Portuguese participation in the slave trade 141taxes levied to meet particular items of expenditure: for instance, the levy
introduced in 1664 to cover expenditure on the celebration of the peace between
Portugal and the Netherlands, and to help pay for Catherine of Braganza's
dowry on the occasion on her marriage to Charles II of England, originally
intended to be applied for sixteen years, this levy was subsequently extended
for a further twenty. In 1724 a tax was introduced to pay for the construction
of the fortress at Ajudá; while in 1757 the rebuilding of Lisbon, which had been
destroyed in the earthquake of 1755, was charged to the slave trade. Thus the
royal treasury received a substantial return throughout the duration of the
trade. It is, however, very difficult to attribute it to this or that particular
activity, except in the case of taxes levied for specific purposes, as mentioned
above.
In regard to the financing of the slave trade, and hence the question of
those who made money out of it, Frédéric Mauro has drawn attention to the
part played by the Jews—and the 'new Christians' from the sixteenth century
onwards—in the formation of the Portuguese upper middle class. There is
room for a thorough study not only of the general question of their importance
for Portugal's commercial vitality at the time of the expansion, and their role
in the early stages of development of Brazil's sugar economy, but also of the
slave trade, which is inextricably bound up with those topics. After all, there
were many Jewish and ' new Christian contractors ' whose commercial activities
were never confined to the slave trade. Moreover, while it is difficult to assess
the profits that were made out of legal slave trading, it is impossible to estimate
those made by smugglers. The latter played a considerable part over the cen-
turies, but we can only guess at the purpose for which the capital thus acquired
was used in Portugal itself.
Once again, the question of the slave trade is inseparable from the overall
problem of a given economic system. In very general terms, the main benefi-
ciaries were not so much those who engaged in the trade as those who turned
cheap labour to account to improve their land and their mines. In this sense
the effects of the slave trade on the socio-economic development of the country
were greater, and are much more apparent, in Brazil than in Portugal.
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1936; No. 15, December 1936. Vol. Ill, Nos. 16-18, January-March 1937; No. 19, April
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