THE NOSSA SENHORA DAS MERCÊS BROTHERHOOD OF MARIANA

CREATION, STRUCTURING AND INSIDE DYNAMICS OF THE ASSOCIATIVE LIFE (MINAS GERAIS, XVIII AND XIX CENTURIES)

Abstract

This paper’s objective is to present, from a cultural perspective, the analysis of the main rules of the developments and inside dynamics of the Nossa Senhora das Mercês Brotherhood of Mariana, on the Capitania de Minas Gerais between the XVIII and XIX centuries as an social and devotional institution, composed by the so called “black creoles”. On this work, based on institutional documents, we specifically seek the understanding of the formation, structuring and the brotherhood experience of these individuals, who set themselves up as a cohesive group with common interests, mostly linked to the symbology of freedom and the seek of distinctiveness and privileges. Therefore during our researches we appealed to the analyses of the practices, appropriations and representations of themselves and of world where they were inserted. For that matter, we’ll move towards a great number of studies that points the matter of those brotherhoods formed by men of color at the colonial and imperial period, on the social, cultural, religious, political and economic sphere.