Estaria, no século XIX, o ‘povo rio-grandense’ deslocado no tempo, por sua avançada percepção acerca dos controles eclesiásticos e seus efeitos nas condutas e crenças dos católicos? Seria o ‘aguerrido povo gaúcho’ formado por ateus incorrigÃveis? Se assim fosse, é possÃvel deduzir que estes teriam feito pouco caso da crença no purgatório, um dos maiores temores entre os católicos por essa época. O presente artigo pretende analisar, para tentar desequilibrar, um já tradicional e quase intransponÃvel discurso historiográfico nascido no século XIX, e expandido pela centúria seguinte, sobre o mito da desobediência religiosa entre os moradores das terras do extremo sul do paÃs.
Would the ‘rio-grandense people’ of the nineteenth century have been displaced in time, regarding its advanced understanding of the ecclesiastical controlling mechanisms and its effects on the behavior and beliefs of Catholics? Would the ‘embattled gaucho people’ be formed by incorrigible atheists? If so, it is possible to deduce that they would have held the belief in purgatory — one of the biggest fears among Catholics at this time — in contempt. This article aims to analyze this already traditional and almost unsurpassable historiographical discourse about the myth of the religious disobedience among the inhabitants of the lands at the extreme south of Brazil — a discourse that has been born in the nineteenth century and has expanded throughout the following century —, in an attempt to throw it off balance.
