ABSTRACT
Rio de Janeiro’s port district represents a space of synthesis which reflects and concretises Brazil’s various historical stages of capitalism. The same can be said of the country’s various forms of integration into the global economy and different formats of entangled accumulation. From the perspective of the merchant capitalism, the port was of singular historical relevance, serving as one of the main junctions through which the outflow of internal products, predominantly primary ones, and the influx of imported manufactured goods and enslaved Africans traversed. Created in the 16th century, the port allowed primary goods to leave the colony and industrialised products from the metropolis to enter it, as well as serving as the entry point for a huge contingent of imprisoned, enslaved and commercialised Africans. The space bordering the port, the port district, has changed its functions in the process of capitalist accumulation.
