Ranching workers and family production in the south border of Brazil (1845-1865)

• Autor(a) principal: Farinatt, Luís Augusto
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Anos 90 (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/anos90/article/view/6749
• topic: Peões; Famílias; Rio Grande do Sul; Século XIX; Pecuária; Ranching workers; Families; Rio Grande do Sul; XIX century; Ranching system

For a long time, the image of the ranching workers in “Rio Grande do Sul” showed wandering men, without important family relationships and without access to stable productive resources. That picture was perpetuated even in works whose proposed theoretical they were very different. The proposal of this article is to problematize that subject. The main used sources are the qualifications of present witness in the criminal processes of Alegrete, the largest municipal district of the “Campanha rio-grandense”, between 1845 and 1865. The results of this research appeared that, for great part of the ranching workers, this work was part of a family strategy. It was characteristic of the beginning of the men’s productive life inserted in families of small producers and of migrants that looked for to establish in the area. Most of them was not formed by men without relevant family bonds, but for youths that had in the autonomous family production a reality or a project.