“Where Should the History of Brazil Start?”: Eurocentrism, Historiography, and the Anthropocene

Abstract

This paper follows a late nineteenth-century debate in Brazilian historiography about the proper starting point for narratives of Brazilian history: Europe (European expansion and the great voyages of early modern period) or America (with descriptions of the territory and native peoples). This debate centered on defining the “antecedents” of Brazilian history, which would fit a narrative logic with particular implications. The chosen historical process would, in its turn, would help identify a “center” for Brazilian history, which could either be “internal” (territory and its earlier occupants) or “external” (Europe and the expansion of commercial capitalism). This article analyzes the theoretical trio of “antecedents-process-center” during a formative moment in Brazil’s historiography with attention to possible reevaluations of the place and role of indigenous peoples and nature in history.