White Forest: the Hinterland of Engineers

Abstract

Using the concept of landscape, this article explores some representations of the Caatinga, particularly at the end of the 19th century, in order to understand the phenomenon of droughts, as well as the debates triggered by its socio-environmental crises from the perspective of Environmental History. In this sense, through a transdisciplinary approach, Saturnino de Brito's text on the northeastern histerland was used to identify other representations of the caatingas produced by naturalist travelers, geographers and engineers not only contemporary to Saturnino such as: Spix, Martius, Theodoro Sampaio, Giácomo Gabaglia, Euclides da Cunha and Aziz Ab'Saber. As a result, it was possible to see a progressive understanding of the phenomenon of droughts in the semi-arid northeast of Brazil based on historical, economic, social and environmental problems as opposed to deterministic explanations. Another piece of evidence was that the northeastern hinterland was progressively ceasing to be represented as an emptiness or desert and was instead represented by the characteristic features of the caatingas biome, with the identification of plants and ecological systems typical of the biome that were already used in their natural characteristics by the indigenous peoples who passed through that territory invaded by the dynamics of colonization and industrial capitalism.