Lavouras de sustento: demografia e estrutura agrária de São José do Taquari, 1765-1808

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the socioeconomic profile of the parish of São José do Taquari, from the agrarian and family structure in the region at the end of the Brazilian colonial period. From the demographic aspects we can verify the accentuated presence of free people, of Azorean origin and/or ancestry, that moved from ultramarine to populate the west border of the Continent of Rio Grande de São Pedro, region disputed between the Iberian Crowns in America. The presence of enslaved people demonstrated that the slave labor was explored since the beginning of the parish settlement and reached significant dissemination among the Taquari farmers, especially through the structuring of wheat production and marketing. The access to land in the parish occurred mainly through the concession of land made by the governor in the 1760s to families of Azorean and their descent. The occupational structure of Taquari was small production units dedicated to crop cultivation and small animal husbandry. The workforce came from the family group itself, with emphasis on the large presence of households, and was complemented by slave labor. Taquari's households were sons and daughters of the landowners, most of them were married and with children, who shared the means of production with their parents and from a reciprocal relationship, formed multiple households and were the main labor force employed in production units. Therefore, for aggregate itself with the initial family nucleus was a family strategy, employed by the households, which allowed the insertion of part of the second generation of residents of the parish in the colonial internal market. The research integrated the Frontier, Politics and Society research line of the Graduate Program in History of the Federal University of Santa Maria (PPGH-UFSM) and was supported by the CAPES / DS scholarship.