The landscape of exchanges: Vila de Cunha and the formation of a household economy in the transition from the 18th to the 19th century

ABSTRACT

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the history of urbanization during Brazil’s colonial period, choosing the town of Cunha between 1776 and 1817 as a case-study. We chose an apparently insignificant point of the urban network of the state of São Paulo to show that, regardless of the demographic modesty and its constructed space, the nucleus in question keeps a complex territoriality shaped from the activities of its inhabitants. We used a series of handwritten documents such as letters of sesmarias, cartographic documents, circular letters, maços de população and building taxes to discover the different forms of occupation of this territory, what activities were developed there, which relations these individuals established in the logic of the urban network and how these relations reflected on the intra-urban logic of Cunha, implying in the formation of a materiality and networks aligned between the urban nucleus, the Rocio and the Termo.

KEYWORDS:
Colonial period; History of São Paulo State; Urbanization; Cunha City; Household economy