Marykarash

Riverine Borderlands and Multicultural Contacts in Central Brazil, 1775–
1835
Riverine Borderlands and Multicultural Contacts in

Central Brazil, 1775–1835
Mary Karasch
The [Oxford] Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World
Edited by Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding
Print Publication Date: Dec 2019 Subject: History, European History

Online Publication Date: Nov 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199341771.013.23
Abstract and Keywords
Central Brazil was a contested region in the eighteenth century, where Luso-Brazilians
with indigenous and African slaves had seized lands rich in gold from indigenous nations
along the Tocantins and Araguaia rivers. The Portuguese called this region the captaincy
of Goiás, including the modern states of Goiás and Tocantins with parts of Minas Gerais
and Mato Grosso. Portuguese officials claimed to have conquered the territory, but indige
nous nations and runaway slaves maintained control over vast areas. For more than a
century after the discovery of gold in the 1720s, lands remained in dispute; there was no
closure of the frontier in favor of the Portuguese. And in the early nineteenth century, the
indigenous nations of Tocantins almost drove Luso-Brazilians from their territory. This
chapter demonstrates how indigenous peoples used their skills in warfare, trade, and
diplomacy to ensure their survival.
Keywords: Autonomous nations, bandeiras, colonial rule, indigenous warfare, trade, diplomacy, intertribal rela
tions, missions, enslavement, quilombos
CENTRAL Brazil was a greatly contested region in the eighteenth century. Although Por
tuguese governors proclaimed their conquest of the region they called Goiás, indigenous
nations and communities of fugitive slaves (quilombos) maintained control over their own
lands. For more than a century after the discovery of gold in the 1720s, lands remained in
dispute; and the governors of the captaincy of Goiás failed to impose effective control
over the region, in part, because climate and the physical environment posed significant
obstacles to the colonial authorities. Great rivers and mountainous terrain in Central
Brazil created boundaries between peoples that enabled indigenous peoples to survive in
spite of armed expeditions that enslaved them and seized their gold-rich lands.
The history of Goias comprehends three major themes: the complex physical and cultural
geography of Central Brazil; the outsiders, including enslaved Africans, who invaded
Goiás via the rivers and were followed by those who established Portuguese imperial rule
between the 1720s and 1740s; the contacts between Luso-Brazilians (those of Portuguese
and Brazilian descent) and all others, involving warfare, peacemaking, alliance formation,
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1835
and trade relations. Goiás constitutes a compelling case study of borderlands as transi
tional zones with networks of exchange but marked by “appalling violence” that included
forcible kidnappings and enslavement.1 At the same time it illustrates the resilience of
those who adapted and shaped new lives, thus guaranteeing the survival of their people.
“Riverine Borderlands” builds on recent ethno-historical scholarship on Central Brazil. Al

though traditional scholarship in Brazil relegates the study of the Brazilian (p. 592) Indian
to anthropologists, both historians and anthropologists are revising that tradition. Two
significant influences on the historiography of Central Brazil are Manuela Carneiro da
Cunha’s História dos Índios no Brasil, and John Monteiro’s, Negros da Terra: Índios e Ban
deirantes nas Origens de São Paulo, published in 1992 and 1994, respectively.2 Since
their release, there have been more excellent ethno-historical studies, such as, Juciene Ri
carte Apolinário, Os Akroá e outros povos indígenas nas Fronteiras do Sertão; Jézus Mar
co de Ataídes, Sob o Signo da Violência: Colonizadores e Kayapó do Sul no Brasil Central;
and the essays edited by Marlene Castro Ossami de Moura, Índios de Goiás: Uma Per
spectiva Histórico-Cultural.3 Also significant are a number of master’s theses in anthro
pology from Brazil, such as Dulce Madalena Rios Pedroso, “Avá-Canoeiro: A História do
Povo Invisível—Séculos XVIII e XIX;” André Amaral de Toral, “Cosmologia e Sociedade
Karajá;” and the now published dissertation by Odair Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará: Luta e
sobrevivência de um povo Jê no Brasil Central. One of the best dissertations in English is
David L. Mead’s “Caiapó do Sul: An Ethno-history (1610–1920).”4
Other significant authors who have contributed to the study of indigenous populations in
Brazil from an ethno-historical perspective include John Hemming, Heather F. Roller, and
Barbara Sommer, working on the Amazon region, while David McCreery and Mary
Karasch have developed the frontier/borderlands themes for Central Brazil.5
The Geographical and Cultural Background of

