History of the Colonization of Minas Gerais: An Environmental Approach

Abstract

A wild world, full of unknown dangers, barbarian people and hungry dragons: this is how the Portuguese settlers used to figure out the interior of Brazil in the early centuries of occupation of Brazil. Only brave or desperate men would dare to leave the ‘civilized’ environments of the coast to scroll through the vast hinterland of the colony in search of slaves and richness. Nevertheless, in the last decade of the seventeenth century, the discovery of gold mines in Minas Gerais caused the migration of thousands of people to the unknown terrains, on the first gold rush of the Modern Era. In less than one century, old forests were devastated to open space to cities, pastures, fields and mines, while the indigenous population was almost entirely replaced by Africans and Europeans.

This paper address to a common thematic in Brazilian History: Minas Gerais’ gold rush along the eighteenth century. Its approach, however, incorporates an element whose importance is often underestimated: nature.