Dominichi Miranda de Sá

Telégrafos e inventário do território no Brasil: as atividades científicas da Comissão Rondon (1907-1915)

In its work to build communication infrastructure, the Rondon Commission (1900-30) became well known for its contacts with indigenous societies. Little, however, has been written about the scientific research conducted by its members, that was inseparable from the recently inaugurated republican regimes goals of modernization, settlement, and integration of the interior with the rest of Brazil. The article analyzes the impact of the Commissions scientific work in areas like botany, geology, and zoology, as well as its impact on the new field of work thus opened to Brazilian researchers and naturalists, who took part in these exploratory journeys in ever greater numbers.

O medo do sertão: a malária e a Comissão Rondon (1907-1915)

The article analyzes the relationships between disease, knowledge, and settlement of the Brazilian territory within the context of the Strategic Telegraph Commission from Mato Grosso to Amazonas, more famously known as the Rondon Commission. From 1907 to 1915, the commission traversed broad regions of what are now the states of Mato Grosso, Rondonia and Amazonas as part of its endeavor to set up telegraph lines that would link these regions to the countrys main cities. Over time, the malaria, endemic to the places visited by the commission, forced it to abandon some of its goals and delay achievement of others. The article focuses on how the disease impacted the work of the commission and highlights creation of a sanitary service intended primarily to control malaria.

Fronteira, História e Natureza: a construção simbólica do Oeste Brasileiro (1930-1940)

This article aims to present the discourses on the occupation of the Brazilian West in the publications of Cassiano Ricardo, Henrique Silva and Zoroastro Artiaga published in the magazines Cultura Politica (1941-1945), Informacion Goyana (1917-1935), Revista Oeste (1942-1944) and in other works published during the 1940s. Frontier and nature are the analytical categories the article deals with, from an Environmental History perspective. The analysis privileges the scientific and ideological perspectives present in the works studied, which allow for the identification of the symbolic construction of the Brazilian West.