“Germes de grandeza”: Antônio Ladislau Monteiro Baena e a descrição de uma província do Norte durante a formação do Império brasileiro (1823-1850)

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the corpus of the portuguese writer Antônio Ladislau Monteiro Baena as well as his military work in the Province of Pará in the first decades of Nineteenth Century. Through physical and political description of the Pará‟s Province, Antônio Baena provided statistic data of political use for the Brazilian Empire. The writer and military man Baena, working for the Empire, lived and wrote in a singular moment in Brazil and the old Grão Pará. His writings gather together a great amount of information wich will help to explain the tense connection between the provinces of North and South Brazil. Starting with his book Ensaio Corográfico sobre a Província do Pará, published in 1839, our study tries to show the author‟s political agenda as well as the main considerations about the potential wealth of the province, based in the variety and qualities of its natural products. Furthermore, this analyse deals with other works of Baena, whose principal theme was the Province of Pará, inputed in the Review of Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute and published in the imperial era. The articles in the Review end up being part of the debates of the Institute aforementioned, during the period of political definition of the Brazilian Empire.