Vapores e locomotivas: os instrumentos de civilidade e desenvolvimento da população ribeirinha do São Francisco no período imperial 1879-1889

Abstract

The period of the second reign (1840 – 1889) was of consolidation of independence and of territorial unity of Brazil. Extinguished provincial upheavals that agitated the country in the disturbing years of regency (1831 – 1840), the imperial state dedicated itself to drawing up a national project aimed at placing Brazil in the select group of civilized nations. Based on scientism rules in circulation in the XIX century, that saw in the diffusion of scientific and technological progress a way out to withdraw from backwardness the more distant localities from civilized centers , the intellectual and bureaucratic elite of the empire idealized a combined network of railroad and waterway transportation that could integrate the region of the valley of the São Francisco river to the main urban centers of the Brazilian coast at the time – Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife. With a view on this objective, the central government created a scientific commission composed of foreign engineers and one Brazilian that would cover the total navigable extension of the São Francisco River to verify what construction work would be necessary to improve the navigation conditions of the same and analyze the other economic potentialities of the region. Upon conclusion of this task, the members of the hydraulic commission delivered reports leaving data that went beyond their technical impressions about the river and it‘s navigation conditions, detailed descriptions about economic activities practiced by riverbank population, their habits, customs and difficulties that the imperial government would face in its intent to take civilization to the region marked by poverty and time. This dissertation proposes to analyze through studies of the report left by members of the hydraulic commission, how the imperial government acted in an effective manner to materialize the ordeal of taking the São Francisco valley out of isolation in which it encountered itself and concomitantly integrate it into the agrarian-exporting dynamics of the period. We concluded that although the recommended constructions by studies of the hydraulic commission having been initiated still in the imperial period, conclusion of the same would only occur in the first decades of the republican period.