A construção do novo tronco da EFCB na região central de Minas Gerais e a reestruturação territorial do Vale do Paraopeba no início do século XX

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1919, a costly project was carried out in the central region of Minas Gerais. It aimed to abandon the old railway trunk of the main Brazilian railway, the Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil, and implement it along the Paraopeba River. The decision for the new route, which expanded the route between the old General Carneiro and Queluz (Conselheiro Lafaiete) stations and entailed the need for new expropriations, was not properly studied in historiography until now. This dissertation aims, on the one hand, to explain the controversies and interplay of interests that supported and made this initiative viable. On the other, to demonstrate the transformations that its execution caused in the territory of Vale do Paraopeba. The research is based on urban history, on games of temporal and geographic scale (REVEL, 1998). It considers the contributions of authors interested in long-term structures – as Muratori's type-morphology (1967) – as well as those who were linked to the current of post-structuralism – Latour’s actor-network theory (2015). The dissertation is structured into three chapters. The first one is dedicated to the analysis of the disputes of interests that involved the decision to build the line along the Paraopeba. In this context, the differences between the lines carried out by the public authorities – based on political interests and territorial integration – and those run by the private sector – the railways called cata-café – stand out; as well as the controversies surrounding the appropriate gauge for railway expansion and land speculation in the territories crossed by the railway. The second chapter is specifically dedicated to the construction of the Paraopeba Branch, explaining the controversies and resistance in its execution. The third chapter demonstrates how a previously marginal territory was transformed in geopolitical, population and land terms after the implementation of the railway. By implementing the new route in the floodplains of the Paraopeba River, the reversal of long-lasting structures that allowed for almost three centuries this territory to establish itself as a place of resistance. This is on the margins of direct control by the central administrations.