The Eldorado of desinherited: indians, slaves, migrants, fugitives and the expansion to the west of the Amazon (1850-1880)

Abstract

The doctoral research "The Eldorado of Disinherited: Indians, slaves, migrants, fugitives and the expansion to the west of the Amazon (1850-1880)", funded by FAPESP and developed with the Postgraduate Program of Social History of USP, has the objective of discussing the social roles of forest dwellers in the border movement in the Amazon in the nineteenth century. The study has been conducted based on various sources, such as police and official documentation, journals, literature, travelers' chronicles, among other types, especially obtained in archives and libraries in Belém and Manaus. The research has followed some leads based on the acquired documents, and we chose three analytical paths as conductors: 1-deepening the research on border movement taking into account the social ballasting prior to the starch "boom"; 2-analysis of travelers testimonies in order to investigate the agencies of their local counterparts under the front of expansion; 3- understanding of control measures and the civil statute of the inhabitants of the cities, towns and forests in the Amazon in the nineteenth century. To carry out such issues, we consider fundamental the access to the New York Public Library's collection, the second largest US library, which holds innumerable works on travelers' paths through the Amazon along with several rubber industry periodicals. In this regard, we request research internship with the Department of history at New York University (NYU), under the supervision of Professor Barbara Weinstein, a researcher of the Amazon theme with important works published on the rubber rush in various dimensions of the process. It is considered therefore that possibility of this internship shall provide the thesis qualified materials for its development, with the possibility of new sources and research dialogues at NYU. (AU)