“A sempre leal cidade da paraíba”: culturas históricas e culturas políticas em uma capitania do império português (séculos XVII e XVIII)

Abstract

The article explores the relationships between the local identities of the Ancient Iberian Regime and the production of historical cultures and political cultures in the city of Paraíba de Nossa Senhora das Neves between the 17th and 18th centuries. With the end of the war of Divine Liberty and the difficult task of rebuilding the captaincies of the North, dividing the local government posts in a context of crisis of the sugar economy, the fragmentation and dispute between the allied lordships, all related and coming from the "Olindense cradle" of the 16th century. The intensification of rivalries allowed the emergence of an emerging nativist feeling in the city of Paraíba, whose main exponent was the “Senado da Câmara” and its councilmen, inventors of a toponymy of the local politics based on the maintenance of the privileges and exemptions of the "first conquerors" of that captaincy and defense of military and political-administrative autonomy before the powerful neighbor to the south - Pernambuco.