The web site The Government of Difference is one of the main outputs of the project The Government of Difference. Political Imagination in the Portuguese Empire (1496 - 1961), developed at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and at Center of Investigation and Development on Law and Society of the New University of Lisbon, and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology ( PTDC/HIS-HIS/104640/2008 ). On this site we provide legislation about the political government of the populations of the Portuguese empire between 1496 (year of the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from the kingdom of Portugal) and 1961 (the year in which the Statute of Indigenous has been abolished).
The site provides information about the Project (Projecto) and the Research Team (Equipa), and contains a Digital Archive (Arquivo Digital) and a link to Other Digital Resources (Outros recursos). The Digital Archive assembles printed legislation, while the Other Resources expand the access to digital archives and libraries related with the themes of the project.
Following the online database IusLusitaniae ( http://www.iuslusitaniae.fcsh.unl.pt ), also funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, the Digital Archive consists of two main parts : i ) the database IusLusitaniae - Historical Sources of Portuguese Law and ii ) the Bulletin of the Overseas Council (Boletim do Conselho Ultramarino), continued by the Collection of New Legislation on Overseas Territories (Collecção de Legislação Novíssima do Ultramar). It also contains other legislation concerning imperial territories and the people who lived there.
The IusLusitaniae database, which assembles several collections of printed legislation, from the Royal Ordinances (Ordenações) to other collections (see complete list in the Query section – Consulta) , displays over 30 000 pages, corresponding to about 17 000 laws. The Bulletin of the Overseas Council and the Collection of New Legislation on Overseas Territories are the most important printed collections of legislation that relates to the imperial territories and their populations. This legislation covers the period between 1446 and 1910, comprising 40 volumes, 35 000 pages, and 12 000 laws. Finally, other legislation assembled by the researchers of the project complete this database. In Search (Pesquisa), the researcher can search by word on the titles of this legislation.
