Compiling and plagiarizing: Abreu e Lima and Melo Morais in the reading of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute

Abstract

Inspired by Manoel Luiz Salgado Guimarães’ argument that the writing of history in nineteenth-century Brazil was an open field, “a debate without pre-defined winners”, this paper focuses on a form of history writing that was much criticized in that context, that can be found in two authors whose works were regarded as examples of plagiarism by the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute: José Inácio de Abreu e Lima (1794-1869) and Alexandre José de Melo Morais (1816-1882). Their works were considered to be copies of texts by other authors because of the way they used their sources and bibliography. The paper’s hypothesis is that both authors produced a kind of historiography that is rather close to the genre of compilation - an old historiographical genre that was on the process of being rejected as valid model for the writing of history in nineteenth-century Brazil.