Progresso, calamidade e trabalho: pobreza e urbanidade incipiente na cidade em fins de oitocento

Abstract

This article is about the confrontation happened during the Great Drought of 1877 in Ceará. Using the words progress, calamity and work as windows for the understanding of the several sensibilities generated around the problem of the drought, we tried to understand the senses atrribured to them, historically, for the several studied groups. Thus, we surpassed the homogeneous vision that it transformed the drought in a patrimony of the vitimization, common to Ceará, and we started to develop the conflict possibilities among the country retirantes and the elites of the city, that lived this moment, each one to its way, in opposire sides, exercising its referring roles to the dominance attempt and the resistance.