Memories of the Urwald in Southern Brazil: negotiations and risks of German-Brazilian forest colonization

Abstract

The settlement of German-rooted populations in Southern Brazil was largely dependent on the forest colonization of southern Mata Atlântica biome. Although this fact is a cornerstone to the history of colonization of the Brazilian territory, just a few analyzes were carried out in order to historicize the social memories attached to the forested space. Therefore, this text seeks through different sources and documents like immigrants/descendants’ diaries, literature, travelers’ reports, and others, to glimpse the German-Brazilian forest around the memory of the Urwald, that is, while a socioenvironmental construction made by German-Brazilian communities since the nineteenth century. Among the German-Brazilians we often observe the existence of a forest memory largely connected to the idea of risks, sacrifices, surmounting and victory over the forested environment; At the same time, such a memory is closely related to the migrants’ forest experiences linked to the dimension of the central European forests. This paper wants to explore such questions aiming at erecting the discussion about the memory of the Urwald through a concrete example, the Picada Essig community, located in Travesseiro, state of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil.