A social and urban portrait of Macapá (1878–1925): Case study on the property of the enslaved worker Lucinda and the bricklayer Jerônimo

Abstract

Historic documents show us that the process of urban land occupation in Brazilian cities was not always peaceful. In the case of Macapá in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was no different. Thus, bringing the analysis of the issue to the local context, this article proposes a case study on a plot of land, located in the central area of the city, mentioned in three documents from the archival collection of the Amapá Court of Justice (TJAP). The property was left in a will (1878) by Phelippe Pedro de Ary to an enslaved woman named Lucinda. Shortly after receiving her legacy, Lucinda sold the land (1881) to the stonemason Jerônimo Bernardo da Rosa. After occupying the land peacefully and without dispute for more than four decades, Jerônimo da Rosa filed a lawsuit for recognition of ownership (1925) and found himself threatened by the very state that, until then, had shown no interest in the area. In this case study, we start from the hypothesis that the social conditions of the parties - the seller (an enslaved woman) and the buyer (a stonemason) - would have impacted the judicial decision of the case: it was abandoned and without a judgment on the merits. Although not conclusive, the article contributes to the construction of local knowledge by showing details of the socio-spatial dynamics and power disputes that ended up in the Judiciary.