Portuguese colonists and areas of land in the far North of

Espiríto Santo in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Anna Lúcia Côgo

Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz

The region comprising the extreme north of captaincy and/or province of Espiríto Santo,

examined under the bias off occupation of their territory since the colonial until end of imperial

period, present strong evidence for a significant contingent of settlers from Portugal, whose

presence was influential in determining the direction socioeconomic checked that area,

especially in the productive core polarized by the parish of São Matheus, considered one of the

oldest places of town of same name in 1764, which contains names/last names of the principal

inhabitants of the village, but also in the parish registers of land in the mid-eighteen hundreds,

when one observes that several descendants of these pioneers listed among the possessions of

land owners declared that parish. Moreover, many descendants of these families are among the

most distinguished citizens of that locality and holds great political and economic powers at the

regional and provincial levels in the period in focus. We want this text to highlight the

peculiarities of this process of territorial occupation, highlighting the characteristics that allowed

the adaptation of Portuguese colonists in the midst of adversity regional, to the point of forming

themselves into a kind “Nobility” site, whose vector generator of wealth was the production of

cassava flour, culture is already practiced by the Indians, original inhabitants of that territory.

Keywords: Portuguese settlers; dominain of land; Espírito Santo; Brasil.