A cartografia como representação e legitimação da conquista da América Portuguesa no século XVI

Abstract

The maps are still usually seen as simple objects of spacial representation.In the past years, though, the cartography was hit by a huge process of theoretical e methodological.From that moviment, the neutrality and objectivity of the cartographic representation were questioned, forming, this way, the bases for a new History of Cartography, that have the maps as social and cultural constructions and also as means of communication owners of na own visual language. Considering this renewed perspective, the present research has as its goal to comprehen the role played by the maps in the proccess of the conquer of the Portuguese America during the first years of the XVI century. For all that, the cartographic practices elaborated by the portugueses will be analysed looking fooward to make explicit the politic-idealogical dimension contained in the maps. This way, the cartographic appliances, the geographic distortions, the geographic miths and the historical contexto of the maps that represented the territorial domains in America were interpretated and discussioned, lookink forward to put in evidence the fact tha the cartographic productions became na importante tool of power; a na inteligence weapon specialized in promote and legitimize the ownership. It’s relevant to highlight that the work is accompanied by the development of an Learning objects (LO) that looks forward, in a simple way, to question the “nature of the maps” possibiliting the users to realize that the maps do not represent only a physical image of the space, but the are products that hold a tendentious a speech, mainly those which were made by the portuguese cartographers. To sumarize, the project is a facilitator resource that gets to translate the abstracts of history regard the portuguese colonization in America, providing a new way to teach and learn.