Seigniorial class and imperial State: the national guard in the Parahyba Valley of Rio de Janeiro (1831 - 1873)

• Grant number: 19/08754-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Rafael de Bivar Marquese
• Grantee: Gabriel Gonzalez Sterman
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project has as its object the social composition of the high officialate of the National Guard in the Parahyba Valley of Rio de Janeiro between 1831 and 1873, that is, from the moment of its creation to the year of its last reform. The central objective is to examine the nature of the presence of slaveholders and large coffee farmers in these positions of command, understanding the occupation of these posts as part of the process of constituting the seigniorial class in the region. The National Guard, created at the beginning of the regency period, was a civic militia composed of armed citizens, a state institution organized from the private world, on a municipal basis. This research intends to investigate who were its officers in the municipalities of Vassouras, Valença, Piraí and Paraíba do Sul, trying to relate the chart obtained with the construction of the seigniorial class and the Brazilian imperial state throughout the nineteenth century.