“As partes do Norte”: empire and local identities in reports of the nature of Pernambuco and Paraíba (1790-1817)

• Autor(a) principal: Chaves Júnior, José Inaldo
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Anos 90 (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/anos90/article/view/83564
• topic: Natureza; Identidades locais; Região; Capitanias do Norte; Século XVIII; História do Brasil colonial; História e natureza; ilustração; região.; Nature; Local identities; Northern captaincies; 18th century

At the end of the eighteenth century, the accounts of naturalists revealed other descriptions of the nature and territoriality of Northern captaincies, many of which were unknown or at least ill-known. Often under the patronage of the Crown, the traditional scene carried out by the sugar plantation was restored by more layers of memory and knowledge in the style of Illustration, guided by the new demands that were presented. It has also passed from an idealized America, oscillating between the earthly paradise and the place of damnation, to a scientific and utilitarian reading of nature. It was in this context that emblematic characters such as Bento Bandeira de Melo and Manoel de Arruda Câmara crossed the captaincies of the North and registered what the saw, repositioning the relation between nature and culture, although without abandoning the usual utilitarianism. In an approach that approximates the geography of power and political and environmental histories, the article also discusses these accounts of nature as symptoms of a disputed regionality in the field of local identities in the North of the State of Brazil, particularly the grooves and discontinuities imposed on the secular capitality of Recife.