The Land law of 1850 and the Agriculture Minstry's Reports among 1874-1884

Abstract

We intend to discuss how the agriculture ministry’s reports considered the Brazilian 1850 Land Law’s effects, between 1873 and 1889. Our aim is propose another way of reading those documents, different from José Murilo de Carvalho’s approach. He used those reports for stating that the 1850 Law was created by the bureaucracy, but it had no effect due to the resistance of the slave owners. We disagree with him since those documents show that the ministers did not approve a strict application of this rule. The reports also show that the law was applied and used in different ways in each province.

Keywords

• Lei de Terras de 1850
• Propriedade
• Brasil Império
• Relatórios do Ministério da Agricultura