Estudo arqueológico da influência missionária na formação da Vila de Salvaterra na ilha de Marajó

Abstract

The incorporation of the Northern region of Brazil in the Portuguese economic activities began in the seventeenth century, from the European advances in front of the Amazon forest, where the missionary action was one of the supports for the European colonization. It should be noted, however, that the mouth of the Amazon River was a strategic and vital area for the expansion of Portuguese exploratory activities in the period, with the island of Marajó being an important control zone for the entry and exit of the Amazon. A city like Salvaterra, it originated as an Indian village, becoming a point of Portuguese dominion and effectuation, administered by Franciscan priests, who organized the Aruãs, Sacacas and Maruanas indigenous groups in this settlement (Fragoso, 1997: 139). The purpose of this paper is to study the missionary influence on the formation of the village of Salvaterra between 1700 and 1750. The objective of this research is to identify some of the transformations that occurred in the geographic space of Salvaterra; to explain how the religious mission was implanted in indigenous settlements; and to verify if the religious mission followed a well-defined urban plan or expanded according to local reality. To this end, the religious activity will be analyzed through historical archeology, which used documentary and iconographic surveys. It has been possible to verify in this first moment that the indigenous labor descended to the Village of Igarapé Grande was used for the royal service, for fishing and/or distributed for the services of the inhabitants of the region. It was also verified that the Aldeia de Igarapé Grande was administered by the Franciscan priests of Santo Antônio, replaced from 1706 onwards by the Capuchin priests of São Boa Ventura. The help of other areas of knowledge such as History and Architecture were vital for the understanding of how the missionary village and later the villages and places were inserted into the Amazonian reality. For the architect Marcos Paraguassú (1997), as far as the sociocultural aspect is concerned, the aldeamento meant a violent cut with the traditional ways of living and living of the indigenous nations.