Os quilombos de Lavrinhas: memória, fronteira e interculturalidades no Alto Tocantins

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the quilombola communities of the Lavrinhas de São Sebastião region, located in the Upper Tocantins, north-central Goiás, analyzing their memories, territorialities, and intercultural dynamics through the lens of Environmental History. The study is based on the narratives recorded by Carlos Pereira de Magalhães in Cartas de Goiás (1918– 1925), complemented by contemporary testimonies and field research, to understand the historical process of quilombo formation and the cultural and ecological dynamics that shaped these communities. The research seeks to comprehend how Black, Indigenous, and European populations, through their interactions in the former Lavrinhas land grant (sesmaria), developed specific forms of environmental adaptation, creating an ecological rootedness — a concept adopted from Alexandre Martins de Araújo — that intertwines traditional knowledge, resistance, and cultural continuity. The methodology combines Oral History, discourse analysis, and the interdisciplinary approach of Environmental History, articulating documentary sources, collective memories, and literary records. The study proposes to understand Lavrinhas as a space of multiple frontiers — territorial, cultural, and symbolic — where identities and alterities were shaped by encounters and conflicts among diverse groups. The analysis of testimonies and historical documentation revealed elements of a possible Quilombola Confederation in the Upper Tocantins, as well as evidence of exchanges among descendant communities such as Pombal, Laguna, Tomás Cardoso, and João Borges Vieira. The findings indicate that the quilombola communities of the region embody living expressions of resistance and cultural preservation, whose historicity transcends contemporary affirmative policy frameworks, reinforcing the historical legitimacy of their identity claims. The study concludes that Lavrinhas de São Sebastião functioned as a core center of socio-cultural and environmental relations that gave rise to several quilombos in the region, constituting a territory of shared memories and dynamic interculturalities. This research contributes to the historiographical debate on the settlement processes in Goiás, broadening the understanding of the relationships among memory, environment, and Afro-descendant identity in central Brazil.