulation we see that the structure becomes interestingly more complex, with the transfer of many of the ouvidor-geral’s former functions, namely the reception of inquiries made where the Court resided and the inspection (devassas) of fortresses and outposts in India, Ormuz, Malacca, and Sofala.

On October 10, 1550, a provision from Governor Jorge Cabral (1549-1550) ordered that, in his absence from Goa, the Court would act as deputy seat of power, for the purpose of assessing the cases that the Ordenações stipulated as pertaining to the Civil Court in Lisbon (Rivara, 1865, p. 235). There is a clear parallelism with Lisbon: the Goa Court of Appeals had not only been created by the king in the image of the capital’s court, but it also assumed a jurisdiction equivalent to that of the Civil Court which operated wherever the king and his royal entourage resided.

If we regard this effort to build a higher court in the Portuguese State of India, we must also take into account that the justices of the scattered territories in said State fell within the remit of the fortress captains. These captains had criminal jurisdiction and could apply capital punishment without appeal. However, the noblemen (fidalgos), fortress governors (alcaides-mores), outpost governors (feitores), clerks and ship captains at their ports were outside of their jurisdiction: these cases were referred to the viceroy. In civil law, they had jurisdiction over cases involving up to 50,000 réis (100,000 in the cases of Malacca and Maluku, due to their distance from India), also without appeal. They could impose penalties of up to fifty cruzados.

In March 1571, a mission of four magistrates presided by Duarte Carneiro Rangel, judge of the High Court (Desembargo do Paço), was created and deployed to Goa. Just as in mainland Portugal, the mission would inquire about “justice issues”^[8] in the State of India (Rivara, 1865, p. 770-783). This mission (alçada) was utterly necessary and unprecedented in India since the Portuguese first settled in those territories, as distance prevented the swift provision of justice. In addition to its president, the group was composed of three judges (a chancellor, a corregedor, and an adjunct), a bailiff, and a clerk. The president of the alçada would apply the regulations of the Regedor of the Casa da Suplicação and of the Desembargo do Paço, which reveals how important was the mission, even symbolically. Under these regulations, the mission could “remedy the defects of any cases and inspections”^[9] (Rivara, 1865, p. 771), arbitrate on pecuniary penalties, or exonerate from deportations (degredos) or penalties of up to four years.

The procedure for this alçada was generally similar to the inspections and enquiries in mainland Portugal. Headquartered in the city of Goa, of the court held the status of “head of State” and catered to all sorts of “ships and people from everywhere else”^[10] (Rivara,1865, p. 779), who could likewise be called in as witnesses. It could act upon cases from any location and even send judges to fortresses or places of interest. One of its peculiarities was of the faculty to make public announcements in “Moorish and infidel lands to where some Portuguese have fled”^[11], with the aim of reincorporating them to the community (Rivara, 1865, p. 772). In addition to justice administration, the alçada also had the responsibility of assessing the viceroys and governors who had been in office since 1557, mainly regarding issues of power and jurisdiction. They even intervened on the relations with “Gentiles and infidels”^[12], dealing with their conversion, the nature of armed conflicts, and even cases of oppression or injustice towards them.

All matters under the purview of the Crown’s administration were subject to the Court’s inquiry, including what is most relevant to our analysis: the magistrates that constituted the nascent Goa Court of Appeals. The alçada was meant to evaluate this particular body in just as with the inspection of “corregedores, judges, and other justice officials”^[13] in mainland Portugal (Rivara, 1865, p. 775), but paying special attention to the following affairs: whether they prevented the conversion of Gentiles; whether they oppressed or extorted the latter, acting unjustly in the cases that involved them; the trafficking of weapons with “Moors and infidels”^[14]; the imposition of new taxes on the Gentiles, or whether they took bribes from them. The alçada also scrutinized the practice of the “abominable and nefarious sin”^[15], carnal involvement with “Moorish, Jewish, or infidel women”^[16], sorcery, and commodity monopolies (Rivara, 1865, p. 777). Regarding the crimes that fell under the scope of these enquiries, the alçada had powers to execute its sentences without appeal, as long as the capital punishment resulted from the agreement of five judges after a vote.

