Sesmarias, registros cartoriais e alquimistas: apropriação e grilagem de terras no Oeste do Pará

Abstract

The object of study of this qualitative research is the formation of private ownership of land constituted on the margin of legality, in which the subject of law uses letters of sesmarias to legitimize the private domain over a certain fraction of the territory. The empirical geographical area of investigation is the West of Pará, which is why the following questions were raised: How are land grabbing strategies presented through the use of sesmarias letters? How do the processes and relations of the production of a notary alchemy occur that transform papers without legal value into documents translating domain? How do the investigations of evidence of illegalities occur? The general objective of the research is to analyze how land grabbing strategies are presented through the use of sesmarias letters. Specifically, the research has the following objectives: to identify the theoretical categories related to the formation process of private land ownership; map the sesmarias issued in the colonial period; understand the process of discrimination and collection of federal and state public lands, as well as confirm the location of sesmarias in areas collected by the federal and state governments; and, to characterize cases of properties that have evidence of land grabbing sustained in letters of sesmarias. Based on the dialectical method, articulated by historical materialism, and based on the Theory of Creation and Re-creation of the Peasantry and Landholdings, the research procedures followed the following path: state of the question, analysis of documents and case studies. As a result, the investigation identified: 1) the issuance of 72 (seventy-two) sesmarial grants; and, 2) the existence of 50 (fifty) rural properties with signs of land grabbing supported by sesmarias letters. In relation to properties with signs of land grabbing, they have an area ofaround 224,000 (two hundred and twenty-four thousand) hectares, spread across federal and state domains, located in the municipalities of Altamira, Juruti, Medicilândia, Óbidos, Prainha and Terra Santa.