SOBRE “AQUELES QUE MANDAM NO LUGAR”: CORONELISMO, DOMINAÇÃO E RESISTÊNCIA NA REGIÃO SERRANA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL DURANTE A PRIMEIRA REPÚBLICA

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss issues relating to how, during the First Republic, in the context of the mountainous region of Rio Grande do Sul, the relations of coronelistas were configured. More precisely, I analyze the coronelismo as an expression of the confluence of a political fact – the federalization established by the Constitution of 1891 – and an economical environment – the crisis that marked Brazil in the early decades of the twentieth century. From this point of view, I try to perceive the performing location and more particularized of the coronelismo. Especially, the way the relationships were constituted between local leaders and the rural population that were under its sphere of influence. Thus, I try to discuss with the classical literature on the subject, calling the attention to the complexity of the coronelismo as a political phenomenon and highlighting that the relations of domination that characterize, before being a result of the “ignorance” of the rural population is the product of an historical process which, among other things, involves the way on how territorial ownership in Brazil was established.