Rio das Mortes parish was one of the first three existent parishes in Minas Gerais captaincy. It was settled in 1714 and the vila of São João del-Rei was the headquarter of the court. It stretched throughout the middle-south, in the southwest of the captaincy and it comprised the landmarks of São José del-Rei, Jacuí, Baependi, Campanha da Princesa, Barbacena, Queluz, Nossa Senhora de Oliveira, São José do Rio das Mortes e Tamanduá. In this website, data and scanned images of the documentary archives are presented and they are being preserved, identified and microfilmed by the “Forum Documenta” project.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Rio das Mortes parish was the most extensively populated and crowded parish in the captaincy. 1808 statistics show a number of 154.869 inhabitants compared to the total of 433.000 in the whole captaincy. There were approximately 38.000 slaves in the parish. Its boundaries were formed by Vila Rica parish in the East, Sabará and Paracatu in the North, Goiás and São Paulo in the West and São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the South. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the parish was responsible for the goods supplies in the captaincy. The growing importance of the agricultural and pastoral activities developed in the area and the fact that they were dedicated to supplying the domestic market led to the advancing movement of the population to the South region which started in the second half of the eighteenth century. Consequently, the main activity changed from the mining to the agricultural production due to all the changes that were taking place in the economic dynamics. The fall in the result of the investments in the gold business resulted in a greater demand for the agricultural activities, hoping that the profit would be bigger. Whereas Vila Rica parish had a fall in the number of its inhabitants, Rio das Mortes had its population tripled throughout the same period, growing from 82.781 inhabitants in 1776 to 154.869 in 1808 and to 213.617 in 1821. Besides the internal migration, as a result of its location, the parish started to attract European immigrants, above all the Portuguese ones who were looking forward to better opportunities to make a fortune.

The premature agricultural specialization made the parish become not only a strategic place of provision but also a goods supplier to the coastal market. When the Portuguese court moved to Brazil, the centre of the economic flow shifted from local supplying to Rio de Janeiro trading centre. The privileged geographic position, above all in the triangle which was formed by the vilas of São João, Barbacena and Campanha, the most important commercial entrepôts, enabled the region to become the main gateway through which all the goods passed. In this way, the vilas became redistribution centers of imported products which were brought from Rio de Janeiro, enlarging and varying its commercial activities. The strategic position of the region was reinforced by the policy called “joanina” (referring to D.João, the king of Portugal) which aimed at the Mid-south integration and, taking the economic objectives into account, at making sure that the Court would have products and would be supplied. Because of this fact, the roads called “Comércio” and “Polícia”, which were two of the most important public constructions of the period, would go from the Court to Rio das Mortes parish. Although São João kept its administrative and juridical position of Rio das Mortes parish throughout the nineteenth century, the geographic area which corresponded to the parish went through many changes and reductions through this period as many new parishes had been settled due to its division. However, this region went on being an important economic, political and administrative center in Minas Gerais captaincy throughout the 1800’s.

“Fórum Documenta” project is the result of a deal made between UFSJ and the courts of Oliveira, Itapecerica, Conselheiro Lafaiete and the latter city town hall. It also counts on the financial support by FAPEMIG, Conselho Gestor do Fundo de Defesa dos Direitos Difusos (CFDD), Ministry of Justice (Ministério da Justiça) and it has some associations with technical cooperation by the Public Archive of Minas Gerais, National Archive and Casa de Rui Barbosa. It is the result of hard work which involves permanent identification, conservation, diffusion and research of the law archives spread throughout the territory, in the past Rio das Mortes parish, the project is developed in the LABDOC (Documentary conservation and research lab) which is part of the Social Science Department of the university (UFSJ). Priceless part of the register office documents of the region, which refer to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has outlived up today and it is spread in the register offices of different cities in the inner part of the state waiting for being preserved, organized and catalogued correctly. As a result of different dealings in the districts of the state of Minas Gerais, a wide range of archives originally from the different districts of the old Rio das Mortes parish are being redeemed, organized and made public by our website. Up to this moment, the archives which came from the register offices of Oliveira, São João del Rei, Itapecerica and Conselheiro Lafaiete are already available for research.For a couple of years now, “Fórum documenta” project has been well succeeded in the area of researching development and financed actions and also, and above all, in the recognition by other institutions as well as in the enlargement in the contact kept among other institutions which all together enable the growth in the efforts to preserve and research the register offices archives. It can be said that, nowadays, the project is a reference in the state of Minas Gerais in terms of redeeming, treatment and organization of the archives. Finally, it is important to mention that the huge efforts which were used to make the archives and primary sources public represent a compromise with the diffusion and propagation of all the researched and studied data, which has been one of the developed guidelines in the Social Science Department and in the History Master Course in UFSJ.