Mandonismo mágico do sertão: corpo fechado e violência política nos sertões da Bahia e de Minas Gerais 1856-1931

Abstract

This dissertation examines the politics of small towns in the north of Minas Gerais and southern and central Bahia throughout the Second Empire and the First Re public analysing the belief in the charisma of Corpo Fechado (magic invulner ability to gunfire and weapon hits) assigned to four mandões (local bosses): father José Vitório de Souza, the subdelegado (kind of sherif) Afonso Lopes Moitinho, Antônio Antunes de França (bandido Antônio Dó, originally landowner) and Col onel Horácio de Matos. Firstily we studie the peculiarities and the origins of the Corpo Fechado belief, passing then to an analysis of the geographical context in which these mandões were inserted, emphasizing the frontier situation, not only the border between Bahia and Minas Gerais, but also the frontier between areas of economic exploitation of mining and ranching, and indeed the vicinity of “of f icially” colonized areas with indigenous peoples, Maroons and other traditional hinterland populations. From then on the dissertation focus the endemic collec tive violence, and even war, in the regions where these mandões acted, studing preliminarily the institutions of this forms of violence and passing to the analysis of four “wars”, starting with the conflicts of a political nature on the São Fran cisco region, passing to better characterized war in the Chapada Diamantina, in cluding the passage of the Prestes Column through the region (1926), when the revolutionaries have fought with the local bosses; and concluding with the inter clan fighting between partisans of “mocós” (cavies) and “tamanduás” (anteaters), which took place in the region of Vitória da Conquista (1895). The last part of the dissertation is devoted to the study of the charisms of local mandões, including political action of Catholic priests and the murder understood as a tool to finish too charismatic dominations