Antes das Minas Gerais: conquista e ocupação dos sertões mineiros

Abstract

This article aims at reviewing the history of the conquest and occupation of the San Francisco river valley, in Minas Gerais. The definite version of which was established more than a century ago, in several chapters concerning a) the geographical expansion, as named by Basílio de Magalhaes; or b) the territorial history, by Felisbelo Freire; or c) the ancient routes and settlement of Brazil, as in Capistrano de Abreu. Here, meanwhile, the objectives are quite different, despite their archival sources be inescapably the same. It is assumed that in the second half of the sixteenth century the process of conquest of the territories occupied by indian tribes settled in the right bank of the San Francisco river had come to an end. Under this prospect, in spite of repeating once more the history of the expeditions to the interior of Brazil, what interests here is to explore the place these expeditions had in this process of conquest and territorial occupation, which soon after became possible the linkage of the coast regions with the "sertao (hinterland), and even amongst the different sertoes.