Estudo de arqueologia histórica do sítio Missionário de Monsarás, ilha de Marajó - século XVIII

Abstract

The study of the archeological records of the religious missions in the northern region is necessary, as it enriches the understanding of the transformations established in the Amazon by the European. In this context, the missionaries had a primordial role in the "domestication" of the natives to achieve the maintenance and expansion of the Portuguese empire. Monsarás represents a case study, whose settlement is located in a strategic place, on the shore of Marajó Bay, which facilitated the commercial and personal exchange with the captaincy of Grão-Pará. Based on primary documents and field research in Monsarás, we sought to understand the interest involved in the presence of missionaries in that area, as well as the value or function of that settlement. Observing, also, the urban development from the formation, transformations and permanence of the remaining structures of the contact, that reflect the relations created in a context of deconstruction and reconstruction undertaken in the village according to the Lusitanian mercantile-imperialist policy. The secondary sources (researched so far) do not provide enough information to survey the history of Monsarás. But Hoonaert (1981) gives us some good subsidies; in the distribution of the missions of the Franciscans of Santo Antonio, S.Francisco de Caiá remained with the priests of Conceição. The Indians that made up the village were Aruã, Maraunu, and Joatã, this diversity indicates a descent of Indians. Monsarás would have the role of a meat supplier to Belém. Hoonaert indicates that the service of the Indians would be destined to the government butcher shop and to the transportation of meat to Belém, which implied a social, economic and spatial reorganization in the life of those natives who were the labor largely used in the service.