This article investigates the concept of coronelism present in The violent land plot, by Jorge Amado. Released in 1943, the novel marked Brazilian literature by narrating the epic armed struggle between two clans of cocoa farmers who, in Ilhéus in the early 20th century, vied for possession of the virgin Sequeiro Grande forests. Part of specialized criticism, in attempting to understand how the novelist conceived the coronels' relationship with the State, saw in them the expression of an exacerbated private power, against which the law could not impose itself: the survival of patriarchalism and family struggles, whose historical origins date back to colonial Brazil. Looking more closely, however, this is not about this, or at least, not only, this. Jorge Amado realized that the State, in this historical coronelism period, was relatively more strengthened, the reason why the rival clans began fighting for political power and for institution domination, such as the police and the justice, that would favor them in disputes against opposing oligarchies. It is concluded that Amado, in a certain sense, anticipated the construction of the coronelism concept, which would only be abstracted sometime later, in 1948, with the Coronelismo: the municipality and representative government in Brazil publication, by Victor Nunes Leal.
Keywords:
Jorge Amado; Coronelism; Patriarchalism; Struggles between families; The violent land; History of law