Investigação e análise histórica dos engenhos de cana-de-açúcar amazônicos

Abstract

The sugar cane mills are agro-industries that have developed throughout the national territory since the beginning of the European colonization. This work is a contribution to the study of the sugar mills in the Amazon estuary, through the formulation of a historical and archeological base of information referring to the 17th to the 19th centuries, as a way to show new data about production, daily life, and to investigate the real causes of their decline as agents of economic and social domination. The manuscripts contained in the collection of the Public Archive of Pará and the published works of European Travelers and Naturalists were the documentary sources most closely linked to the field of History research investigated. At the level of Archeology, the material culture from excavations made in 1986 in the area of the casa grande and chapel of the Engenho Murutucu site, located in Belém, was analyzed. It was found that there are few documents in the Belém Archive about these properties, which are basically official. From these we obtained information about the capture of Indians, escape of slaves and formation of quilombos. Other sources refer to the destruction of mills and farms, and the death of some of their inhabitants during Cabanagem. Archeological remains, such as crockery, combs, coins from various periods, bottles and buttons recovered from the Murutucu Mill site have made it possible to obtain data not revealed by the documentation of the Public Archive regarding, for example, the trade between the region and Europe and from Europe to neighboring provinces, the daily life and private life in the mills. In this way, we can say that only by combining the methodology of archaeology and history can we have a general idea of how life was lived in the mills and show their importance for the political and economic development of the Amazon region.