Em comum acordo: direitos de propriedade e terras em situação jurídica pro indiviso no termo da cidade de São Cristóvão (Sergipe, 1800-1875)

Abstract

In the mid-nineteenth century, a considerable number of individuals residing in the jurisdiction of the city of São Cristóvão reported holding land under the legal condition of pro indiviso ownership. Among those who made such declarations were heirs to sugar plantations, owners of sugar-producing estates, farmers, and smallholders, all of whom informed their respective parish priests that they shared possession of the land. This points to the widespread diffusion of collective landholding practices across the territory of the former capital. Building on this context, the present dissertation examines the realization of property held pro indiviso within the judicial district of São Cristóvão between 1800 and 1875. The research seeks to understand how undivided landholdings were situated within the broader transformations of the agrarian landscape throughout the nineteenth century, embedded in systems of property transmission and everyday possession practices among diverse social groups. The investigation draws upon a vast documentary corpus composed of various types of historical sources, accessed through both physical and digital archives, and analyzed through the methodological lens of Social Network Analysis (SNA). From the perspective of the Social History of Property, this study conceives of “property” not as a static legal category, but as the product of dynamic social relations, deeply interwoven with collective property mentalities and possession practices grounded in multiple conceptions of ownership rights. Among the findings, it became evident that by the nineteenth century, São Cristóvão’s agrarian space was entirely occupied by a diversity of family groups. The use of collective practices was closely tied to the increasing value of land throughout the century, the customary avoidance of formal judicial demarcation of inherited properties, and the strategic approaches to estate transmission. These factors contributed both to the integration of undemarcated lands into the land market and to the preservation of communal usage as a means of safeguarding autonomous spaces for poor families, while also facilitating the social reproduction of elite households without disrupting economic activity. In this way, it becomes clear that shared access rights to undemarcated land constituted a customary practice shaped by negotiations, consensual arrangements, hierarchical relations, and social conflict among different groups.