[Scientific activities under the Portuguese Empire: a study of the works of Manuel Ferreira da Câmara, 'metalworker by profession'--1783-1820].

Manuel Ferreira da Câmara became known in historiography for his political profile as a statesman and parliamentarian. His historical trajectory shows a link between these political interests and his studies in the natural sciences. This article is the result of research on the scholar's scientific memoirs, with an analysis that focuses on the broader social context in which they were conceived. These memoirs stand as valuable testimony to the existence of scientific production under the Portuguese Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and illustrate the richness of thinking under the Luso-American Enlightenment.