Abstract
The article contemplates partial results of a search on governance careers in the State of Maranhão, in the eighteenth century, focusing on the analysis of the mechanisms that enabled the social promotion of Alexandre de Sousa Freire. The paper presents a biographical sketch of the military and colonial administrator, considers the participation of families in service to the monarchy, the value of the feats of arms of the personage in the Kingdom in North Africa and the exercise of overseas government. These traits define, in general, the contours of the career of a representative of the Portuguese stately nobility, which in second son, was not destined to inherit the property and landlords of the paternal house and needed to be its own. Therefore, insertion of the fragments are identified in power and kinship networks in Portugal and especially in America, that somehow interfered in their quest for personal advancement and Royal Service.
Keywords:
Alexandre de Sousa Freire; networks; social promotion