Levantamento bibliográfico e documental dos sítios arqueológicos missionários da ilha de Gurupá

Abstract

The need to maintain the efficient operation of the Colonial System at the mouth of the Amazon River led the Portuguese court to subjugate indigenous nations to its power through the organization of missions and the process of religious catechesis, thus the missionaries had a decisive role in the territorial conquest and in the socio-cultural, political and economic transformations of the peoples of the Amazon region. In this way, Gurupá is inserted in the religious mission context, due to the important role of Religious Orders in its territory during the 17th century, a period in which a series of documentary sources with primary information was produced. Our goal is to organize these documental, pictorial and iconographic sources in a Data Bank, enabling a considerable amount of technical data for future field research in Gurupá. For this, we compiled these sources in their original forms, most of which are bound in the codices of the Public Archive of Pará and in the session "Rare Works" of the Public Library of Centur. Through the previous analysis of these documents, and also through research in secondary sources, we know that the locality developed from the construction of the fort of Santo Antônio de Gurupá by the Dutch, in 1616, and that before the arrival of the Europeans, the place was known by the Indians as Mariocahy. Missionary work began in 1654 with the Carmelites, and the Jesuits arrived the following year, establishing "missionary villages" in the region. With the Repartition of the villages in 1693, they were replaced by the Friars of Piedade. The European penetration into this area resulted in a high degree of assimilation and acculturation of the natives of the Amazon, due to the complex relationships between these cultures.