Arranjos, lei e consolidação do império: aplicação da lei das terras e apropriação das fazendas nacionais do Rio Branco (1830-1880)

Abstract

This thesis investigated the process of application of the Law no. 601 of 1850, known as the Land Law in the Province of Amazonas and its developments on the border of Rio Branco. It was sought to understand the social, political and economic constitution of the subjects that formed the group of landlords from the creation of the Fazenda Reais and private farms, analyzing, afterwards, the creation of the Upper Amazon Region, setting up tents and the expansion process of farms after the extinction of the Sesmarias Law. Historically, the region of Rio Branco has undergone intense territorial and political processes of disputes that threatened Portuguese domination and, successively, the consolidation of the Brazilian Empire on that frontier. The 1830s and 1870s were marked by the attempt of land grabbing by the United Kingdom, known as the Pirara conflict in Rio Branco, and by the pressure of the United States of America that demanded Brazil to open up for navigation and trade on the Amazon River. All these factors made the Brazilian Empire expend different dimensions for other regions, more flexible with military and other people, maintaining them as allies to defend, colonize and consolidate the empire at the border of Rio Branco. In this context, the lands of the national farms, which belonged to the State, were gradually incorporated into the private patrimony of the military and exiled, as well as lands considered vacant, which were also public patrimony. The Land Law was not enforced, since, according to it, the only form of access to land was the purchase, but it was used politically by the Empire to secure the support of the local landlord class. This process lasted until the 1870s, when this relationship began to have another dimension, much more rigorous, less attached to the local elite and disposed of more charges, especially on the part of the Treasury over the appropriation of assets belonging to the Treasury as the lands of the national farms of the Rio Branco, clear indications that the Brazilian Empire in the borders of the Amazon finally recognized itself consolidated.