ABSTRACT
With the Portuguese overseas expansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries across the Atlantic and Indian oceans, the manufacture of firearms and black powder increased to such an extent that it became necessary to establish new industrial units in different geographical areas and at different times. This chapter provides a general account of the main gunpowder factories in the Portuguese territories of the Asian and South American continents, as well as a particular description of the two units of greatest importance: Goa (Panelim) in India and Rio de Janeiro (Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon) in Brazil. These were established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively and different manufacturing procedures were adopted in each of them.
