The March to the West

The March to the West: history, registry, memory

The effort in creating this magnificent collection of photos, you can view a chronological order, the events that were experienced by members of the Roncador-Xingu Expedition and its ersatz the Central Brazil Foundation. The “March to the West” was a project headed by Getúlio Vargas government in the Estado Novo period, to occupy and develop the interior of Brazil. This project was launched at the National Radio on December 31, 1937, and became known as the discourse of midnight

The occupation of the Midwest was also meant to be a preliminary step to the occupation of the Amazon. In Goiás was installed the first agricultural colony, in 1941, in the town of Ceres, the National Agricultural Colonia de Goiás (Cang) in LASTED – MT was installed the second
The Goals of Macha to the West were basically:

Demographic policy of encouraging migration;
Creation of agricultural colonies;
Construction of roads;
Agrarian Reform;
Incentive to support agricultural production.
In large part, this Progressive dream come true. Elapsed for about forty years, the March to the West founded some 43 towns and cities, built 19 airfields, contacted more than five thousand Indians and traveled 1500 km of rivers and open bites. Culture Birdwatchers an institution to defend social rights and that brings independent photographers, journalists, writers and plastic artist, sponsored research, restoration and the ordering of all the photos that make up today the Museum of the Documentary Photography. The required input was performed with the help of the federal government to this handy collection. We hope that more contributions from the custody of photographic memory of the Midwest and Brazil, pose to be known.