O projeto de centralização político-administrativa do Governador das Armas da Província de Goiás Raimundo José da Cunha Mattos (1823-1826)

Abstract

The emergence of the Brazilian Imperial State during the first half of the nineteenth century was a phenomenon marked by the effort to ensure the consolidation of Brazil's political and territorial unity. In this sense, the House of Bragança, the deputies and senators who represented the Provinces took their seats in the Constituent Assembly and Legislative in Rio de Janeiro and the royal officials who composed the military and bureaucratic body scattered throughout the territory corresponding to the Empire and military mobilization in the provinces is an essential part of this process of building the Brazilian Imperial State in the first decades of the nineteenth century. We therefore seek to accompany the construction of the Imperial State in the provincial perspective, that is, from the work of the Governor of Arms Raimundo José da Cunha Mattos in the Province of Goiás between 1823 and 1826 with emphasis on the project of political and administrative centralization promoted by the military . More than a forger of the representation of the decay of the Province of Goiás, we assume that Raimundo José da Cunha Mattos was an enlightened intellectual who witnessed what he considered to be the difficulties faced in the provincial area of Goiás in the sense of promoting civilization and Empire of Brazil. His writings constitute a denunciation to the Emperor of the "evils" suffered by the Goians and at the same time he expects from D. Pedro I the application of "remedies to evils". In this sense, the military, political and intellectual activities of Raimundo José da Cunha Mattos in the Province of Goiás implicitly implicit a project of political-administrative centralization in the sense of promoting territorial integration not only the political adherence of the Province of Goiás to the Empire of Brazil, but also its integration through economic bias.