Da Inconfidência à luz da ciência: o pensamento geográfico nos viajantes do século XIX por Minas Gerais

Abstract

Understanding the construction of Brazilian nationality is a yearning for us geographers and the humanities in general. This process, which is understood here as inseparable from territorial formation and, consequently, from the unity of the territory and the constitution of national identity, goes through paths that once led to the Minas Gerais. The state that in the heyday of mining met the conditions economic and political conditions necessary for a possible separation from the rest of the colony, he kept riches that aroused, repeatedly, the greed and the dazzle of rulers, explorers and travelers. The latter, already in the late 19th century, when the exploration of gold was deemed depleted, contributed to rescue all the natural and mineralogical potential of the province. His speeches, loaded with intentionality and often financed various political and economic interests, went beyond the field of science and literature and won the world. The “Minas Gerais” once again “discovered” still would reveal great profitable potential and would serve to reaffirm Brazil's condition of exporter of raw materials. It is up to us to continue in an attempt to carry out an analysis geographic context, bringing expensive foreign discourses to the construction of our nationality, landscape, people and territory.