As autoimagens construídas pelas elites da região de Miranda durante a visita pastoral do bispo D. Carlos Luiz D'Amour ao sul de Mato Grosso, em 1886.

The paper analyzes the construction of individual and collective self-images by the landowners and enslaved, public workers, authorities, liberal professionals and merchants of Miranda, Santa Rita de Nioaque, Campos de Vacaria and Campo Grande during the pastoral visit of the bishop of Cuiabá, D. Carlos Luiz D'Amour, in the south of the province of Mato Grosso in 1886. This elite sought to impose positive selfimages about the region and themselves, among them the idea that they participated in civilization, culture, refinement, sciences, humanities and the arts of good behavior. In order to do so, they attempted to construct an ostentatious self-presentation to exalt their role as pioneers, civilizers of backwoods, patriots and promoters of progress. This performance had symbolic, economic, social and political features not only to combat the stigmas of Mato Grosso as "frontier-sertão" and change its definition and identity but also to affirm its power of command in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]