Thanks to a 1574 royal provision on the payment to the judges who composed the alçada, we know that the chancellor António Cerqueira succeeded Carneiro Rangel in its presidency (Rivara, 1865, p. 894). There is scarce information on the actual work of this alçada, but some scholars frame it in what could be described as a “competition between two capitals,” or a “clearly competing body of the vice-royal institution” (Santos, 1999, p. 320).

During the reign of King Philip I, in February 1587, a justice reform was carried out by establishing a new regulation for the Goa Court of Appeals and the magistrates in the State of India. For the first time, an overseas higher court was granted a modern structure, in line with the reforms that were taking place in mainland Portugal: five years earlier, a new regulation for the Casa da Suplicação in Lisbon had been established, and a new Appeals Court had been created in the city of Oporto. All of these actions seemed to follow the same logic of imparting justice closer to the population. The creation of the Court in Oporto aimed to tackle the discomfort of “coming before the Casa da Suplicação and the Civil Court [in Lisbon] with their appeals, often concerning such petty cases over amounts so small as to be worth less than the expense of litigating them”.^[17] In criminal cases, the new Oporto Court of Appeals would be the second and final instance for the northern regions of mainland Portugal. Regarding civil matters, the Court’s jurisdiction covered cases involving up to 100,000 réis in chattels and 80,000 réis in real estate. Any litigation over higher amounts could be appealed to the Casa da Suplicação.^[18]

The reform of the Goa Court of Appeals is part of the reformist policies at the start of King Phillip I’s reign. This ambition is explained in the preamble of the 1587 Regulation:

being […] informed that in the city of Goa, head of the said States [of the parts of India], the Kings my ancestors, of glorious memory, had ordained the creation of a Court of Appeals in which some Judges, chosen as in a supreme court, should decide on the cases, according to regulations that ought to be reformed as time passed; and wanting to uphold the same intention in the performance of my duties, I have therefore provided for the needs of said Court, for which purpose I have ordered some members from my council to deal with these issues, both in terms of its regulation and of expanding the number of judges, that it may proceed on matters of justice with greater authority and ease^[19] (Rivara, 1865, pp. 1124-1125).

Similar to mainland Portugal, the purpose of King Phillip I was not to transform Portuguese institutions in the image of their Castilian counterparts, but rather to update the legal order, building on the previous legislative corpus, just like with the Ordenações Filipinas (Silva, 2000, p. 313). The Oporto Court of Appeals, first, and the overseas Courts of Appeals, afterwards, replicated the operative and organizational logic of the Casa da Suplicação in its dimension as an appeals court. In Goa’s case, we must consider the pre-existence of a relação which, however, had never been endowed with a structure comparable to a superior court. The scarcity of human resources in previous decades precluded such endeavor. That proto-Court of Appeals was essentially itinerant between 1544 and 1587, focusing on the figure of the ouvidor-geral and some judges who performed the various court duties, often cumulatively. With the 1587 regulation, the number of judges was fixed at ten: an officer who would act as both a ‘regular’ judge and the judge of the chancellery (chancellor); an officer for civil matters (ouvidor-geral do cível); an officer for criminal matters (ouvidor-geral do crime); an officer for matters pertaining to the Crown’s interests, treasury and taxes (juiz dos feitos da coroa, fazenda e fisco); a prosecutor; an officer for matters pertaining to the deceased and the orphans (provedor-mor dos defuntos); and four substitute judges. The chancellor, the ouvidores, the prosecutor and the provedor dos defuntos would act as associate judges (desembargadores dos agravos) in cases with which they were not previously involved. The substitute judges served in the absence of any of the associate judges. The Viceroy had a role equivalent to that of the Governor of the Casa da Suplicação, being excluded from voting or signing sentences. His role was essentially political, concerning the use of royal grace and the symbolic weight of his office to act as a guarantor of the royal administration agents’ compliance with the law.

The judges held the same criminal and civil jurisdiction as in the Lisbon Court. They considered the appeals that were beyond the purview of the ouvidor-geral do cível and the provedor-mor dos defuntos. They also heard civil appeals from the ouvidor of Goa, and judges of orphans and other lower.ranking judges (juízes ordinários) from the city, as well as from the ouvidores of the State of India’s fortresses and the captains of fortresses with no ouvidores. Finally, they assessed criminal and civil petitions from the city of Goa and its surroundings. Both the criminal and the civil ouvidor-geral had jurisdiction over crimes perpetrated in the city of Goa and its surroundings, and over appeals of their competence from the territories of the State of India and the city of Goa. They also assumed a role like that of the criminal and civil corregedores at the Casa da Suplicação.

