Generally speaking, the 19th century history of "immigration-colonization", object of the Brazilian historiography and the local historical studies, is mainly narrated from the perspective of the modern society ideological, hegemonic coordinates: civilization, progress, evolution, and work. From this conceptual viewpoint, nature is represented as a mere natural resource that must be exploited and handled by the human society. This paper deals with history and the historical knowledge about the colonization process in Santa Catarina state, mainly in relation to the first colonies settled in the second half of the 19th century. It questions the relationship between culture and nature instituted in the colonization process and the concept of nature present in the historical accounts of the colonies; documental and historiographic sources are observed (Province Reports and Colonies Reports) from the perspective of environmental history. The paper also demonstrates that as the historical evolution of the colonization is traditionally seen and explained it stimulates and legitimates the destruction and domestication of the natural world as well as the native people, particularly the Atlantic Forest and the Xokleng people.
colonization; Atlantic Forest; progress; History of Nature
