A regional development project of the republican government of Rio Grande do Sul

The present text sought to present the action of the republican government of Rio Grande do Sul, at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the nineteen hundred and ninety, in order to implement its regional development policy. The focus of this work will be the northern region, specifically the then municipalities of Cruz Alta and Santo Antonio da Palmeira (today Palmeira das Missoes). The commercialization of vacant lands, by the public power, and not their possession, extended the appropriation of the forest regions, favoring the emergence of several population clusters. The sale of such areas allowed an increase in the population coming from other regions, however, it increased the conflicts with squatters, caboclos and natives, already occupants of said lands. The governmental objective was to order the occupation of the region and to improve the incomes of the public coffers, with the commerce of the land. To this end, they instituted a legal apparatus, with new legislation, in 1899/1900, giving them greater freedom to be able to commercialize the areas using the device of which the ones considered as devolutas belonged to them.