The Invention of the Ways Royal Gold: Territorial Formation and Strategies of Territorial Appropriation of Transport Routes in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This text aims to analyze the strategies employed by the Brazilian colonial elite in the process of territorial ownership of the Way Royal Gold (Minas Gerais - Rio de Janeiro), through the granting of the sesmaria in the first half of the eighteenth century, whose goal was to get the maximum advantage of the compulsory movement of people and goods through the food supply, toll charges, rental ranches, etc.. in reposes and farms that were forming in these sesmarias. The study is based on analysis of documentary sources transcribed in specific journals and reference books. We conclude that for understanding Brazilian territorial formation in the eighteenth century, it is not enough alone to analyze gold mining, but the whole production chain with emphasis on the circulation system that not only united the interior to the coast, but also printed a territoriality itself along
these axes of movement.