“Here there are men killing people": regional stories to tell in the classroom about the british factory in Maraú

Abstract

In the São Sebastião de Maraú vile The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of economic agitation because on the riverside that named the town, was discovered several types of minerals coveted by industry. A group of Brazilians dedicated themselves to such explorations, but had such a right ripped out in the name of government interests, which hung to meet British ambitions, and Edward Pellew Wilson got by imperial decree to be responsible for the extraction of such riches. Years later he transferred to his countryman John Cameron Grant this benefit, and John Grant and Company built a factory that produced sulfuric acid, candles, soap, etc. on the farm called João Branco in that village. There the sertanejo Bernardino Moreira de Souza worked, a man about whom the greatest source of information comes from the lawsuit filed that emerged when he died, what happened when he tried to kill his British employers. This text, therefore, aims to offer regional history proposals for the classroom.