Citizenship and mediation: Correspondence with the Lisbon city council during the Civil War (1832-1834)

Abstract

In 1833, at a decisive moment of the Portuguese Civil War between Miguelists and Liberals, Portugal was marked by profound political, institutional and social divisions. Recent historiography has shown that the establishment of Liberalism involved not only a change of regime but also a reconfiguration of relations between citizens and political authority, reflected in the growing use of administrative writing, particularly petitions, memorials and formal requests. It is within this context that this Documenta is situated. Focusing on a selected sample of correspondence sent to the Lisbon City Council in 1833 and now preserved in the Processos Gerais de Secretaria series of the Lisbon Municipal Archive, it brings to light a previously unpublished documentary corpus. Through individual trajectories and concrete experiences, these documents reveal the social and political challenges affecting Lisbon and its surrounding district during the Civil War.