Considerations on the Inquiries Devassas in Brazil: the cases of the Recôncavo Baiano – 18th and 19th Centuries

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the initial stages of criminal procedures in Brazil during the colonial period and the early years of the Empire. The focus of our analysis is on the Inquiries Devassas, powerful means of investigation, which without the consent of the accused person, questioned witnesses and produced evidence of committed crimes. Regulated by the Portuguese Ordinations, the inquiries were used as a tool for social control of the State, especially in relation to the enslaved and the poorest free population. We will present data related to 89 criminal cases that took place in the Recôncavo Baiano region and that were processed during the colonial period until the post-independence period, in 1832 when the Code of Criminal Procedure entered into force, which definitively extinguished the possibility of removing the inquiries in Brazil