Donas de bens e de “gentes”: mulheres livres e forras de Vila do Carmo e seu termo (1713-1750)

Abstract

Supported by the analysis of post-mortem inventories and wills which cover the period between 1713 and 1750, this paper enter the universe of free and vindictive women of Town of Caramel and their term, tracing their social and economic profile. Aiming to understand the material conditions of existence and economic activities, which were involved, we analyze the composition of wealth of these women and the meaning that the possession of clothes, utensils, jewelry, containers, furniture, objects of devotion, property and slaves, had in shaping the social place of these characters. Who were these women? What were their economic and social conditions? How they lived? What space they traffic by? These were some issues that, during the search, we tried to respond. We found multiple profiles of women who, within the mining company, contributed to the structure of colonial society in the seventeenth Mines. Vindictive and free women, who were present in the Brotherhood and had a distinctly baroque religiosity. Vindictive, which traffic by the world of work and, through it, sought distancing themselves from their old condition. Women married to men of the elite, who were present, bearing next to them, their social and economic status.