The juiz dos feitos da coroa had jurisdiction over the matters related to the Crown’s interests, the treasury and royal taxes. He ruled on appeals from cases that occurred not only in Goa and its surroundings, but also from every corner of the State of India. Once again, this position was modelled on the juiz dos feitos da coroa of the Casa da Suplicação. The provedor-mor dos defuntos followed the regulation given to the provedores of the city of Lisbon and mainland Portugal. He heard appeals from judges of the orphans in Goa and the fortresses of the State of India; the appeals from their provedores, however, were judged by the collegiate body of the Court of Appeals.

It is interesting to note that, similarly to the Casa da Suplicação, Goa Court of Appeals had this dual nature of first instance and appeals court for the city and the region. In addition to the Court of Appeals’ judges, with direct jurisdiction over the urban territory of Goa, the city had an ouvidor and a judge of the orphans whose regulations were updated by the letter of 1587.

The 1587 Regulation constitutes a true reform of justice administration in the State of India, including a title dedicated to fortress judges on the territories of Mozambique, Ormuz, Diu, Daman, Vasai (Baçaim), Chaul, Malacca, Maluku, and, in a second title, Macao. Their powers were equivalent to those of the ouvidor of Goa but, given the administrative nature of the fortresses and their territorially isolated character, the regulation stipulated in detail the coordination with their captains and, if necessary, their financial superintendents (vedores). The criminal cases that exceeded their jurisdiction would be referred to the Goa Court of Appeals, where they would be judged by the ouvidor-geral do crime. The ouvidores of the fortresses farthest from Goa (Mozambique, Ormus, Malacca, Maluku, and Macao) had increased powers to issue insurance letters^[20] and a wider jurisdiction for civil cases. The purview for criminal cases was the same as that of overseas fortress captains. In fact, the mainland model-role were the corregedores.

In those years, the crown was considering the need to bring to Brazil an appeals court to replace the ouvidor-geral, an office established since the time of the first Governor-General, Tomé de Sousa (1549-53). Between 1586 and 1588, the new structure was drafted and planned for Bahia (Schwartz, 2011, pp. 63 ss), in line with the process of administrative reform that the Crown had been promoting since the beginning of the dynastic union. In mainland Portugal, requests for reform dated back to the times of King John III’s parliament (cortes), whereas for Brazil, the opinion of the Desembargo do Paço was that a court of appeals would prove better in to administer justice (Schwartz, 2011, p. 63).^[21] In 1588 —the date clearly demonstrates the multi-continental scope of this reform—, “the king sent […] to the State of Brazil a Court of Appeals, with a number of judges that would suffice for the proper administration of justice and its affairs; which then had no effect on account of the successes of the sea”^[22] (Silva, 1854, pp. 258-265).^[23] On this trip was Francisco Giraldes, appointed governor of Brazil, accompanied by ten judges. Faced with adverse winds, they were unable to reach Bahia, being afterwards diverted to Santo Domingo, from where they had to return to Portugal. We do not know the content of these judges’ regulations, but their number suggests that the structure would be similar to what had been implemented the previous year in Goa.

The project to create the Bahian Court of Appeals was suspended for a few years, largely due to insufficient financial resources in the territory to sustain such a high number of magistrates (Schwartz, 2010, p. 65). Unlike Goa, where there were judges acting jointly with the ouvidor-geral and a regular structure of justice administration since the 1550s, the establishment of a court in Brazil would be postponed until 1609. Until then, King Phillip II maintained its ouvidor-geral in Bahia and a couple of magistrates in Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro.

According to Schwartz (2010, p. 65), the 1609 regulation was probably close to the 1588 one. The Court’s structure resembled that of Goa, with some specificities. In Bahia there was a smaller number of substitute judges (two instead of four). There was only one ouvidor-geral, which joined both criminal and civil justice, and three associate judges without a defined role, whereas in Goa all judges occupied specific court functions. But the department distribution was the same: chancellery; criminal and civil justice; prosecution of Crown, treasury, and taxes’ issues; and matters regarding the deceased and the orphans. As for the Goa Court of Appeals, the referent of each of these functions was its counterpart at the Casa da Suplicação, in Lisbon.

