Writings about the prisons in Colonial Brazil (XVII-XIX centuries)

Abstract

During the colonial times, Brazil's prisons established at the seat of administration and justice, sharing the building with the Senate in the named Casa de Câmara e Cadeia and occupying place of pride in the cities. Since the intensification of urbanization process in the mid-seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, when it passes to build prisons separately from the municipality, the public jails were constantly claimed as a way to bring tranquility to villages and cities. So we leave from the precept that in the said time frame and in different points of the new Lusitanian possessions were shared the same pact about the implementation of justice, in which imprisonment was an unusual form of punishment, but it was still cited as primary for the maintenance of social order. To interrogate on public prisons, we will use mainly of correspondence issued by officials of the chambers, of Relação and philanthropic institutions during the period in question, trying to understand what was reported about the practice of incarceration of criminals during a time when this was not set as a criminal model par excellence for those who usually dealt with crime. Also will discuss how the administration of justice and bureaucracy influenced these lands in what was written about the prison routine. Such questions are heading towards grasp the situation of imprisonment and its role in maintaining of the order in the colony, articulating that produced by the time authorities about the experience of and in prisons with Brazilian society. (AU)