Entre lajedos e lagoas : formação territorial, habitações e bens culturais no povoado de Alagoinhas nos sertões de Pernambuco (1775 -1835)

Abstract

During the firsts centuries of colonization the more countryside areas of the Portuguese America were called deserts by the inhabitants of the urban centers by the shores. Those areas were called empty, inhospitable, and their inhabitants called savages, uncultured and barbarians. And, although those areas were taken by the colonizing process through the establishment of villages and urban centers, by the end of the XVIIIth Century the countryside still kept the image of loneliness in the eyes of the shores inhabitants. Considering this scenery, the present thesis objectives to go beyond the generalizing concepts constructed about the countryside areas and to analyze the territorial construction, the uses of space, the different types of household and the production and handling of instruments by the colonizers that managed to arrive to the frontiers of Ararobá region in Pernambuco during the passage of the XVIIIth to the XIXth centuries. The focus of this study is the settlement of Alagoinhas or Lagoinhas, by then under the jurisdiction of the village of Cimbres. It is based on different types of sources: travelers chronicles, postmortem inventories, artifacts and material culture, besides the occupation forms and inhabitation of these territory.