Abstract
The Zona da Mata became, during the nineteenth century, the most dynamic region in the complex economy of Minas Gerais. The expansion of coffee production throughout the region consolidated a social and agrarian structure marked by the predominance of great productive units, with the overwhelming presence of slaves connected with this sector. This paper tries to present this expansion relating the importance that slavery had inside the plantations dynamics with the composition of the landowner’s wealth and even in the building of a possible identity to the region itself.