INHERITANCE AS AN ASSET FOR EMERGENCY USE: THE GREAT DROUGHT AND FAMILY SURVIVAL IN THE SERTÃO (BRAZILIAN BACKLANDS)

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the Great Drought of 1877-1879 affected families in the backlands near the city of Príncipe, now Caicó, in the province of Rio Grande do Norte. Through the analysis of legal petitions concerning the sale of inherited property belonging to orphaned minors, it seeks to understand how inheritance ceased to represent merely family patrimony and began to assume an emergency function of survival. The sources reveal families who, faced with hunger, poverty, and the loss of their herds, resorted to selling land, animals, houses, and even enslaved people as a way to ensure their survival. The study demonstrates that the drought cannot be understood solely as a natural phenomenon, but as a social phenomenon that deepened inequalities and profoundly altered the family and economic dynamics of the backlands.