Abstract
A wild world, full of unknown dangers, barbarian people and hungry dragons: this is how the Portuguese settlers used to figure out the interior of Brazil in the early centuries of occupation of Brazil. Only brave or desperate men would dare to leave the ‘civilized’ environments of the coast to scroll through the vast hinterland of the colony in search of slaves and richness. Nevertheless, in the last decade of the seventeenth century, the discovery of gold mines in Minas Gerais caused the migration of thousands of people to the unknown terrains, on the first gold rush of the Modern Era. In less than one century, old forests were devastated to open space to cities, pastures, fields and mines, while the indigenous population was almost entirely replaced by Africans and Europeans.
This paper address to a common thematic in Brazilian History: Minas Gerais’ gold rush along the eighteenth century. Its approach, however, incorporates an element whose importance is often underestimated: nature.
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Notes
- 1.
In less than 30 days, walking from dawn to dusk, the ones who left Rio de Janeiro to Minas Gerais, may arrive […] from Rio de Janeiro they went to Parati. From Parati to Taubate. From Taubate to Pindamonhangaba. From Pindamonhangaba to Guaratingueta. From Guaratingueta to Garcia Rodrigues’ lands. From these lands to Ribeirao. And from Ribeirao in 8 days, from dawn to dusk, they will get to Rio das Velhas (free translation).
- 2.
- 3.
Amid the vast and unknown outback […] at the margins of the known world, to which it opposed itself by rejecting the values of civilized life (free translation).
- 4.
An organized space, but axis of penetration, permanent rips on the maps, due to the geological overlay of contemporary and former paths (free translation).
- 5.
Runaway slaves, hostile indigenous groups and common criminals used to act on the fringes of colonial territory, taking advantage of the weakness of military control in these areas. Indeed, this seems to be a common feature to frontier areas, in which the increase in population promotes, paradoxically, the emerging of extraterritoriality focus, which may keep under pressure pioneers centers for years or decades. The instability and the threat of reversal of occupation seem ineluctable conditions of the frontier (free translation).
- 6.
And that the planters can no longer graze along small spring margins from which water is used for mining services, and that they should conserve the vegetation cover for five hundred feet, to avoid damage from lack of water (free translation).
- 7.
And that clean water streams should not be obstructed or damaged (free translation).
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Shellard, A.H.d. (2017). History of the Colonization of Minas Gerais: An Environmental Approach. In: Vaz, E., Joanaz de Melo, C., Costa Pinto, L. (eds) Environmental History in the Making. Environmental History, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41085-2_14
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