Embates da fé: conflitos religiosos entre congregacionais e católicos no sertão da Paraíba (1930-1940).

Abstract

This work aimed to investigate conflicts of a religious nature carried out by congregational Protestants and Roman Catholics in the Hinterland of Paraíba, during the 1930s and 1940s. With the arrival of the congregants in the Hinterland of Paraiba in the fins of the 1920s, strong tensions set up in the High Sertão and, as a result of these conflicts, religion and violence take steps hand in hand in the City of Gato da Rocha and in several other regions under its jurisdiction, as is the case of conflicts observed in Sítios do Cajueiro, Cajazeirinhas and Brejo dos Cavalos (today, Brejo dos Santos). Several documents were examined so that it was possible to pave the way towards reconstructing the history of the referred religious conflicts and the communities involved in it. The instruments used, for this work of resurrection of memory, range from ecclesiastical documents, such as Books of Tombo and Minutes of the communities involved, both Catholic and congregational; periodicals; police inquiry and Criminal Proceedings that resulted from the clashes in that period. We also present, in the text now delivered, a brief approach to the insertion of Protestantism in the Sertão da Paraíba, a process that took place through the missionary activities of the Congregational Church. Several valuable images from the historical point of view, photographs of the main actors involved in the conflicting acts in the hinterland region of Paraíba, as well explanatory maps, of both physical geography and the geography of the clashes, are provided throughout the work as tools to facilitate the better understanding of the reader.