The Contestado War and the Brazilian Imperial Land Law: a case study of Figueiredo’s Farm (Lages, 1855-1917)

• Autor(a) principal: Darossi, Flávia Paula
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Maracanan (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/maracanan/article/view/44120
• topic: Brazilian Empire; Land Law; Peasants; First Republic in Brazil; Coronelismo; Império do Brasil; Lei de Terras; Posseiros; Primeira República; Coronelismo

An important part of the Contestado war was born during the Imperial period, in the peasant struggle for access to land, and was increased in the Republic by the continued resistance against the local mandonism of landowners, cattle ranchers and merchants and the land’s usurpation by the Brazil Railway e Lumber and Colonization. This article aims to analyze the land issue in the previous period to the war, in order to identify the historicity of experiences such as local mandonism and land concentration in the region. The research method was based on the reconstruction of relations and legal discourses of a case study located in the municipality of Lages, according to two judicial proceedings that involved land issues of the “Figueiredo” farm, from 1876 to 1917. It was concluded that both coronelism and land concentration, combated by the majority of the Contestado’s sertanejos, are the result of the same historical process of implementing the Land Law of 1850. This case study will demonstrate the importance of the Imperial land policy to research that seek to understand the historicity of the Santa Catarina Plateau during the First Republic.