The Pathways of the People: Possession, Common Uses, and Access to Land and Natural Resources in 18th Century Portuguese America

This project studies conflicts of enclosure in 18th-century Portuguese America, with a primary focus on Bahia and complementary cases from Maranhão. It examines how attempts to appropriate and enclose land and common goods generated disputes over access and how these disputes were governed.
During the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mining economy of central Brazil led to the opening of new inland routes and the intensification of older ones, further connecting coastal regions to the sertões (inlands). These connections contributed to the growth of settlements and to the arrival of new settlers in rural areas. As land became more intensively occupied, land grants, purchases, and individual initiatives to consolidate holdings multiplied, increasing pressures on spaces already used by local populations.
The project focuses on conflicts that arose when enclosure interfered with established uses. These conflicts were triggered by concrete actions such as fencing land, closing paths, cutting trees, and destroying roças, whether justified by a written title to the land or carried out through sheer force. They concerned specific elements of the landscape: paths, water sources, forests, pastures, rivers, and cultivated areas, whose continued access was essential to everyday domestic life. The main actors in these conflicts were moradores, settled residents living under colonial jurisdiction. They asserted collective rights of use and access as neighbors, grounded in long-standing practice, time immemorial, custom, and necessity. These claims emerged when enclosure disrupted domestic activities and threatened subsistence.
The project also examines how colonial authorities responded to these conflicts. Municipal councils, governors, and magistrates intervened to undo enclosures, restore access, and prevent the escalation of violence. Their actions aimed to re-establish a prior state of use and to maintain peace and public order.
By analyzing conflicts of enclosure, this project shows how colonial expansion was negotiated and constrained within the colonial normative order itself. It demonstrates that common access to land and nature did not depend on ownership or formal title, but on collective possession and effective use. Through appeals grounded in necessity, custom, poverty, and vulnerability, local actors mobilized colonial authorities to have their collectives’ rights recognized and protected through possessory remedies.

Image: Pedro Leolino Mariz – Planta das ribeiras situadas entre os rios Pardo e Jequitinhonha e da ribeira Piauhy Bravo, c. 1752, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (Portugal)