Ajuntar manuscritos, e convocar escritores: o discurso histórico institucional no setecentos luso-brasileiro

Abstract

This work is detained in the intellectual production of the Academia Brasílica dos Renascidos. This institution was founded in Bahia, in 1759 and its principal objective was to write the geographical and natural, political and military, ecclesiastical and secular history of Portuguese America. The Academia dos Renascidos brought together members of the local elites, as well as, of the elites of other regions of Portuguese America, the former as Academy members and the lasts in the condition of writer members. Through the intellectual production of these individuals, we identify the defense of the legitimacy of the Portuguese sovereignty in its possession of the American continent and the search of mercy as some of the main uses of the historical speech during the Luso-Brazilian century XVIII. Besides the statutes and the proposals prepared by the renascido congress, we analyzed three masterpieces, of three different academics, looking in them for some of the defining elements of the practices of writing the history during the period. We elected the work of three academics with different formations with different approaches of the “brasilic” reality: a monk of the Franciscan Order, Antonio de Santa Maria Jaboatão, an engineer, José Antônio Caldas, and a lieutenant-colonel, Jose de Mirales.