Jean Colson, University of Southampton
Mercantile Migration is defined as a relationship between two groups of traders, in this case, Traders in Vianna do Castello, Portugal and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These connections are consolidated by kinship.
The migration took place within the context of a general migration from the Minho, Portugal. It appears to have reached a peak between 1830 and 1917. Migration was stimulated by the fact that individuals from trading families sought new sources of income in order to maintain and create households on both sides of the Atlantic. Mercantile migration also assumes continuous communication and relationship between kin on both sides of the Atlantic over more than one generation. As a result of this migration and return traders manage to retain assets on both sides of the Atlantic.
The data comes from archives in the two parishes of Santa Maria Maior and Nossa Senhora de Monserrate of the city of Vianna do Castello, Minho, Portugal. The database contains records drawn from five sources of data: electoral listings, cemetery records, passports, marriage registers and muster rolls. In order to begin the process of family reconstitution and to establish links between kin; we are currently accessing baptismal records, marriage records and data related to conscription. These records are of varying quality, but, at their best are very extensive.
We have chosen to record data in an extensive manner. As a group of eight individuals with differing intellectual backgrounds the staff working on this project wished to retain as much of the original data in the database to allow for different research projects to flower. The marriage records for example, allow us to determine not only the names of the parents of the bridal couple, but frequently the grandparents. Place of birth and marital status of parents and grandparents is frequently provided. Other records eg. electoral records, or cemetery records, provide names, professions, age, next of kin. The fields for input were designed to maintain the integrity of the documents so that it would be possible to consult the data in the database as it more or less replicated the original document. We have attempted to replicate as much of the layout of the original documents as possible so as to be able to extract the maximum advantage from them. We retained the original orthography for the names, giving the standardised names used for linkage alongside their original form. This allows us to define changes in usage and spelling, and to avoid the possibility of mis-identification and "false" linkages. We hope not to loose data by doing this. For the purposes of this paper, the data have come primarily from the passport lists, electoral lists and marriage documents.
The database is housed on the IBM 3090-150 mainframe under SIR. The linkage procedures used were devised by David Doulton, a member of the research group, and have been subject to extensive trials. (1).
The passport listings enable us to identify thirteen individuals named Quartim who left Vianna and crossed the Atlantic to Brazil more than once. (Passport lists record the names of Portuguese nationals who took out passports to travel to Brazil. Traders tended to take out passports, illegal Emigration cannot be counted, although there is anecdotal evidence that it occurred). The Quartim consist of: three individuals called Antonio Thomaz Quartim, two named Braz Leao Quartim, a Manoel Leao Quartim, a Jose Augusto Leao Quartim, a Leopoldina Amelia Quartim, a Joao Leao Quartim, his wife Donna Justina Leao Quartim, and their children. These men are recorded as having first gone to Brazil between the ages of 11- 15, the normal age for young men to take up an apprenticeship. Of the two women, Leopoldina Amelia Quartim, aged 23, and single, perhaps marriageable, took out her own passport to Brazil and is not accounted for in the Cemetery Records in Vianna. The other, Donna Justina Leao Quartim accompanied her husband and three children on the occasion of his second trip to Brazil. He made a third trip from Vianna to Brazil four years after the family departed from Vianna. The individuals named Antonio Thomaz Quartim are listed as follows:-
1.Antonio Thomaz Quartim : left for Brazil (1842) at the age of 19, as a single man. He took out another passport as a married man at the age of 38 (1862). He is listed as an Negociante, i.e., a wine shipper.2.Antonio Thomas Quartim : born in Santa Maria Maior, went to Brazil in 1882, aged 25. He was already listed as a single man, as a Negociante.
3. Antonio Thomaz Quartim : whom we have distinguished from (2). because although he is about the same age, he is listed as a student, not a Negociante, and he was born in the other parish (Monserrate) of Vianna. However, he dies a wealthy man at the age of 73, a 'Capitalista'(some one who can live from income on the assets and investments).
Examining the listings for Braz Leao Quartim, it appears that there must be two separate individuals; father and son. Braz Leao Quartim, the older of the two, is listed as leaving for Brazil in 1842, aged 12 and again at the age of 25 in 1855. Although he a witness to a Vianna wedding in 1870, along with his wife, his final destination apparently was not Vianna. We don't yet know where he was buried. The younger Braz Leao Quartim, left Vianna for a spell in Brazil in 1869, aged 13, to work as a Caixeiro (apprentice shop assistant) returning to Vianna where he is listed in the Cemetery lists as having died at the age of 43, married and a wealthy man, a 'Capitalista' Manoel Leao Quartim made one trip at the age of 26 to Rio, apparently never returning to Vianna, (no mention in the Cemetery lists). Jose Augusto Leao Quartim, traveled twice to Brazil, once at 15, and again at 22, returning to marry, settle and die in Vianna.
