O caso Saluzinho: ditadura, discurso e memória no Norte de Minas Gerais (1967-2025)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the ways in which the episode of resistance by the “posseiro” Salustiano Gomes Ferreira — known as Saluzinho — against the repressive apparatus of the Military Dictatorship (Varzelândia, Minas Gerais, 1967) has been discursively mobilized over the years by different political actors, as well as the memory that has been and continues to be constructed about him. Due to disputes over land possession between Saluzinho and the notorious landowner and businessman Oswaldo Antunes, Saluzinho found himself pursued by plainclothes police officers alongside Antunes' employees. Two of these men were allegedly shot by the peasant, who then took refuge in a nearby cave, where he remained for five days without access to food, resisting the military incursion with gunfire. Evidence suggests that local residents were tortured in attempts to extract Saluzinho’s whereabouts — including, fatally, his wife, Dona Dúlcia. This episode was widely covered by the national press with a strong bias against the squatter. In response, leftist organizations mobilized to legitimize Saluzinho’s resistance and frame it as a symbol of struggle against Capital in rural areas. This analysis draws on contributions from Political History, Social History, and Discourse Analysis to pursue the following objectives: to describe the geographical setting and historical moment in which the conflict took place; to reconstruct, based on primary sources, Saluzinho’s life trajectory; to analyze how the event was portrayed in newspapers at the time; and to examine the collective memory that has been built around him in the region where the conflict occurred. A range of sources are employed, including interviews, written accounts, court testimonies, clandestine publications, and widely circulated newspapers. In addition to reconstructing Saluzinho’s case, this dissertation also seeks to explore how this agrarian conflict contributes to the understanding of the interrelations between the State and large landowners during the Military Dictatorship, with a focus on the North of Minas Gerais.