Plants in traffic

the circulation of foods and medicinal specimen in the construction of biodiversity in Colonial Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze and reflect on the circulation of plants utilized for food and medicine during Brazil’s colonial period, from the 16th to the 17th century. Our objective is to analyze the way in which these products traveled across this territory, and what connections were established with the European, African and Asian continents, as well as other American territories, whether by work of missionaries or by commercial trading with metropoles. The starting point is observing how these plants were first discovered and their relationships with the human race at the time, to then understand how they moved across continents until getting to Brazil. Another aspect is reflecting on how brazilian biodiversity had been constructed starting from the establishment of these species, broadening the knowledge of this and other places of the world, and modifying the ideas of local and global. In this perspective it is our interest to discuss how these foods and medicines were cultivated, researched, explored and consumed to attend the necessities of different contexts, putting in perspective how their circulation contributed to the transformation of cultural aspects in multiple territories.