As Índias do conhecimento, ou a Geografia imaginária da conquista do ouro

Abstract

This paper studies Doctor José Rodrigues Abreu’s report of the beginning of settlements of the Brazilian mining areas in XVIII Century. He wrote Relação das Minas Brasílicas (Report of the Brazilian Mines), a manuscript that got lost and remained unknown until today. However, in his Medical book Historiologia Médica (Medical Historiology), published between 1733 and 1739, he incorporated part of his notes in the entry on gold. Trying to read the book of nature, with more empirical and rational principles, he granted to seeing preponderance over hearsay, like what was becoming common at that time among the naturalists. However, in his report about Minas Gerais, his practical and rational spirit was surpassed by wonder, because in his imagination that place corresponded to the idyllic, to the paradisiacal. This disconnection process with reality was reflected in the construction of an imaginary cartography, in which the mines were in the center of America and Brazil was represented as an island, image already in disuse at that time, having been substituted by a more realistic representation.