History and historiography of indigenous labor in colonial São Paulo: balance, categories and new horizons

The main objective of this paper is discuss the founding and structural role that the exploitation of indigenous labor played in the historical formation of the São Paulo region, colonial frontier of Portuguese America. Starting from a historiographical review of the problem, five concrete historica...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Velloso, Gustavo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:México
Institución:INSTITUTO PANAMERICANO DE GEOGRAFÍA E HISTORIA
Repositorio:Revista de Historia de América
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:revistasipgh.org:article/690
Acceso en línea:https://revistasipgh.org/index.php/rehiam/article/view/690
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Trabalho indígena
São Paulo colonial
Historiografia
Indigenous labor
colonial São Paulo
Historiography
Descripción
Sumario:The main objective of this paper is discuss the founding and structural role that the exploitation of indigenous labor played in the historical formation of the São Paulo region, colonial frontier of Portuguese America. Starting from a historiographical review of the problem, five concrete historical events (drawn from documental sources like as letters of missionaries, court claims and parliamentary records) will be exposed and presented as representative of a variety of conjunctural situations that can nevertheless be read as moments of a same long-duration process: the permanence of the indigenous compulsory labor in the regional mechanisms of social reproduction. Based on a conceptual demarcation so far not explored by Americanist historiography (which seeks to distinguish the categories of “regime”, “system” and “modality” of work), we suggest a periodization of the São Paulo’s Colonial History having as privileged criterion the different employment patterns of the indigenous labor. We conclude that indigenous slavery would have been a kind of “elastic” institution that, through four centuries, has undergone numerous legal, political and social changes, but it has never ceased to be an integral part of the hegemonic relations of sociability in that region.