Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on an expedition in 18th c. Minas Gerais led by a rancher who became one of Brazil's largest landholders. His actions demonstrate how the crown became an accomplice of adventurers who did not always do its bidding in its drive to territorialize sovereignty over distant lands.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on an expedition in 18th c. Minas Gerais led by a powerful rancher who was rewarded for his actions with multiple land grants, becoming one of Brazil's largest landholders. The Portuguese legal regime sought to prevent individuals from acquiring more than a single land grant. This rural potentate circumvented this standard by appealing to a longstanding compact forged between the crown and favored subjects engaged in territorial expansion. The rancher searched for gold, but none could be found. He sought Indians to conquer, but they escaped his armed lieutenants. He attempted to root out runaway slave settlements, but their occupants vanished into the forests. Eager to proclaim his accomplishments, he invited rural poets to sing his praise and recorded their crude stanzas for royal authorities to read. In short, to build his ranching empire, he enacted a series of conquest rituals, which the crown read as heroic and worthy of uncommon recompense, despite their modest results. His greatest achievement lay in his ability to enlist the colonial state in his campaign to seize land just beyond its effective jurisdiction. At such distances, formal legal authority became attenuated and gave ground to customary practices developed over the course of more than two centuries of inland exploration. The promise of acquiring treasure—in the form of gold, Indians, and productive slaves—turned the crown into an eager accomplice of shrewd adventurers who did not always do its bidding in the drive to territorialize colonial control over distant lands.