Os Sertões e seus recomeços: João Alfaiate e o processo de ocupação nas margens do Itabapoana no século XIX

The northern hinterlands were the last regions of the Captaincy/Province of Rio de Janeiro to undergo the occupation and territorialization process, which only happened in the 19th century. Since the beginning of the century, there have been reports of a slow movement of occupation in the territory, which had been establishing forms of interaction with neighboring areas that were already in the integration process into the central power. The aim of this article is to understand the occupation and settlement of these areas through the agents who moved through and/or settled on those borders. To this end, the trial of “João Alfaiate” - a fugitive who sought shelter in the “Sertões do Itabapoana” as a way of escaping justice - was used to understand how these frontiers were seen and experienced by his contemporaries during the early 19th century.