In the 19th century in the Amazon, the steam vessels that sailed the region’s rivers did not yet use diesel as fuel. House kitchens still did not use “cooking gas”. It was another item that stood out as a producer of energy for steam ships and kitchen stoves in everyday life: firewood. Trees were felled, cut into pieces and turned into “sticks” [achas de lenha]. From the 1850s onwards, firewood became a valuable product for steam navigation on Amazon rivers and for kitchens in homes, institutions or bakeries and hotels. Firewood produced interactions between humans, but also between humans and non-humans, such animals and plants. Indigenous people, blacks, whites, horses and “maçarandubas” (a type of tree) appear as characters in this Master’s Thesis. With documents (such as newspapers, reports from provincial presidents, travel reports, drawings and floor plans) it was possible to understand a little of the complex reality that existed in Pará and Amazonas, between 1850 and 1888, for the production, trade and use of firewood. Focusing on steams and kitchens, this work presents the use of firewood, the mandatory work for the production of this fuel, human interaction with plants, animals, and also the beginning of a concern with deforestation generated by the production of firewood, from its uses and representations.
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