Abstract
This paper aims to understand the public agents’ concepts concerning the grant of property rights in land to Indian settlements and to settlers in agricultural colonies in nineteenth century Amazonia. The grant of the right to use the land, that is, the legal warranty of the permanence of the Indians’ and the settlers’ rights to use the landed resources allocated to the settlements and the colonies, was contingent on the regular use of the land and on agricultural activities. Based on the province administration’s reports and correspondence, we will show that both the Indian settlements and the agricultural colonies were represented as model spaces for socialization, which display a governmental policy of institutionalizing property rights in land subject to the discipline of agricultural work. This relationship is represented as one of social stratification, by which the settlers were afforded the social status of autonomous farmers, who were granted individual albeit conditional property rights to begin with, whereas the Indians were allocated the status of apprentice labourers in collective land, managed by an appointed settlement director. Finally, we give some instances of struggling implementation, conflict and resistance to that discipline, as represented in official discourses.
Keywords:
Indian settlements; agricultural colonies; property rights