Enlightened mineralogists: Mining knowledge in colonial Brazil, 1750-1825

This case study of the intellectual and professional trajectories of two Br azilian colonial scientists illustrates the constitution of a local scienti fic context, its characteristics, and its limits. In Brazil, colonial scien tists: saw themselves as inextricably linked to the Portuguese metropolis: their science was not seen as an instrument of colonial resistance, but rat her as an improving factor, mobilizing natural resources for the achievemen t of economic and intellectual goals set by both imperial and colonial inte rests. The development of science in Brazil was not so much a process of tr ansmission as a part of the same process that occurred contemporaneously in Portugal.