De caboclos a bem-te-vis. Formação do campesinato numa sociedade escravista: Maranhão 1800-1850

Between 1838 and 1841 the two northern Brazilian provinces of Maranhão and Piauí were devastated by the Ba laiada rebellion. It was one of the major civil wars of Br azilian history; tens of thousands were killed. Large numbers of free and poor people, mainly of African and Indian ancestry, as well as slaves from cotton plantations rose a gainst a white and conservative elite, identified as ‘Portuguese’ by the rebels. In contrast with many other rebellions of the Regency period (1831-1841), the leadership in the core area of the revolt was constituted by peasants, cowboys and slaves. The rebellion was only defeated after the intervention of the central government of the Brazilian empire, which send troops, money and an experienced general. The main aim of the book is to identify the immediate and the more remote reasons for the revolt. The core thesis is that the special features of this first plantation society in the Amazonian rainforest favoured the development of a relatively independent and numerous peasantry within and around the cotton estates. This process is analysed in its various aspects, and hence the manuscript is much more than a political history of the period, but rather a complete regional history. It explores the society of Maranhão and its antagonisms during the first half of the nineteenth century, covering the impact and degradation of the environment, the demography, patterns of land ownership, as well as the economy, social structure and political developments