Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada was a leading Portuguese American scholar. His activities as a naturalist and politician are intimately linked, which was commonplace in the eighteenth century. As Minister of Finance, he wrote "Memória sobre a estatística ou análise dos verdadeiros princípios desta ciência e sua aplicação à riqueza, artes e poder do Brasil" [Memory on statistics or an analysis of the true principles of this science and its application to the wealth, arts and power of Brazil], an as yet unpublished work that is held in the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro archive. The text shows how closely science and politics were intertwined in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
history of science in the Portuguese empire; Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada; history of statistics; history of Brazil
