Abstract

MOTTA, Márcia Maria Menendes. Consecrating dominions and generating conflict - the sesmaria^TN1 grants, 1795-1822 Brazil. e-JPH [online]. 2008, vol.6, n.2, pp.16-30. ISSN 1645-6432.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a request for the granting of a sesmaria could lead to a much-coveted social advancement, promoting a farmer to the social category of a sesmeiro. Many had started by farming third-party land, others by occupying purportedly unowned vacant land. Furthermore, during this period, the Portuguese Empire acquired a significant expanse of territory, and this entailed acknowledging the existence of countless different kinds of farmers, with their own distinctive views about the nature of land occupation. Once the “Chancela Real"^TN2 was obtained, many would most likely seek other grants, feeling privileged in comparison to the majority of colonials, who only had their own self-recognition of the ownership of their land to confirm the legitimacy of their occupancy. However, in the event of disputes with bordering neighbors, they had no titles which they could invoke. By using the “landowner” title confirmed by the Chancela Real, the sesmeiro made use of the existing legal procedures to establish himself as its legal occupant, but he was also able to take advantage of this power to incorporate more land, even though such action had no strict legal support. In this multifaceted game, this article retraces the paths followed by Ignácio Pamplona and Paes Leme, both emblematic examples of the Portuguese crown’s intervention in “land issues.”

Keywords : sesmarias; Land Disputes; Land Occupation in Portuguese America.

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