The blessed Joana de Gusmão (1688-1780): Analysis of representations constructed by historiography and activities in the religious field
Abstract
The text intends to systematize results obtained regarding the career of the blessed Joana de Gusmão, a sister of the celebrated diplomat Alexandre de Gusmão. Having settled on the Santa Catarina Island after continual pilgrimages, she gathered resources to apply in charity works, particularly the maintenance of worship and the education of poor orphans. The study of Joana de Gusmão’s case intends to show how the activities carried out by her departed from the representations attributed to women in that context, which emphasized the role of reclusion as a guarantee of women’s honor. To this end, a large secondary material will be used, consisting of chroniclers, memorialists and local historians, who sought in the 19th and 20th centuries to trace the Joana’s career from different perspectives. The exam of these works will be complemented with the reading of 18th century sources of the Overseas Historical Archive referring to the Captaincy of Santa Catarina. The dialogue with the most recent historiography about blessed women in the Old Regime of the tropics was also privileged, seeking to identify in the activities of these women an attempt to construct spaces of autonomy for women in a context marked by misogynistic relations. To reach the proposed objectives, the text was divided in three parts: (i) analysis of the reports produced about Joana de Gusmão; (ii) exam of the family history and of the different local contexts in which it was inserted; (iii) analysis of her activities in the religious field.
Keywords: Women of the Third Order of Saint Francis, gender representations, religious orders in Santa Catarina.
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