The Cowboys, Aggregates and Squatters Contribution to the Piaui Settlement

• Autor(a) principal: Alves, Vicente Eudes Lemos
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: História, Histórias
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/hh/article/view/42169
• topic: Povoamento do Piauí; Sujeitos Sociais; Pecuária; Povoamento; Piauí; Vaqueiros; Agregados; Posseitos; Settlement of Piauí; Social Subjects; Livestock Farming

The text proposes to discuss the importance of cowboys, aggregates and squatters in the settlement of Piauí between the 18th and 19th centuries. It seeks to identify how these social subjects contributed to the territorial formation of that then province, in which livestock farming became the main economic activity driving the occupation. Although the sesmarias were land concessions from the Portuguese crown to the donee, his absence in the administration of cattle ranches was frequent. Thus, the administrative task was left to people deprived of land and any other right. Such a situation forced these subjects to put themselves in movement towards the interior of those rustic sertões [hinterland], leaving to them the effective settlement of the territory.