The formation and consolidation of a group of sugar producers from the land’s nobility.Captaincy of Pernambuco, XVI-XVIII centuries

Abstract:

Pernambuco’s society developed through an extractive and slave-based sugar economy which dictated the social relations of that society. The main objective of this article is to analyze how the spatial organization and the possibilities generated by the natural environment made possible the success of sugarcane plantation owners and farmers depended on the natural and logistical potential of the places where they settled. Thus, access to the most favorable lands for sugarcane cultivation enabled the rise and greater permanence in the long duration of the colonial period of a group of sugar mill owners and sugarcane farmers. This article presents partial results of a doctoral research.

Keywords:
Environmental history; Pernambuco; sugar activity