O "Grito de Marcha para Oeste" e a colonização do oeste catarinense: 1937-1945

Abstract

This academic work is based on elucidating the resonances and the direct and indirect interactions that the project started in the New State, March to the West, which aimed to provide the regions considered backwoods of the country the progress, had in the migratory process to the west of Santa Catarina; incorporating for this, a new expeditionary spirit, of which its ideologues, like Cassiano Ricardo, tried to connect to the nationalistic project to the achievements of areas until then "wild" of Brazilian interior. In this context, working with the concept of backwoods is abusive for the analysis of the period. It is relevant to denote how throughout the history of Brazil, the term backwoods was linked to pejorative conceptions, separated from the coastal civilization, the word used to mean a dangerous place where noncivilized people lived. Thus, in seeking to understand how the project of "March" of Varguista's period was conditioned by the sense of a backwoods still wilderness and uncivilized, because of that can be understand the direction of the migration to the west. In this context, the notion of progress and civilization becomes intrinsic to the discussion taking the political perpective. This outline of logic, derived from the progressive notions inaugurated by the Western revolutions of the eighteenth century, was based on a scientific, social and humanistic point of view, based on the presuppositions of civilization, in which the task of the state is the promoter. Thus, in order to develop the research, journalistic sources of the period, such as the newspaper A Voz de Chapecó, integrants's depoiments of the Foz do Chapecó Heritage Preservation Program, and iconography are essential elements for analyzing the interactions of local elites with national project and its influence on the migratory flow related to the period. therefor, this academic work introduces in its first chapter a historical tour of the western region of Santa Catarina, interacting with exploration of colonizing companies. In the second chapter, an analysis of the editorials of the newspaper A Voz de Chapecó, seeking to highlight the interactions of the new-state archetype with ideology spread by the colonizing elite. After that, the March to the West's project showed itself as the result of a nationalizing and authoritarian model, and sought to control through local authorities, to colonize and explore the western area of the Santa Cantarina state, considered an important border point.