THE FOUNDLING IN ITS “QUALITY”: SOCIAL EQUITY AND THE FOUNDLINGS IN RIO GRANDE DE SÃO PEDRO (18TH TO 19TH CENTURIES)

Abstract

The following paper approaches the abandoning of children, a phenomenon that was widely practiced and tolerated in our colonial and imperial past. The space of our analysis is the Continent of Rio Grande de São Pedro, or, more specifically, Porto Alegre, the capital of the province, and Rio Pardo, located on the northeast, bordering the oriental shore. The proposal here is to debate the social condition of the foundlings starting from their racial classification and their condition in the social hierarchy. Thus, from the color or absence of that information on the sources made in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century, we look forward to problematize the prerogative that states that many of the foundlings were white, as well as that the blacks and the mestizos, in their quality as foundlings, could disarrange the social equity, a juridical principle of the Ancient Regime. In order to accomplish this analysis, we will detain ourselves in the nominative crossing of both ecclesiastic and administrative sources as a methodological resource supported by Micro-History and Social History.