Tracing Afro-Atlantic Agroecologies: Early Modern Written Sources from Africa, Brazil, and the Alentejo (Southern Portugal)

The aim of this dataset is to compile a list of relevant written sources concerning the introduction of African crops into southern Portugal from the Early Modern period onward. The sources identified include chorographic accounts, travel narratives by foreign visitors, visitation records by members of the Order of Santiago (the principal landowner in the Alentejo), agricultural treatises, dictionaries, and botanical works related to the region. Over the course of the research, it became evident that understanding the agricultural context along the African coasts was essential for identifying which crops might have had the potential to be introduced into Portuguese territory. Accordingly, all available European narratives referring to the Atlantic coast of Africa and containing relevant information were collected. A similar approach was applied to Brazil, in an effort to understand the mechanisms of crop transfer across the Atlantic space. This research was conducted within the framework of the project Ecologies of Freedom: Materialities of Slavery and Post-Emancipation in the Atlantic World (PTDC/HAR-ARQ/4540/2021), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through the projects UIDB/00698/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00698/2020) and UIDP/00698/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00698/2020).本数据集旨在汇编自近代早期以来与非洲作物传入葡萄牙南部相关的各类书面文献。所收录的文献涵盖区域志记述、外国访客的旅行游记、圣地亚哥骑士团（该团为阿连特茹地区的主要土地所有者）成员的巡视记录、农业专著、词典以及该地区相关植物学著作。 研究过程中发现，唯有明晰非洲沿海地区的农业背景，方能精准判断哪些作物具备传入葡萄牙领土的潜力。据此，本研究收集了所有可获取的、涉及非洲大西洋沿岸且包含相关信息的欧洲记述文献。同时，为探究跨大西洋作物传播机制，本研究采用了类似的方法对巴西相关资料进行整理。 本研究依托葡萄牙科学技术基金会（FCT）资助的项目框架开展，具体为项目《自由的生态：大西洋世界中的奴隶制与后解放时期物质性》（PTDC/HAR-ARQ/4540/2021），并通过项目UIDB/00698/2020（https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00698/2020）及UIDP/00698/2020（https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00698/2020）提供支持。