Entre cercas, roças e animais: natureza em disputa (Cariri/CE, 1850-1880)

Abstract

This research analyzes how the relationships between humans and animals were constituted throughout the second half of the 19th century, in the Cariri region of Ceará. The process of appropriation of nature in the region was quite conflicting, since the beginning of colonization in the late 1700s, from the appropriations and expropriations of land and political disputes over spaces. These conflicts reflected in the way the region was narrated and experienced, imposing boundaries that should be taken advantage of according to its natural attributes. It is in this sense that the “oasis” was guided, in the exaltation of nature for its domination. Thus, there were speeches that intended to establish an incompatibility between the presence of animal husbandry and agriculture, as seen in some newspapers at the time. Nature was thus appropriated, but also represented, in an attempt to secure manorial property. We seek to dialogue with discussions in the fields of Environmental and Social History, to reflect on the conflicts generated, the forms of work and contact with animals, through the discourses and policies instituted and the forms of representation and classification of these non-human subjects. Stigmatized as “farmed animals”, horses, oxen, goats and pigs, for example, were legitimized as property of those who owned them. Thus, it is from these appropriations that we aim to discuss the attempts to divide the territory, the control and circulation of these animals, the notions of technique, delay and modernization, the marks of shoeing, as well as the crimes that involved these animals. We will use as sources the newspaper O Araripe (1855-1864), the criminal processes, the post-mortem inventories, the reports of the presidents of the province of Ceará, the codes of postures and the travel diaries.