The royal alvará of 5 January 1785 ordered most factories and manufactures in Brazil closed, protecting metropolitan commercial interests. Coarse cotton production for enslaved people’s clothing was excepted. The order shaped which goods could be made locally, while enslaved and free artisans continued to supply households, workshops, and plantations. The measure did not erase skilled work; it constrained its industrial expansion and reinforced a colonial economy organized around extraction and imperial trade.
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Eventonan Relashoná
What did the 1785 alvará do?
The order closed most manufacturing, while allowing coarse cotton cloth associated with enslaved people’s clothing.
The 1785 alvará allowed coarse cotton production for enslaved people’s clothing.
That production was an exception to the broader restriction on manufacturing.