Past and future in the construction of a "History of Brazil" in the 18th Century

Starting from the intersection between the history of historiography and the history of Portuguese colonization in America, this article proposes the use of past and future categories developed by Reinhart Koselleck as tools for understanding the meanings of building a History of Brazil in the 18th century. In this perspective, the paper uses formal media narratives of the Portuguese colonial past, the matrix of the 1600s and 1700s as well as other related sources. In this regard, the article reevaluates narrative forms that, in the years after Brazilian independence, forged a unifying historical narrative of the national past.