Public or private Leonarda? Strategies of a trader at the Imperial Court

Abstract

Studying women requires attention to the two structures to which they have been subjected over time: power relations and silencing. However, to reconstruct the footsteps of someone who, in the nineteenth century, built his figure, knowing how to handle the public and private spheres to his favor, in order to be eternal in the mentality of the socio -economic group to which he was inserted, leads us to the understanding of how the actions and gestures of Leonarda Maria da Silva Velho, a thick -headed trader, deceased in 1825 in Rio de Janeiro. in their solidarity networks- with your family- either in your webs of sociability in your business. According to SCOTT's (1999) arguments, female experiences and attitudes stand out in a male-dominant world. Leonarda was by far static; She acted with magnificence and ingenuity to establish herself as a woman and business woman in imperial society.