As fazendas e colônias da Serra de Taquari: apropriação de terras, economia e direitos de propriedade (Rio Grande de São Pedro, século XIX)

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the formation of farms and immigration colonies in Serra de Taquari, during the 19th century. The main aspects involved are land appropriation, economic activities and property rights established in the location over time. The research is supported by the theoretical-methodological contribution of the Social History of Property and Italian micro-history. A wide variety of sources were used to construct the chapters, such as sesmaria requirements and titles, post-mortem inventories, public deeds, parish land records, baptism and marriage, municipal correspondence, the Residents' List of 1784, criminal proceedings, judicial decisions, embargoes, evictions, possessory actions, new works and new forces. By adding the analysis of the Serra de Taquari farms to the historiographical discussion about the agrarian world of Rio Grande do Sul, we argue that the interest of the elites was not only in the countryside and cattle raising. Forest spaces were also sought after, as the removal of wood and agriculture developed with enslaved labor also provided high yields. The main hypothesis defended in this study is that the colonial lots granted free of charge or sold to European immigrants were not private, abstract and absolute property, as has so far been suggested by the bibliography. We propose that the property rights of these peasants were limited, before and after the Land Law of 1850, and produced by kinship and coexistence relationships established into communities.