O Selvagem and Nos Sertões do Araguaia: Between identity and character (General Couto de Magalhães and Hermano Ribeiro da Silva)

• Grant number: 14/23356-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2015
• End date: January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Márcia Regina Capelari Naxara
• Grantee: Fernando Eduardo Strabelli
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The desire of knowing Brazil- its nature and population - aiming the definition of its territory, people and history became stronger from the political independence in 1822. A great number of travelers, Brazilian or not, tried to explore Brazil's countryside describing the events sensitively and rationally. In this work, I focus on the research of two intellectual men who, from the latter half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, observed the Indians of Araguaia and left their perception of them. One of the intellectual was General José Vieira Couto de Magalhães who wrote "O Selvagem" (1876), and the other one was the journalist Hermano Ribeiro da Silva who wrote "Nos Sertões do Araguaia" (1935). Considering they dealt with different forms of racial theories which had been debated in Brazil between 1870 and 1930, I intend to analyze, comparatively, the way they established equal images of the Indians. In other words, I sought to examine how they used equivalent stereotypes, such as "barbarians" and "uncivilized" despite their divergent visions on racial theories. I propose to examine the relationship between these author's writings and Brazil's identity, seeing that both of them present projects to the country. Summarizing and considering the similar stereotypes used by the authors, I attempted to verify if there is a common identify between them, beginning of the way they idealized the country as well as their vision on the Indians and their position in Brazilian society.