Perfil sociodemográfico dos estrangeiros na província do Rio Grande do Norte no censo de 1872

Abstract

Migration is one of the most difficult components of demographics to analyze due to the complexity with which it occurs. This difficulty becomes greater when analyzing a past migration process, where the available information is limited or insufficient. This work seeks, through in-depth research, to present the sociodemographic characteristics of foreigners present in the province of Rio Grande do Norte in the 1872 census. Based on historical demography, it analyzes the first Brazilian demographic census with its main variables, which compile information that can predict the characteristics of foreigners present in the province in question, which is one of the 20 provinces that make up Brazilian territory. To this end, the following variables were researched: sex, race, age, professions, religion, education, marital status and status as free or slaves. Although not all of these variables directly address foreigners, it was necessary to analyze them to better understand the general picture of the province's population. The present work used as its main documentary source the general census of the Empire of Brazil of 1872, acquired through the IBGE database, in which the files relating to the 1872 census for all provinces of Brazil are digitized. In addition to the population approach, a spatial approach was necessary, carried out through a historical and geographical analysis of the divisions of the municipalities of Rio Grande do Norte and, using the QGIS software, the possible territorial dimension of each parish registered in the province was recreated, identifying in which of them were the foreigners and how many there were. The work was concerned with enumerating both the native and foreign population, classifying them by quantity and nationalities, and made a quantitative comparison of foreigners present in the other provinces of the Northeast, as well as people from other provinces of Brazil present in Rio Grande do Norte. North. The work used migration measures to define the percentage of foreigners and understand the province's migration dynamics, using measures such as migration balance, gross migration rate, net migration rate and migration efficiency index. The investigation showed as a result that the foreigners present in the province of Rio Grande do Norte were mostly made up of men of African origins as slaves, followed by free Africans and, finally, by Europeans and South Americans, who were mostly in the interior parishes.