Ana Jansen no imaginário maranhense

Abstract

In nineteenth-century Maranhão, under the strong influence of patriarchy, women were conditioned to private spaces centered on the family. Ana Jansen stands out as one of the province's largest merchants and slave owners, breaking with social norms by exercising economic power and engaging in politics within the “Bem-te-vi” party, which triggered a conservative backlash that resulted in the construction of myth an image portraying her as a supernatural and cruel figure. This study aims to understand how this myth functioned as a mechanism to disqualify female presence in spaces of power, consolidating a negative memory that persists to the present day. Specifically, it analyzes the sociocultural conditions that defined gender roles in nineteenth-century Maranhão society; examines how Ana Jansen's singular trajectory led to the pejorative mythification of her image; and highlights her historical protagonism in contrast to the processes of constructing her memory. This is a qualitative, descriptive, and analytical research based on the analysis of historical sources, urban legends, and oral narratives present in interviews conducted for Novaes (2012) doctoral thesis and in the documentary “Me chame de Donana Jansen”. It was concluded that the myth served a symbolicpunitive function, reinforcing the exclusion of women from public spaces of power and maintaining a dualistic memory—between the collective and the individual/familial.