“To inform, to administer, to preserve evidence: circuits and meanings of the correspondence in colonial archives (Direção-Geral do Ultramar, 1835-1910)”

Sónia Henrique DOCTORAL THESIS

The XIX century witnessed the development of a bureaucratic culture as the result of the construction process of the Portuguese Modern State. Public administration archives composed through this century present themselves as evidences of an ambience of deep political, economic and social instability. Those inevitably conditioned the archival policy at the time and became the foundation of this bureaucratic culture. The archive of the Direção-Geral do Ultramar is a good example of the relationship between administrative practice and archival policy. This thesis analyses the correspondence of the Direção-Geral do Ultramar intending to access its information system. A study that allowed to verify how that information system flowed, exploring processes, authorities and levels of transmission.