Cativos nas terras dos pantanais : escravidão e resistência no sul do Mato Grosso : séculos 18 e 19

Abstract

Captives in the Pantanal s land is a study about the exploitation of the African slaves and their ancestries, in many places in the south of Mato Grosso, during the period of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since the beginning of the formation of small villages, the black slaves were the basis and the foundation for the region s development. These workers were the most important elements of the frontier expansion of those areas: the clearing up of the forest, the construction of houses, the plantations, the taking care of domestic animals and so forth. Far from the gold mines of the region of Cuiabá, the small settlements of the south of Pantanal, developed a local economy, directed mainly to its own subsistence. Thus, the wrintings and cronicals of this studied period, as it recorded the presence of the first local inhabitants, registered that they arrived to these places with their slaves . The blacks, slaves or not, were also used as the so called Country s Volunteers during the Paraguayan War. Furthermore, this work presents a chapter about the submission of the native communities of Mato Grosso in the 18th and 19th centuries.