Entre as formas de se pensar e as maneiras de se viver: a família mestiça e a vida familiar em Minas Gerais colonial

Abstract

The objective of this work is to show the existence, formation and composition of the mestizo family in the Capitania de Minas Gerais in the colonial period. It is proposed to make a comparative analysis between the Counties Sabara and Serro do Frio to demonstrate how this mestizo family was a form of social organization backed by the deeply mestizo universe of Minas Gerais and Brazil. The mestizo family involved the mixture of individuals whose qualities (brancos, pretos, crioulos, mestiços, mulatos, pardos, cabras, mamalucos, cafuzos, caribocas, among others) and socio-legal conditions (livre, liberto e escravo) were marked by these distinctions which reproduced biological and cultural differences. The brand of this mestizo family was the instability of meanings attributed and reworked by the subjects of separate origins. Couples involved in the same family relationship might have different understandings about this family. So it was not difficult to observe that the mestizo family had blended some mores of patriarchal and matriarchal authorities, involving polygamous and monogamous relationships derived from European, African, indigenous or already deeply merged traditions. Many of these families, over time, dominated the political dimension of that society, providing better life conditions or even fortunes. In this sense, we seek to demonstrate how they have become the engine for the consolidation of the mestizo cultural universe, which covered the forms of being, thinking, relating, acting, seeing and speaking, in short, of living in these societies.