The Metropolis is Here: Supply Networks and the Port of Rio de Janeiro in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This presents factors and processes involved in the formation of networks for
supplying foodstuffs in colonial Brazil, in which the port of Rio de Janeiro acted as the main hub of socio-spatial relationships with other coastal ports of the country. This study of the food supply network of the colonial period does not merely retrieve from the past what is essential for understanding the present, but instead tries to understand the original logic and socio-spatial practices involved in the rise of the network. The primary source used is the Codices of Shipping for the period of 1795-1828, which was researched in the General Archive of the City of Rio de Janeiro (AGCRJ). The supply of food in the period of study was marked by unstable interconnections between the ports. Where networks existed they took the form of differentiated vectors and a plurality of points was articulated by numerous branches stemming out from privileged territorial points, especially in the Central-South.