The developmental policy for the Amazon: implementation, objectives and the fall of SPVEA (1953-1966)

Abstract

The federal government created the Superintendency of the Amazonian Economic Valorization Plan (SPVEA) in 1953, the second regional agency to operate in the country. It was the first time, since the rubber crisis in the 1910s, that a planned action by the Union sought to strengthen and reshape the Amazon as a whole, and not only to revitalize the rubber economy. The objective of the article is to clarify how the SPVEA tried to reach its goal, that is, the restructuring of the Amazonian society. There were numerous problems that the institution found in its trajectory. After establishing how SPVEA was created and commenting briefly about its objectives, the emphasis is on two crucial points that are almost ignored in the small bibliography on the subject: first, bring to light the work of the superintendents, especially the difficulties faced, responsible for to make almost all of them give up the job. Second, to present the way in which the total loss of confidence about the work of the institution occurred, causing it to receive the label of a corrupted institution.