SÃO SEBASTIÃO DO RIO DE JANEIRO AND JAMESTOWN (VIRGINIA): PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT REBELLIONS, CITIES, AND SPACE IN THE AMERICAS (1660-1677)

Abstract

In Portuguese America, in the late 1660s, a protest erupted in which the local elite overthrow the royal governor and took over the city of Rio de Janeiro for five months. In 1675, in Colony of Virginia, frontier men added to other segments attacked the governor and his allies, sparking a civil war known as Bacon’s Rebellion, in honor of its main leader. This article examines a spatial phenomenon observed from the contrast between these two rebellions.

While in Rio de Janeiro, rebel actions converge on the space of the city of São Sebastião in Rio de Janeiro, reinforcing the central role of the capital where negotiations and protests were concentrated, in Virginia, on the contrary, the spatial dispersion is striking, with the emptying of the capital Jamestown that was totally burnt down during the conflicts that spread across the territory.

Keywords:
Rebellion; Virginia; Rio de Janeiro Spacial History