Legislação régia em terras minerais: uma análise do processo de exploração de diamantes na comarca do Serro Frio, 1720 -1771

Abstract

The research developed in the Postgraduate Program in History of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, PPHR / UFRRJ, proposes to analyze the formation of the administrative apparatus and the experiences developed in the district of Serro Frio, captaincy of Minas Gerais, between the years 1720 and 1771. As such, we seek to understand the expansionist logic of the Portuguese State in the beginning of colonization, deepening knowledge about some issues to analyze the process of exploration of mineral resources, and thus point out how its legislation was developed, molded to the political culture of Former Regime. Finally, complementing and deepening this analysis, we aim to demonstrate that the increase in the normative capacity of the Portuguese Crown was contained in the adequacy of the ordering, through an administrative legal regime for the exploration of diamond lands, as well as it was dependent on material everyday realities, i.e. in the multiple interests of the political-economic dynamics of the Portuguese overseas empire, which in the present study it stands out in the context of diamond mining.