Among the public, political and racial: the construction of the Mercado Público in Desterro in the XIX century

Abstract

Brazil is the second half of the nineteenth century is a country that lives under the auspices of a monarchy in decline and still under the judge of slavery, despite the discussion abolitionist already be present on the political agenda of the moment. This article is within the context from the perspective of the town of Our Lady of Exile and the construction of its first public market in 1851, where I establish the construction of a public space as a place of regional political conflicts, but also relating to the monarchy government. Its construction in a moment of political sanitation and hygiene of the town of Desterro, before the visit of Emperor D. Pedro II, covers not only physical constructions, but also the "ethnic cleansing" encouraged by the speeches of the provincial presidents of the time as Antero José Ferreira de Brito, creator of the first large public market. To use this idea as a theoretical discussion of the use of public spaces, headquarters of the public sphere, this concept appropriate Jürgen Habermas. As sources, analyze the reports of provincial presidents, especially the president Antero de Brito who governed the province from 1840 to 1848 and documents on the construction site. Regarding the argument that rages from the second half of the nineteenth century on scientification and ranking the notion of race, from institutions that are created as IHGB, I use the bibliography of anthropologist Lilia Moritz Schwarz.