March to the West

The notion of territorial "void" updated the concept of "sertão", understood as an abandoned space that since Euclides da Cunha's denunciations had been worrying Brazilian elites interested in building a nation.

[3] The march, in addition to gaining the support of the population, had the help of businessmen from São Paulo who made donations to the various expeditions to recognize the soil, convinced by the nationalist discourse of remembering the bandeirantes of past centuries.

[5] Intellectual collaboration with Getúlio Vargas' program included a publication by the São Paulo poet Cassiano Ricardo entitled Marcha Para Oeste: a influência da bandeira na formação social e política do Brasil, published in 1940.

The federal government also acted in the colonization region of northern Paraná, which gave rise to a series of new cities such as Londrina, Maringá, Cianorte, Umuarama.

The construction of Brasília can be understood as a new "March to the West", as it displaced populations (the so-called "candangos", mainly northeastern migrants) to the sertão and made it possible for the equipment of urban life to reach the region.

Estado Novo propaganda poster: "The true meaning of Brazilianness is the march to the West".
The agronomist Jorge Aguirre, the first administrator of the National Agricultural Colony of Dourados (Cand), appointed by Getúlio Vargas on 24 November 1943, and his wife and children