Agreements between the English crown and Brazil for the “freedom” of worship: debates from the perspective of a 19th-century legal order

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze how political and commercial agreements, established between Portugal and England, were fundamental for discussions on freedom of religion in Brazil in the first half of the 19th-century. Based on an investigation based on social, political and cultural issues, the legal and periodical documents used were important to understand diplomatic debates on ecclesiastical issues in a territory of official Catholic devotion. In this sense, it was possible to note the limits of the established agreements, openness for the insertion of new cultural practices, representations of the protestant community and a formation of a different ecclesiastical scenario, compared to the one seen before the establishment of the Royal Family in Brazil.