Baixada Fluminense as demographic void? Population and territory in the old municipality of Iguaçu (1890/1910)

Abstract

The municipality of Iguaçu occupied what is currently known as the Baixada Fluminense, i.e., it was part of the large municipality which are now Belford Roxo, Duque de Caxias, Japeri, Mesquita, Nilópolis, Nova Iguaçu, Queimados and São João de Meriti, covering a territory representing 35% of the current metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro city. The term Baixada Fluminense unifies what emancipations divided, since, at the end of the XIXth Century, the region was a municipality with rural activities and throughout the 20th century, it became an urban periphery. The recurring claim from researchers studying the region, regarding the existence of a demographic void which would have occurred in the late nineteenth century (1890-1910) drew our attention. The aim of this paper is to present the main arguments used in the construction of said image of demographic void and, based on the data obtained in the censuses, to offer some elements which challenge this reading in the manner in which it is stated, since the main thesis is that the region of Baixada (asa whole) became uninhabited, its empty lands becoming disorderly occupied by an urban population fleeing the federal capital and its high prices. This recurrent reading obscures other existing dynamics in the territory beyond the region’s own history.

Key words
Baixada Fluminense (Rio de Janeiro lowlands); Population; Occupancy; History