This article aims at highliting the historically built relationships between the central power and the centers of local power, understanding that these become places of encounter and collaboration, as well as of conflicts and dissonances among the interests of the local elites and those of the center. In this perspective, we consider that, as from the second half of the XVIIIth century, the center of local power to become priviledged and potentialized by the Portuguese royal power in their American colony will turn out to be the military Corps, more especifically the Corps of Auxiliaries and the Corps of Ordinances.
militarization; local elite; municipal chambers; political centralization