Civilizações da cana-de-açúcar : dois paradigmas de atividades agroaçucareiras no novo mundo, séculos XVI a XIX

From the Brazilian coast to its inland, sugarcane molded economic, social and cultural landscapes with distinctive identities. The monotony of extensive sugarcane plantations was transformed as this culture started to grow along with other cultivations, with livestock, with several rural industries and with mineral extraction as well. The monopoly of engenho açucareiro was transformed into both, engenhos rapadureiros and engenhos aguardenteiros. These engenhos were immersed in consortiums grounded in the complementarity and interdependence of several actitivies. The fundamental characteristics dictated from the outside of the Colony unfolded into the autonomy and plasticity conformed by both, geographical isolation and decentralization of domestic markets. Distinct sugarcane plantation trajectories forged distinctive historical paradigms and later defined multiple rythms in the moving from the traditional to the modern. The civilization of sugar along the coast, with monolithic and compact inheritance, expanded into the plurality of inland sugarcane civilizations, with fragmentary and diffuse legacies.sugar plantation activities; historical paradigms; Brazil – Americas; 16th to 19th centuries

O primado do mercado interno: a proeminência do espaço canavieiro de Minas Gerais no último século de hegemonia das atividades agroaçucareiras tradicionais no Brasil

During 19th century and the beginning of the following century Minas Gerais was the most important sugarcane plantation area in Brazil. In the 1830's there were presumably 4.150 productive unities working with sugarcane transformation in Minas Gerais. Probably, the sum of all sugar mills in the main regions producing to foreign markets - northeast coast, north of Rio de Janeiro and the plains of São Paulo - did not reach half of the number of sugar mills in Minas Gerais. In the same period, it is estimated that approximately 40% of the slave working force of Minas - more than 85.000 captives - was employed seasonally in the fabrication of sugar, of rapadura and of aguardente. It is high the possibility that such a large contingent had neither been employed in any other sugarcane plantation area nor in any other period of Brazilian slavery history. Furthermore, it is estimated that in the 1830's Minas Gerais produced around 33.200 tons of sugar and of rapadura, and more than 22 million liters of aguardente. According to the available information, it is suggested that the sugar production of the state of São Paulo did not surpass 8.500 tons, and the production of the state of Pernambuco was about 27.000 tons. The sugar exportation of the state of Bahia was not more than 30.000 tons; the amount exported by Rio de Janeiro did not reach 17.000 tons; the provinces of Alagoas and Sergipe exported together less than 6.000 tons.Sugar plantation activities; domestic market; Minas Gerais; Brazil; 19th and 20th centuries

Persistência do tradicional: o processo de modernização da agroindústria canavieira do Brasil e a sobrevivência de formas produtivas não-capitalistas

Sugarcane plantations industry, the oldest and more important activity of rural transformation in Brazil, experienced profound metamorphosis in twentieth century. This process began in the last quarter of the previous century, and resulted in the progressive establishment of an essentially new reality. Those changes were grounded on technological modernization, which was always legitimated by the ideology of progress and led by the big rural, industrial and commercial capitals which controlled the sugarcane plantations sector. Among the political transformations which changed the Brazilian State profile and molded economic policies based on another institutional structure and on distinct instrumental resources, the incisive intervention by the State in sugarcane activities, since the beginning of the third decade of twentieth century, was regulated by meeting classes' interests. The State was protagonist of transformations which resulted in intensification of an age long process of expropriation and impoverishment for the great majority of producers and workers. Nevertheless, the perversion of the concept 'modern', expressed in economic and technological transformations along with the preservation or deterioration of archaic social structures, made possible the survival and reproduction of the traditional. The maintenance of non-capitalist forms as a way to amplify the exploration of work and optimize profit was of particular interest to the capital.Sugarcane plantation activities; modernization; Minas Gerais; Brazil

Uma outra modernização: transportes em uma província não-exportadora - Minas Gerais, 1850-1870

Between 1750 and 1880, Minas Gerais developed an economy predominantly non-exporting as well as relatively independent of external markets of other Brazilian regions and of foreign markets. Due to such unique historical evolution, contemporaries had to develop specific understanding and ways of dealing with transportation problems. In nineteenth century, mainly in its third quarter, it were established the conditions for the modernization process of transportation in Minas. Those conditions allowed such modernization to take place apart from the determinations resulting from the hegemony of a primarily exportation economic model, specially based on hastening the construction of an integrated system. This text enlarges considerations about the history of transportation in the province of Minas Gerais. It presents and analyses documental evidences which demonstrate it can be mistaken the understanding of modernization of Brazilian transportation considering a single model as well as the tendency to generalize to the whole country the historical experience of modernization based upon a railroad system.transportation; constitution of domestic market; modernization process; province of Minas Gerais

Estado, transportes e mercado de trabalho

Durante as décadas de 1830 e 1840, o Governo Provincial de Minas Gerais investiu diretamente na construção da Estrada do Paraibuna. A intervenção viária exigiu a contratação de trabalhadores braçais e qualificados. Pretende-se neste estudo explorar o ajustamento de trabalhadores livres e libertos e o sistema de aluguel de escravos. Enfatiza-se a participação de artífices forros no sistema de aluguel e a negociação para o ajustamento contratual de trabalho de um mestre carpinteiro livre. Valendo-se do cruzamento de fontes primárias, analisa-se a mobilidade social ascendente de um mestre pedreiro livre. A pesquisa identifica três resultados: (I) organização social laboral caracterizada pelo trabalho intermitente; (II) elevada taxa bruta de retorno obtida pelos donos de escravos alugados; (III) acumulação de capital-dinheiro e a inversão na importação de escravos do tráfico negreiro transatlântico