The troubled life of the early years of the Court of Bahia would end with its abolition in 1626, following the crisis caused by the Dutch invasion of northeastern Brazil. It would not be reinstated until 1652, after the restoration of the Portuguese crown, with a reduction in the number of judges to eight. The position of substitute judge was abolished and the role of criminal and civil ouvidor was split into two different positions.

From a functional point of view, in this transition from the 16th to the 17th century, both overseas courts of appeals had a perfectly established organization, with well-delimited functions that covered the pertinent areas of the great judicial courts of mainland Portugal. In both we find the ambivalence of uniting the city court and the regional court of appeals under a single jurisdiction. It is an important milestone in the transition from an itinerant justice, as administered by the ouvidores-gerais, to a justice that was both more regular and more integrated into the procedure mechanisms characteristic of early modern royal justice. Each of these functions was served by judges specialized in their duties.

One of the characteristics of imperial cities as conceived in this text is their location in territories with populations of very diverse origins, where coexistence implied different types of interaction ranging from tolerance to repression and violent domination. What these regulations tell us about these populations is revealing of the period in which they are created. Goa’s case is quite illustrative in this respect. The only references to indigenous people (“gente da terra”) are found in the sections related to the ouvidores of the State of India’s fortresses and Macao. In the first case, these populations are put under the criminal jurisdiction of these ouvidores, following what the Ordenações Filipinas stipulated for the captains of African fortresses^[24]. In the case of Macao, in the last article of their regime, we find the express order not to “interfere in the Mandarin jurisdiction over the Chinese and Chinchews, and to rightly administer justice in the affairs between them and the [Portuguese] residents”^[25]. As far as the Court of Appeals is concerned, it was clear that their legal action would essentially be reserved for the population of Portuguese origin. A letter from the Viceroy of India D. Jerónimo de Azevedo to King Phillip II, probably dated December 1616, on issues of justice administration and projects to reduce expenses through a possible reduction of personnel, shows that the viceroy not only defended the existing configuration of the court but also called for its expansion. In this letter, he refers to the importance of creating a “private judge for the people of the land, who overflow the magistrates with litigation”^[26], arguing that “the causes of these people should be judged by said judge verbally, as per ancient custom,” in order to “put a limit to these terrible people. It seems that the ancient kings of these parts, who knew their humor, used to rule this way”^[27] (Rivara, 1865, pp. 1151 ss).

This absence of non-European populations in the 1587 regulation contrasts with some of the previous documentation, namely the ouvidor-geral regulations, where these references were sometimes abundant. The 1548 regulation authorized the ouvidor‑mor to flog without appeal “captive slaves, and people of the land”^[28], excluding those traders, goldsmiths, Brahmins or Gāunkārs (village administrators).^[29] At the same time, it limited the judicial access of the “people of the land” only to “cases of death or serious injury, and false oaths or falsehood”.^[30] The same regulation included a series of measures that imposed a time limit on the imprisonment of “people of the land” without trial or charge, both in criminal and civil matters. The regulation of the alçada had multiple references to the need to inspect practices involving non-European populations, either with regard to the “issue of the conversion of Gentiles and infidels”^[31] (Arts. VII, XXVII and LXII), or the acts of “unjust war on infidels and Gentiles”^[32] (Art. VIII), their oppression (Arts. IX and XXVIII), or whether justice was done and kept “especially regarding the Gentiles”^[33] (Arts. XI and XXIX). The fact that the alçada should be announced also in the lands and villages that suffered under Crown officers (art. XXI) reveals some concern to collect information about their misconduct in the interaction with the non-Portuguese population. Finally, a provision of the Governor of India António Moniz Barreto, dated December 10, 1573, sought to clarify the cases in which the ouvidor–geral could deal with disputes from the “people of the land,” due to their alleged conflicting nature and the mandatory bail required to conduct the proceedings (Rivara, 1865, pp. 888-891). The rest of the disputes would be referred to the future position of a specialized judge (conservador dos christãos da terra) who would decide on all their causes, hence alleviating the ouvidor-geral’s workload (Rivara, 1865, p. 889).

