Review colonization, re-read biopolitics, target power

the “paulistas” pioneers in the mines of Serro do Frio and Vila do Príncipe, Minas Gerais, 1702-1720

Abstract

The view of national elites on the 18th century São Paulo “bandeirantes” [pioneers] in Minas Gerais is centered on the notion of vocation and mission for the construction of a free, politically modern and progressive nation. We propose a reinterpretation of the political function of the pioneers in colonial modernity led by the Portuguese Crown and its General Government in Brazil around the discussion on biopolitics, disciplinary power, power and violence, authority and violation of bodies. In general, the notion of colonial pedagogical gesture invites us to review the biographies on another historical perspective, that of submission; in a specific way, we show how the paulistas pioneers, fierce spokesmen for metropolitan biopolitics, not only promoted colonization centered on violence, but created a modus operandi that structured the authoritarian political game, a legacy that still reverberates today. Based on bibliographic and documentary, historical and political research methodology (Foucault and Arendt), we reveal the intricate game of political intentions between pioneers and the Portuguese Crown, marked by the social performance of these characters, with multiple conflicts and interests, in which death and murder were part of the process, on a regular basis. The result of the study shows that Brazilian colonial history has a deep confusion in its political tradition between power and violence, authority and violation, culturally inherited by capillarized mechanisms of the reproduction of the biopolitics.