O Rio de Janeiro: uma pra？a desfalcada "dos melhores soldados e oficiais" (séculos XVII-XVIII)

during the eighteenth century, the city of rio de janeiro consolidated its importance as a major cold south atlantic. for rio de janeiro also converged routes that brought precious metals, gold from the mines and silver from trade on the river plate. this article aims at demonstrating that, despite the progressive importance of the city of rio de janeiro concerning its military strategy, any questions related to its defense slided to a secondary place, due to its dependency on the military and political needs imposed both to the southern colony and to the region of the mines. one may verify, though, that both the french invasion of 1711 as well as the signature of the peace treaty of utretch between the iberic crowns made it possible to develop a priority policy toward the military defense of such strategically situated city and port of rio de janeiro. the outline of the article covers the chronological period between the late seventeenth century, when the captain of the south were again to be ruled from rio de janeiro and early eighteenth century. as space limitation southern america, with special emphasis on the rio de janeiro.