This earlier legislation refers to a model of separation of jurisdictions in which mainland Portugal’s legal order was applied to the Portuguese overseas communities, while maintaining local legal systems for other populations (Hespanha, 1995). This legal separation was also a physical separation, with the existence of separate neighborhoods and villages where the different communities lived. This model depended on the kind of power that was viable in each territory, granting a degree of autonomy that made of the Portuguese king “more of a suzerain than a ‘sovereign’” (Xavier, 2006, p. 4).

The regulation of the Court of Appeals and the obliteration of references to non-European populations demonstrate “a new homogenizing model that did not accommodate the presence of different communities” (Xavier, 2006, p. 15). The Bahia Court of Appeals’ regulation points to a similar reality, with a total absence of references to the other populations present in Portuguese America. They fell, instead, under other disciplinary and judicial frameworks; the Court of Appeals, the highest institution of the Portuguese judicial apparatus, was intended as a justice administration system for the population of European descent. In the later development of Portuguese America, the justice boards, collegiate bodies composed by magistrates and governing officers (juntas de justiça), were in charge of dealing with the non-European population.^[34] At the beginning of the 17th century, these populations fell under the purview of the lower jurisdictions of the captaincies.

We described the creation of the two overseas poles that, together with Lisbon, structured the early-modern Portuguese judicial apparatus. The new model of justice administration it entailed would remain in force until the end of the Ancient Regime, with some rational adjustments in the second half of the 18th century. The previous model had followed the practices of inspection and visitation developed in the later Middle Ages, which were based on extraordinary, itinerant judicial bodies and the ad-hoc allocation of jurisdictions. What we showed is that, in the mid-16th century, this model experienced a change in the State of India, the first step towards providing that extraordinary jurisdiction with a less personal character and promoting collegiate decision, with a larger or smaller number of agents who would tend to be learned jurists. The new model was based on functional diversification, a sedentary jurisdiction, and the collegiate activity of the Court of Appeals. The presence of several judges meeting to reach the main court decisions is a clear mark of such innovation.

From the point of view of royal administration, these courts in a way anticipate the creation and expansion of the administrative structure that will be built in various parts of the Portuguese pluricontinental empire. They are not the culmination of this process but precede or go along with it. From the moment they became active, the lower structures of the justice administration apparatus began to develop through a process of capillarity. It is a phenomenon common to both poles and is representative of a conjuncture of new structures established on the ground. At the time of creation of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Appeals, however, the reverse process is verified, as many of the lower administrative structures had already been established, and so they were endorsed by a higher decision-making institution.

These two poles would form the basis of a self-structuring apparatus that grew organically, obeying to very diverse expansion logics and stimulated by multiple dynamics (demographic, economic, political, symbolic), of which the courts of appeals are the main referents: on the one hand, from the point of view of the justice administration itself, in their capacity as higher instances of appeal; on the other hand, as gateways to the upper stages of the judicial career. Served by learned judges enjoying the privileges of chief justices (desembargadores), the highest stage of this career path, it was in these courts where the members of this royal officers’ corps could attain a permanent appointment. The entry into these courts depended, to a large extent, on the individual merits of each judge, which could be based on previous service in other places or, following the logics of the Ancient Regime, on belonging to privileged social groups or the benefit of mercies and royal privileges (Camarinhas, 2010, p. 266 ss). What emerges from both the proceedings and the agents’ trajectories is the extremely interconnected character of this system and its high degree of inner circulation, an idiosyncrasy of the Portuguese judicial apparatus (Camarinhas, 2018). In this respect, Goa and Bahia stood out as the main nodes of this multicontinental network, functioning as arrival points and key places in the communication with mainland Portugal and the decision center of the apparatus. The higher instances in Lisbon were accessed through these cities. Within a common apparatus, sharing common operating logics, the same legal system and the same body of agents, it is interesting to note the establishment of tacit rules and differentiated circulation practices. At the higher level, the two hemispheres whose centers were Bahia and Goa held very different symbolic statuses until the end of the Ancient Regime. Goa, even after the decline of its economic importance, would always keep a symbolic ascendant over Bahia: from Goa, judges ascended directly to the Casa da Suplicação in Lisbon; coming from Bahia, they would necessarily have to go through the Oporto Court of Appeals until the 19th century (Camarinhas, 2015, p. 123).

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