Between words and artifacts: Material culture and Abolitionism in the Vale do Paraopeba/MG (1840-1888)

• Autor(a) principal: Martinez, Claudia Eliane Parreiras Marques
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Antíteses
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/antiteses/article/view/29496
• topic: Material culture; Intellectual culture; Post-mortem inventory; Abolitionism; Vale do Paraobeba (MG); Material culture and intellectual culture; Cultura material; Cultura intelectual; Inventário post-mortem; Abolicionismo; Vale do Paraopeba (MG); Cultura material e Cultura intelectual

This paper seeks to analyze the material culture of teacher of first letters, lawyer, solicitor of chapels and remainders, curator of slaves Manoel Bernardes da Cunha Cassão, deceased in 1877, in the city of Bonfim. Based on his post-mortem inventory, from a database consisting of 450 documents and other sources, it was possible to uncover issues related to the oscillation of fortunes, the possession of slaves and lands, the relationship between the inland of Minas Gerais and the Imperial Court of Rio de Janeiro, especially the meaning and symbolism of having some artifacts, considered, at the time, sophisticated, exotic and luxurious. For this article, it was necessary to rely on some assumptions of Social History and Micro History. Taking Edoardo Grendi's concept of “normal exceptional” as a reference, it was problematized, from the clues and vestiges left by Cassão, how the objects and books located in his dwelling, as well as his social and political performance, meant, at the same time, deviation and rule, in the nineteenth-century society.