Enrolling the inhabitants in the past: criticizing the nominative list

Abstract

The nominative lists of inhabitants for the capitania of São Paulo constitute the most important collection of population censuses in Colonial Portuguese America. In its pages, slaves and frees had been individually identified, every year, in the interval between 1765 and 1836. The article consists of a critical reflection on the quality of the information of these lists, considered in the social, political and economic contexts where they had been elaborated. Some analytical possibilities for the study of the family, of the household structure and the ownership of the land are argued, through longitudinal studies.