As soon as d. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho took over as the Navy and Overseas Ministry, in 1796, he started a process that would try to solve the Portuguese dependency of imported saltpeter. He gathered around him a team comprised mostly of Portuguese-Brazilians. João da Silva Feijó, fray Mariano da Conceição Veloso and Manuel Jacinto Nogueira da Gama received orders to do experiments on the artificial production of saltpeter. Simultaneously, at the minister's behest, Veloso started the translation and publication of French and English books on the subject. The publishing company Arco do Cego and the production of saltpeter, besides the involvement of Luso-Brazilians in both initiatives, are concurrent and intertwined processes, resulting from a coherent and focused policy, which is the object of this study.
saltpeter; Arco do Cego; Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho; Mariano da Conceição Veloso