Supply and demand for coins in colonial Brazil (1695-1807)

Abstract

This paper challenges the hypotheses that in colonial Brazil there was a shortage of coins and that the monetary system was “chaotic” due to the simultaneous circulation of national and provincial coins with different values for gold and silver. We present new estimates of the supply of national gold coins for the period 1762-1807, as well as of the coinage and the regional circulation of provincial currency. The analysis of both the data collected and of the contemporary documentation indicates that the national gold coins, although referred to as “remittance money”, circulate more and more internally, while the provincial coins spread throughout the colony playing the role of small change in the domestic trade.

Keywords: coins; provincial currency; monetary history; colonial Brazil