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Illegitimate Children and High Society Families in the Social Hierarchies of Portuguese America: Rio de Janeiro, Eighteenth Century

In: e-Journal of Portuguese History
Author:
Victor Luiz Alvares Oliveira null

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This paper examines the relationship of local high society families in Portuguese America with their children conceived out of wedlock in terms of the inheritances left to the latter in wills. Special attention is given to the case of certain generations of the Sampaio e Almeida family, who belonged to the local high society in colonial Rio de Janeiro. From registers found in Catholic parishes, it was possible to reconstruct the social dynamics of that time, illustrating the agreements that were made and the logic that was involved in the acceptance of illegitimate children within a high society family, while simultaneously discovering the hierarchies that prevailed both within noble families and among the population living on their estates.

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