Abstract
Following William Denevan’s bluff model of riverine settlement, this chapter considers the historical role the floodplain of the Lower Amazon has played in the colonial and postcolonial history of the region. In particular, I focus on the complementarity of the floodplain and the terra firme’s settlement during the period of intense colonization of riverine areas. By looking at colonial land records, census data, and economic activities, I argue that the floodplain assumed a special significance in the late colonial period, which made the dual strategy on behalf of individual families neither possible nor desirable. The balance between the zones was complicated by the inclusion of the region in world markets, the development of its own interior trade networks, and the development of a riverine peasantry focused on the floodplain. The ecological complementarity was superseded by economic and political factors that happened to promote the floodplain.
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Notes
- 1.
The following sketch is concerned with the people who were a core part of colonial life—the workers, slaves, and planters. It does not address the early conquest period and any continuity it may have had with either the precolonial or late colonial era. Sources for the ethnohistorical study of the Lower Amazon can be found in Sweet (1974), Menendez (1992) and Porro (1993).
- 2.
See Vila de Santarém, pp. 151–153 in the ‘Census Tables,’ Governor of the Rio Negro, João Pereira Caldas, to Governor of Pará, Martinho de Melo e Castro, 22nd June, 1785, Barcelos, AHU Pará Avulsos, Rio Negro, cx. 8, doc. 7509.
- 3.
José Joaquim Pereira do Lago to Governor, Alter do Chão, 10th December 1799, Arquivo Publico do Estado do Pará (APEP) cod. 575, doc. 48. See also ‘Autos de demarcação da terra,’ Óbidos, 19th March 1812, APEP ‘Documentação Juridiciário.’
- 4.
Biblioteca e Archivo Público do Pará (1904), Francisco José de Faria, R. Paraná-Merim de Maracassú, and Francisco José de Faria, districto da Villa de Óbidos, p. 54.
- 5.
Anonymous, ‘Memória de Santarém,’ 1st December 1828, Santarém, APEP cod. 851, doc. 74.
- 6.
The Cabanagem has been the subject of many studies in Brazil but few outside. See, for example, Raiol (1970); Hurley (1936a, b); Moreira Neto (1985); Paolo (1985); Salles (1992); Cleary (1998, 2003); Chasteen (2000). Some parts of the argument in this chapter are elaborated in my book, Rebellion on the Amazon (2010).
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Harris, M. (2011). The Floodplain of the Lower Amazon as a Historical Place. In: Pinedo-Vasquez, M., Ruffino, M., Padoch, C., Brondízio, E. (eds) The Amazon Várzea . Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0146-5_3
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