Latest / The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History
The Portuguese Gold Rush That Bankrolled the World
While we’ve spent plenty of time exploring the spice routes and the Jesuit missions, there’s a quieter, more devastating engine behind Portugal’s global reach: the discovery of gold in the interior of Brazil. This episode shifts focus from the coast to the hinterlands, tracing the journey of the bandeirantes—those fierce explorers and slave-catchers who ventured deep into the South American continent in search of precious metals. We look at how the sudden influx of Brazilian gold in the early eighteenth century transformed Lisbon into one of Europe’s wealthiest capitals, funded the arts, and…
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