Some of these men appeared in Rio as traders, forming partnerships in business which trade in Import/Export - specifically dealing with foodstuffs and wine from the Minho which supplied the vital demand of daily life for the middle and upper classes of Rio de Janeiro. The most eminent of the Quartim listed in Almanack Laemaert are the first two: Antonio Thomaz Quartim, whom we suspect may be father and Son, as the Almanack refers to Antonio Thomaz Quartim Junior. The elder eventually became 'Barao de Quartim'. There is a third Antonio Thomaz Quartim Sobrinho who appears to take a minor role in the businesses. Braz Leao Quartim and later his son, Braz Leao Quartim Junior, form complex networks of partnerships with the Antonio Leao Quartims and with a Brazilian banker, Manoel Jose Soares. They first appear in 1872, and continue to be listed until 1889, the last year investigated. The variety of business partnerships appear to have multiplied taking on partners who also used Quartim as part of their family names: eg. Alvaro de Almeida Quartim, Joaquim Thomaz Quartim Sobrinho. ( the epithet Sobrinho means nephew, it implies that there existed an uncle with the name Joaquim Thomaz Quartim. "Thomaz Quartim" as we have already seen is an important part of a name.) The number of firms increased in importance and value, indicating that the various Antonio Thomaz Quartims and Braz Leao Quartims were becoming more an important component of the commercial life of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The Barao acquired his title as a result of his philanthropy, he was a member of various committees and contributed to the various Misericordias (hospitals and poor houses) and schools established for the benefit of the Portuguese trading families resident in Rio.
There appear to be a considerable number of Quartim who actually go to Brazil, some of whom return definitively, others who go back and forth, and others retiring to die in Vianna. It is important to note the patterns of movement created by the dates of departure and return, and final movement (death) the presence or absence of records in the cemetery lists. Antonio Thomaz Quartim, born about 1832, first traveled as a single young man to Rio de Janeiro at the age of 19 (1842), where he began as a trader. He returned to Vianna where he may have married.
He left for Europe and other foreign parts in 1862. His passport listed him as a married wine shipper. As we have not yet found any records indicating any aspect of his later life or of his death in Vianna, we assume that he must have remained in Brazil. His son Antonio Thomas Quartim (born in Monserrate) helped to establish a complex of businesses. His passports show him to have been born about 1858 in Vianna. He traveled to Brazil at the age of 25 in 1882, listed as a Negociante, probably having handled the family business matters in Vianna up to that time. He was single. We have no record of his return to Vianna. A third Antonio Thomas Quartim was born at approximately the same time in Vianna, but in the other parish of the city. (Santa Maria Maior). It is for this reason that we think that he is the Antonio Thomaz Quartim Sobrinho listed in the Almanack. He went to Brazil, aged 13, a student, but returned to live and die in Vianna. Cemetery records show him to have been a wealthy man, a Capitalista who died a widow in 1931, aged 73.
Braz Leao Quartim who was born shortly after the first Antonio Thomas Quartim (1839) also traveled to Brazil. He first left for Brazil in 1842, aged 12 - the same year as Antonio Thomas Quartim. The two men may have traveled and worked together, as they were associated in business by the Almanack listings. In 1855, aged 25, he took out a passport for Brazil. By 1870, we know that he was married to Christina Veal Quartim, because they were listed as witnesses to a wedding in Vianna. There is no record of his death in Vianna. Braz Leao Quartim Junior appears to be a son of the elder Braz Leao Quartim,(Junior implies 'son of'). He also spent some time (1869, age 13) in Rio de Janeiro as a caixeiro (apprentices who frequently worked in the family shop for fathers and uncles). He returned to Vianna to marry, the cemetery listings show that he died a married Capitalista aged 43, in Vianna Do Castello, Portugal.
Manoel Leao Quartim, born in 1851 in Vianna do Castello, has one passport record. He appears to have left for Brazil in 1857, at the age of 26. He was single. He never appears to have returned to Vianna.
Jose Augusto Leao Quartim, born 1848, presents us with a classic case of return migration. He took out two passports: one in 1855, aged 15 and a second in 1870, at the age of 22. He appears again in our records in 1907 in the Cemetery Records of Vianna.
Leopoldina Amelia Quartim left Vianna for Brazil. She was born in 1853 in Vianna, in 1876 she took out a Passport for Brazil in her own name. It appears that she never returned to Vianna.
Joao Leao Quartim his wife, Justina Leao Quartim, and their children, Alice, Alzira, and Carolina are an example of a family that traveled to Brazil. Joao Leao Quartim took passports out three times: 1863, age 11, and single. On the second occasion (1880) he took out a passport which included his family from Vianna. At this time, he is listed as married, age 29, and a Proprietario. This would imply that he was reasonably successful in business. Joao returned to Vianna on other occasions. The third application lists him in 1884 as aged 33, married, and a Proprietario. The last listing in the database shows him in the Electoral listing of 1931, age 79, married and a Proprietario.
