“Cada Casa, Un Mundo”

This chapter examines the inner dynamics of the Portuguese merchant houses and the worlds they contained. The members of Portuguese merchant houses maintained tight and lasting bonds among themselves even if they were physically separated from each other by the span of oceans and continents. To bring a house into being required the bridging of both geographic and social distance, which was accomplished through interpersonal links. Various such ties existed: ties of kinship, affection, authority, deference, and collective responsibility.

Affection · Bridging (networking) · Deference · Economic geography · Geography · Interpersonal communication · Kinship · Political science · Portuguese · Social science · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology