The “Orient” in the “New World”

The history of Brazil in its colonial period is characterized by the movement of Asian people, goods, and merchandise radiating from Brazilian ports that received ships via the Carreira da Índia, the main sea route integrating the Portuguese Empire both commercially and politically. Asian memory and imagination were present in the urban centres of the Portuguese American colonies in the form of cultural material before the actual presence of Asians, which began to occur through cycles of immigration into Brazilian lands during the nineteenth century. This article traces the circulation of ivory carvings from Asia into Portuguese America as a way of illustrating the presence of Asian material cultures in the New World, as well as the relevance of the Carreira da Índia to these cultural connections

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · East Asia · Economy · Empire · Ethnology · Geography · Immigration · Portuguese · World War II · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History

• Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542-1773

  Jill Burke•Sixteenth Century Journal•2000

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