Comunidade de Araçatiba, Viana, ES: Herança e devoção de afrodescendentes no pós-abolição

Abstract

This dissertation has the purpose to present the constitution of the captive community of the Jesuit farm of Araçatiba, Viana, Espírito Santo. In particular, emphasis was placed on the spaces of freedom conquered by the descendants of slaves who acted in the strict space of that old property. The research object of this dissertation consisted in the appropriation of the material and immaterial inheritance built around the donation of land from part of the land of Araçatiba farm, in the year 1894, which had as donors the inheritors of this farm and recipient the patroness Our Lady of Help. The problem investigated was the resignification of this donation by the Afro-Brazilian community of Araçatiba as guardian not only of the lands, but also of the material patrimony, such as images, building and others, and immaterial devotion to Our Lady of Help. The investigation of this small community took place through several sources in which the long trajectory of Araçatiba was checked. Memories produced in the nineteenth century on Espírito Santo, periodicals, inventories and interviews with members of the community were used. The methodology for using the documents covered a number of different paths, from prosopography to the events attributed to Araçatiba's farm, recorded by newspapers and documentary documents, to oral history, according to which access to the past was done through the memory revealed in interviews by the present members of the community. The analysis of the sources was guided by the concept of memory as reconstruction of the past with the help of the present, prepared from other reconstructions previously made. It was observed in post-emancipation, therefore, the construction of the identity of the Araçatiba community around the lands and devotion constituted by their ancestors as spaces of freedom from and under the yoke of slavery.