Estrada Real

Estrada Real (Portuguese pronunciation: [iʃˈtɾadɐ ʁeˈaw], Royal Road) is a set of colonial-era roads in Brazil.

Definition

The name refers to the land that Portuguese colonial administrators had chosen to improve communication, settlement, and the economic exploitation of Brazil’s resources and of its other colonies. Its "royal" name reflects the economic ideologies of mercantilism, which proposed that colonies existed for the purpose of supplying the metropole with resources. To protect colonial assets from piracy and smuggling, these roads became the only authorized paths for the movement of people and goods. Opening other routes constituted a crime of lèse-majesté. It was similar to the Spanish "Caminos Reales" (Royal Paths) or the United States' "Carretera Militar" (Military Roads), which ensured the flow of goods and the movement of troops in the colonies.

From the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a decline in mineral production in Minas Gerais that led to an increase of fiscal policy and a dissatisfaction which led to the independence movement. With the Independence of Brazil in the early nineteenth century, these paths become free, thus building, with the wealth provided by coffee plantations, the main thrust of urbanization in the Southeast.