"Não é terra de préstimo e nunca foi povoada": a territorialização dos sertões do Cabo de São Roque

Abstract

This research investigates the process of territorial appropriation, carried out by the Portuguese Crown, on the north coast of the Rio Grande Captaincy, between 1500 and 1719. In order to do it, we question the occupation of this space, since the historiography production on Rio Grande Captaincy has shown a huge gap about this coastal region, as if that space was an invisible part of the territory. This research appropriates Antonio Robert de Moraes's concept of “territory”, in which the colonization process used military services and all juridical-administrative structure to expand colonial lands. Methodologically, it uses an analysis of the cartographic and written documents of the period and also investigates, through the analysis of the subjects' trajectory, guided by the studies of João Fragoso and Cristina Mazzeo Vivó, the life trajectories of the sesmeiros who acquired land in the sertões of Porto do Touro. This analysis has identified some evidence of contact between Potiguara natives and French privateers in Pititinga Cove and near Cabo de São Roque in the 16th century, it has also identified the sesmeiro Domingos de Carvalho da Silva as one of the important figures in this process of appropriation of the hinterlands of Cabo de São Roque. In conclusion, the examination of these sources has shown that the crossing of different archival sources, especially cartographic, brings rewarding results to the work of the historian interested in investigating the occupation of colonial spaces and the relations between the different levels of Portuguese administration overseas.