A escrita do tempo e a poética do espaço:história e espaço no livro Geografia do Brasil Holandês de Luís da Câmara Cascudo

In 1956, Luís da Câmara Cascudo published his book Geografia do Brasil Holandês. In this book, he studied and described a space - the Dutch Brazil - from a geographical and historical perspective. To do this, he articulated both perspectives from the point of view of his own reading of the History of Nordeste , establishing a dialogue with the historiographical tradition of the study of the Dutch Brazil in Pernambuco. When portraying the Dutch presence in Nordeste, Cascudo articulated a drama in which the Dutch would have their history described as a typically tragic plot, portrayed as if they were already condemned to failure in advance. To this tragedy he opposed a predominantly comic Portuguese plot, as if the Portuguese victory over the Dutch was as desirable as inevitable for the space of Nordeste . When narrating the clash between the Dutch and the Portuguese for the space of Nordeste , however, Cascudo ended up delineating his own place of speech, as a spokesperson for the identity of the potiguar space in opposition to the pernabucano space described by Freyre and Gonsalves de Mello. In this way, the space of Rio Grande do Norte would have its own identity, constructed from de Dutch absence and constituted from the Portuguese legacy contrarily to the space of Pernambuco, narrated from an articulation and a conciliation of the Flemish and Lusitan legacy, even though highlighting the latter. While the Dutch would had been a constant presence in the history of Pernambuco for Freyre and Gonsalves de Mello, they wouldn t have gone beyond legend in the space of Rio Grande do Norte, removed from its geography and erased from its history. When describing de geography of the potiguar space, therefore, Cascudo articulates the inexistence of the History of a time dominated by the Fleming with the search of a Portuguese space, trough the narration of its origins and constitution, as well as the registry of the characteristics of its legacy