The Quartim family as it is recorded and identified in the database spans a time period dating from the mid 18th century until 1931. There appear to be at least three generations of Quartims, some of them fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, others were undoubtedly siblings or cousins. The Quartims who are also listed in the Almanack Laemmaert (first noted in 1872) were first found in the Vianna database, beginning about 1830. Three separate individuals named Antonio Thomaz Quartim (the first of four Antonios was only listed as a grandfather in Marriage document of 1847) and the two Braz Leaos listed in Passport lists and the Almanack. We have located other Quartims who traded in partnership with the Antonios and the Braz Leaos, and who were merely identified as resident in Rio de Janeiro. Among these were Joaquim Thomaz Quartim Sobrinho, Augusto Quartim, and Alvaro de Almeida Quartim. The name Joaquim Thomaz Quartim Sobrinho implies that an uncle of this man existed who carried the same name. We need to find him. Augusto Quartim seems to have shared his name of Augusto with other Quartims who appear to have never left Vianna: Luiz Augusto Leao Quartim, Luis Quartim Graca, Luiz Augusto Graca. Luiz Augusto Leao Quartim was born about 1822 is listed in the Electoral records until 1875 when his name in in the Cemetery list aged. 54. His Marriage certificate which was recorded in 1847 listed his grandfather as Francisco Quartim (born about the middle of the 18th century and his father as Ricardo Leao Quartim born c.1776 - 1856. Luiz Augusto Graca, born about 1821 was able to be married in 1855, probably as a result of the financial support of the Brazilian business. Luis Quartim Graca, born c. 1908, and 23 in 1931 was listed in the Electoral lists as an agronomist. These three men do not appear to have left Vianna but might have benefited from the commercial successes of their kinsfolk in Brazil. We know of them through the electoral records, the cemetery records and the marriage records of Vianna. The marriage records indicate that Manoel Joze de Almeida, the father of Donna Anna de Almeida Quartim and the maternal grandfather of Donna Anna Emilia Quartim may well have been affinally linked to Alvaro de Almeida Quartim. Antonio Thomaz Quartim, the first of four, and the father of Ricardo Leao Quartim, and the paternal grandfather of Donna Anna Emilia Quartim was a contemporary of Francisco Quartim. Justina Hansel Quartim, left Brazil to marry a Quartim and die in Vianna. Born about 1822, she died in 1897, aged 55, apparently a wealthy woman, a Proprietaria and Capitalista. Her contemporary was D. Francesca Josefina Quartim who was born in Santa Maria Maior about 1820 and is listed as having died in Vianna in 1897, aged 79. She was a widow, and a housewife in Vianna.
These people are some of the Quartims who lived and died in Vianna. They helped to support the return migrants' travels to Rio and they were probably partly supported by remittances from the business ventures of Rio. The Portuguese preferred to work with their own local Banks, a fact much lamanted by the London banks in Rio at the time. This invariably meant that profits generated in Rio were recycled to Portugal, while Portuguese traders held balances in Rio.
The system of partible inheritance may have been the engine which drove the Quartims to do business in Rio and maintain property in Portugal. Resources sufficient and necessary to sustain grown members and create new households could only be obtained outside the immediate locality of Vianna, so that the economic world of Vianna included Brazil. We know that new households could only be financed from additional income, but that a migrant must also be initially supported by the parent household, thus the practise of sending young single men (aged 11 +) to work in their relatives businesses in Rio.
Evidence on capital accumulation on each side of the Atlantic can only be inferred until such time as the probate inventories for the traders have been subject to careful examination. The Almanack's listings for the Quartims in Rio begin to indicate by 1872 that they are running commercial ventures of moderate size. The Almanachs for the 1880's, provide evidence which suggests that by that time their financial resources had become considerable. Quartims in Rio de Janeiro played a prominent role amongst the Portuguese Business world in that city, still the greatest port in South America. In Vianna, Quartims continued to live and die. They were listed on the electoral rolls and cemetary registers as Proprietarios and Capitalistas well beyond 1900. At the same time, migration and the accompanying remittances sustained a major portion of the Minhoto economy.
The pattern of trans-Atlantic accumulation verified for the Minho and Rio does not have a modern parallel in the migrations of Portuguese to other parts of Western Europe, Canada and the USA. We would suggest that these latter are not mercantile migrations, Portugal supplied foodstuffs and wine to the great Brazilian coastal cities throughout the nineteenth century. The traders of Minho and the merchants of Rio could "exploit" kinship and connection on both sides of the Atlantic because they worked common trades and shared common interests. Such is not the case with these latter day migrations, which have taken place in a different context.
Subsequent development of the database is currently being undertaken and work on new sources and their linkage by Ms Jean Colson. In 1992-1993, with the help of Manfred Thaller, (Max Plank Institute fur Geschichte, Gottingen, Germany) the decision to abandon SIR was taken. Kleio, a data management system developed by Manfred Thaller has become the system which manages the Vianna data, as all the data has been imported into Kleio.
The present databases consists of data from Muster Rolls, Electoral Rolls, Cemetery Rolls, and Passports. The following sources are currently being accessed and new case identifiers are being created: Baptismal Records, 1622-1872) Marriage Records, (1822-1872), The Almanack Laemaert (1844-1889).