Animals and Society in Brazil

Regarding research methods, I literally considered all kinds of historical records in which I  was able to identify “the animal as subject” in the Brazilian colonial context. No matter what the approach, I just simply sought evidence of their presence, and from there proceeded to organize the narratives I encountered.  In this sense, the subjects of my chapter were not outlined 'a priori' but were the result of prevailing contexts of human-animal interactions. As my research progressed, I found particular authors who had made the most decisive contributions, highlighting some distinctive attitudes of a period.  This was the case of the Portuguese settler, Gabriel Soares de Souza, author of an early assessment of Brazilian natural resources, published in Portugal in 1587.  His work covered the Brazilian coastal region, from the Amazon river, in the north, to the Prata River, in the south (see the map), an area of some 8,5 thousand of kilometers.  His treat...