Sobre as cinzas da Mata Atlântica: cafeicultura e transformação do meio ecológico em Cataguases (1870-1930)

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to produce a study about the ecological history adopting as object the city of Cataguases, located in the northwestern portion of Zona da Mata in the state of Minas Gerais. Our intention is to investigate the relationship between natural conditions and human action in determination of the social and agrarian structure and which the economic forces that led to coffee production in the region and more specifically in the city of Cataguases. For such an achievement we defined as chronological mark the year 1870, in order to contextualize the coffee production of the decade that witnessed in the year 1877 the lift Cataguases to a municipality and the arrival of the railroad in the same year, and 1930, year in which the coffee production enter in crisis.