Abstract

FELTRAN-BARBIERI, Rafael. The other side of the agricultural frontier: a brief history on origin and decline of Indian agriculture in cerrado. Ambient. soc. [online]. 2010, vol.5Selected edition. ISSN 1809-4422.

Frederic Jakson Turner's thesis that frontiers had forged the American nature, ascending to private life through the development of democracy and economy, did not inspire Latin American critical studies because here the reality showed the other side of the frontier: a space to which dynamic centers' social conflicts were purged and exacerbated, as well described by Otávio Velho. In this process, the first confronts usually did not occur between the migrating population and the workers hired by the absent land owner, but between all people and the Indians. A lot has been written about these conflicts, but the focus is always the one more drastic and urgent: genocide. However, little is said about the subsidiary decline, that is, the decline of agricultural processes. This is even truer when we talk about the Cerrado Domain. This paper aims to offer a very short history of Indians' agriculture origin and decline in Cerrado.

Keywords : Agricultural frontier; Agrarian history; Cerrado; Indian agriculture.

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