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The role of rural neighborhoods in the consolidation of Bragança Paulista territory

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to discuss the formation of rural neighborhoods in the municipality of Bragança Paulista, state of São Paulo, Brazil, using, as one of the main explanatory elements for the advance of the territorial occupation of the parish/village, changes in the local economy. We have tried to reconstruct the process of territorial occupation of Bragança by following the distribution of sesmarias, the number of dwellings, the number of inhabitants, the geographical location and the development of the rural neighborhoods that formed there. The methodology adopted in this study is part of a set of studies on the urbanization process in Brazil that adopt the method of reading the landscape and material culture and seek to analyze the dynamics and logic of rooting the population in the territory. The analysis focused on the formation of rural neighborhoods in Bragança and its decisive influence on the consolidation process of the locality; with that, it was possible to perceive its role in the strengthening of a supply network of the capital city, São Paulo, and the state of Minas Gerais in the 18th and 19th centuries and the process of formation of the regional urban micro-network. We use cartographic documentation and diverse primary documentation, especially census documentation, with emphasis on nominative lists, handwritten documents, in principle annual, which contain the nominal list of inhabitants of different municipalities in the captaincy/province of São Paulo, where they are described by fires (household/productive units) some characteristics related to the residents, such as marital status, age, among others.

KEYWORDS:
Urban network; Territory; City formation; Regional economy; History of urbanization; Bragança Paulista

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