Um Atlântico de Açúcares. Os portos do Norte de Portugal e o Novo Mundo

This article studies the organization of an Atlantic port and the way in which the Northwestern Portuguese seaports were at the origin of innovative commercial activities that contributed to the construction of the Atlantic economy in the Early Modern Period. The research identifies merchants, and studies the way how they were organized and how they participated in the exploration of Portuguese overseas territories until the rise and consolidation of the Brazilian sugar economy, which was the basis of their international recognition. In this sense, the set of participant ports, their logistic and transport capacity, plus the introduction of modern commercial techniques and the exploitation of markets, represented an important contribution to the construction (of the economy) of the first global age