O território oriental da Vila de Lorena: a estrema da capitania paulista no Vale do Paraíba - o povoamento e a posse

Abstract

In 1726 the government was making every effort in the opening of the “new way of Piedade" whose trails followed the edges of the Paraíba river. In 1776 the governor of São Paulo decided to modifie the trails that would turn away, near Areias, from the floodable edges of the Paraíba river (and consequently from Campo Alegre) and go in South eastem direction, for the “Freguesia de São João Marcos”. That decision provoked the hostility of the parish of Campo Alegre. In 1776 the village of Guaratinguetá ratified the possession of the lands this side of the Pirai river. In 1789 the new village of Lorena confirmed this possession made by the people of Guaratinguetá. These facts provoked the protest in Campo Alegre, São João Marcos, Angra dos Reis and in the Council of Rio de Janeiro and also the censorship of the vice-roys against 'he government of the São Paulo State. In 1801 the colonel Fernão Dias promoted to the levei of a village the “Freguesia de Campo Alegre” (Resende Village) and the judge of the Court of
Appeals, Fragoso, arbitrarily drew up the boundries of Resende, incorporating in it the lands belonging to the Province of São Paulo. The boundaries of São Paulo suffered a reduction in area with these annexations, in the shape of tweezers, operated to the South (Paraty) and to the North extremities (Resende). Mainly during the period called “coffee civilization” the central lands (Areias, Barreiro and Bananal) were the purpose of new desmemberments. These attempts cooled off because of the impoverishment of region which became decadent with the ruin of the coffee plantations.