"A loyal vassal of El Rey."

This book aims to analyze the effectiveness of the social mechanism of "mobility" in the hierarchical statal structures of the Portuguese Antigo Regime, transferred to the American possessions from the first years of the conquest/colonization process, through the study of the emblematic trajectory of Sebastião Cardoso Batalha - a gentile, recently converted to Christianity and who, later on, joined the customary nobility of the Capitania of Rio Grande -, by making use of the possible life strategies in that mental and evaluative atmosphere. For this purpose, the onomastic method was adopted, through which the analysis of several documental sets was carried out. All this documentation was transcribed and analyzed in the light of the discussions on the New Political History, by focusing, above all, on the cultural dimension of this current. In the end, it was perceived that, due to its gradual and slow tendency character, social mobility was first of all presumed, but never forgotten and, above all, possible for elements of historically and historiographically marginalized social groups, such as the various indigenous ethnic groups, under the political context of the Modern Portuguese State.