Definição de fronteira entre Ceará e Piauí: conexões a partir da ocupação da serra da Ibiapaba no período colonial

Abstract

The debate on the territorial dispute in the Serra da Ibiapaba has explored different aspects according to the rhetoric of its actors, since while the state of Piauí presents cartographic foundations in its territorial claim, the state of Ceará evokes socio-economic issues to justify its authority over this space. Faced with the argumentative balancing act which requires the definitive judgment of the Federal Supreme Court in resolving the issue, a neglected legal gap emerges in this conflict: the multinormativity in force at the advent of Portuguese authority whose effects fostered the jurisdictional settlement of the respective geographical space. In order to highlight this legal phenomenon, this paper aims to present different historiographical appraisals with their respective methodological distortions, verifying how the use of new normative approaches contributes to understanding the current configuration of the Serra da Ibiapaba in the parts where each state claims its domains, survey the secular and ecclesiastical norms exported by the Kingdom of Portugal to its overseas territories, highlighting both moral theology as the defining guideline of normative foundations and their catechetical use by the Society of Jesus, and specify the jurisdictional dealings regarding the Serra da Ibiapaba, with the Curato de Nossa Senhora do Carmo da Piracuruca as the focal point of analysis, as a circumscription bordering the areas of Ceará and Piauí, as well as an object of dispute between their respective bishoprics. To this end, documents referring to the undertaking of various administrative institutions will be analyzed in order to extract from these events the affirmation of the authorities and their respective normative activities that was capable of settling, even if not resolutely, a space full of territorial altercations. The aim of this paper is therefore to offer legal arguments that can contribute to the intermittent territorial dialog between the states of Ceará and Piauí in view of a conflict that has been going on for centuries in an inconclusive manner and which has plagued not only the public authorities, but also the local community and the society in general.