A trajetória política do general João Nunes da Silva Tavares (Joca Tavares): família, comunicação e fronteira

Abstract

This abstract aims to address that will be presented in our Masters Dissertation, being part of research performed at the History Post-Graduation Program of the Santa Maria Federal University. Research subjects are part of the project named “The political trajectory of General João Nunes da Silva Tavares (Joca Tavares): communucation, family and border” from 1892 to 1895 in the Campaign region of Rio Grande do Sul State. This region can also be considered as part of a platina region. The first chapter addresses General João Nunes da Silva Tavares’s (Joca Tavares, 1818-1906) correspondences and aims to make a theoretical and methodological approach about using his correspondences as sources for the historians using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, besides assessing how his correspondences enabled the construction of a power relation network. The second chapter approaches, via a biographical method, the construction of General Tavares’s trajectory and his social place using his correspondence to put in evidence his political actions e many aspects his personal and military life. This study will use the work of authors who think methodologically about correspondences, renovation of biographies and their its possibilities, power relation networks, and the elites. Some of the authors are Angela de Castro Gomes (2004), Walnice Nogueira Galvão (2000), Teresa Malatian (2013), Renato Lemos (2004), Phillippe Levillain (2003), Carl Landé (1977), Lawrence Stone (2011), Jonas Vargas (2007, 2013), Luis Augusto Farinatti (2010), Weber (1997), Bourdieu (1998), and Susana Bleil de Souza (1993). Finally, the third chapter will approach General João Nunes da Silva Tavares’s actions as a Caudilho and the way he acts and manages the Liberating (Federalist) Army. Letters and telegraphs sent between General João Nunes da Silva Tavares and federalist leaderships from 1892 to 1895 will be used as source of evidence for his acts as a border man and how this evidence may have influenced on his personal prestige and social power relations. We will assess how the military commander João Nunes da Silva Tavares constructed his political trajectory and power relations using General Tavares’s correspondence and his personal, political, and military relations from 1892 to 1895. The correspondence to be analysed was exchanged with federalists and legalists commanders in the border region between Brazil and Uruguay. This study was funded with scholarship from CAPES/DS.