Goiás
Before exploring Brazil’s rivers as fluid borderlands some clarification about the contest
ed territory of the captaincy of Goiás is needed. In the eighteenth century, the capital of
Goiás was Vila Boa de Goiás, which was founded in the 1720s as a mining town, before
serving as the capital of the captaincy, and then the province and state of Goiás. The Por
tuguese governor based in Vila Boa attempted to rule an enormous region of one million
square kilometers, including the modern states of Goiás and Tocantins and parts of
Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso do Sul.6 The reason was gold,
which Portugal tried to secure in spite of the captaincy’s extensive borders.7
Climate, disease, and the physical landscape conditioned the formation of borders be
tween these captaincies and their populations in Central Brazil. What happened to the
rivers during the dry season or rainy season affected everyone’s lives. The dry season
lasted from April or May until September or October and turned small creeks and
streams into dry and dusty roads that could be utilized for trade and warfare. But if the
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dry season lingered too long, drought forced migrations of people and animals, not only
within Goiás but also in nearby drought-afflicted captaincies.8 On the other hand, the
rainy season could bring respite from warfare as horsemen could not easily move through
flooded landscapes, but heavy rains could also cause misery. Daily downpours (p. 593) for
six months or more created flooded rivers and swampy lands, where mosquitoes spread
malarial parasites to new hosts.9
People escaped malaria by moving to elevated regions. To the east were the mountain
ranges that divided the captaincies of Maranhão, Piauí, and Bahia from the captaincy of
Goiás. These were notable redoubts of fugitive slaves, indigenous peoples, bandits, and
smugglers. One obstacle to travel was the Serra Geral de Goiás, which divided the Tocan
tins River basin from the São Francisco River basin to the east. This range was like an
“inaccessible wall” with some mountain passes that served as “doors” to the mines of
Goiás. The Portuguese placed checkpoints at these “doors” to stop the illegal flow of gold
from the captaincy.10
Many other low mountains existed throughout the captaincy, although one of the most im
portant as a source for gold was the Serra Dourada. Located between the Santa Teresa
and Tocantins Rivers, the Serra Dourada sheltered the Canoeiro nation and African fugi
tives. The highest mountains were in the Pireneus range, at the foot of which Meia Ponte
(now Pirenópolis) was built on the Almas River in the 1720s. Yet another mountain range
was the Cordillera Grande (now Serra do Estrondo) between the Araguaia and Tocantins
Rivers. Especially difficult to access were the mountains near Cavalcante that protected
the famous quilombo of Kalunga. When enslaved Africans were numerous, they commonly
escaped to the mountains or followed nearby rivers to find freedom, often among indige
nous nations.11
Due to the mountainous terrain, rivers were of primary importance as arteries of travel
and trade. In the far south, the Paranaíba was connected to the Paraná and the Tietê
rivers of São Paulo. Thus, expeditions of armed men (bandeiras) could travel from São
Paulo almost all the way to Goiás by river to the Araguaia and Tocantins Rivers and later
by road.12 Via the Paraná River they were even linked with the trade networks of the Río
de la Plata. The Araguaia River had numerous indigenous nations living along its banks
and on Bananal Island. From Central Brazil the Araguaia flows north, joining the Tocan
tins before the latter empties into a channel of the Amazon River at its mouth. From this
region, merchants and missionaries resident in Belém do Pará organized canoe expedi
tions up the Tocantins River into Central Brazil; but they had to confront indigenous war
riors, who controlled the banks of the river.
Unlike the great rivers, the savanna (cerrado) and central plateau did not attract many in
vaders, except for cattlemen, most likely due to the lack of significant gold deposits, ex
cept at Santa Luzia. There were two settlements, however, with large numbers of black
people: Couros (now Formosa in the Federal District), which was founded by people of
color, who built their houses out of animal skins and traded in animals and hides; and the
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gold mining town of Santa Luzia (now Luziânia) with a large proportion of enslaved
Africans.13
The indigenous populations of the captaincy generally occupied the banks of the Tocan
tins and Araguaia Rivers and their tributaries (Figure 24.1). At their juncture lived the
Apinaje. In the eighteenth century, they had inhabited the east bank of the Tocantins Riv
er; but by the early nineteenth century, they were living in five villages near the Santo
(p. 594) (p. 595) Antônio falls on the Araguaia River. Speakers of a Gê language, they were
unlike other Gê (also Jê) populations in making ubás (hollowed out canoes), which they
used for traveling to Belém to raid or trade for tools. Not only did they cultivate crops,
such as manioc, but they also raised cattle. Their warriors were notably skilled in river
combat.14
To the south of the Apinaje the group who occupied the east bank of the Tocantins River
was the Krahô, who spoke an eastern Timbira dialect of the Gê language family. Accord
ing to tradition, they had migrated to the Tocantins River after living in Maranhão, where
they had raided for cattle; but by the 1840s they were raising their own cattle and pros
pered until 1848.15
Two other nations who had once lived to the east of the Tocantins River were the Akroá, a
Gê-speaking Timbira people, and the Xacriabá, who spoke a Central Gê language. Before
1750, they were such adept warriors that the Portuguese believed that the only way to
stop their attacks on settlers and miners was to persuade them to make peace and live in
a Christian mission village (aldeia). In the 1750s, they accepted Jesuit missionaries until
the Jesuit expulsion of 1759, when they took up arms once again. Afterward, the Akroá
were settled at the missions of São José de Mossâmedes and Duro; and the Xacriabá were
moved south to the mission of Santa Ana, in what is now Minas Gerais.16 Both missions
were served by secular parish priests.
Also south of the Apinaje but a month’s journey by canoe on the Araguaia River were the
Karajá and related peoples, the Javaé and Xambioá. For at least a thousand years, the
Karajá had inhabited villages along the Araguaia River, while others were clustered on
Bananal Island, the world’s largest fluvial island. They spoke one of the Macro-Gê lan
guages with a sharp distinction between the speech of men and women. The Karajá had
been in contact with slaving bandeiras from São Paulo since at least the early seven
teenth century, and they resisted both secular and Jesuit attempts to penetrate their lands
until they made peace with the Portuguese in 1775. They also traded directly with mer
chants of Pará for tools and weapons.17
Among the indigenous enemies of the Karajá were the Xavante, speakers of a Central Gê
language who had once lived to the east of the Tocantins River. According to tradition,
their first contact with non-Indians was “at the sea.” By 1751 some had crossed the To
cantins River and were living to the east and northeast of Bananal Island. The Xavante
who settled along the Tocantins River or one of its tributaries, established villages where
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1835
they cultivated fields of corn, manioc, tobacco, and sugar cane, and went hunting and
fishing.18
In the early nineteenth century, Luso-Brazilian cattlemen invaded the Tocantins River re
gion, putting pressure on indigenous peoples. At some point between the 1810s and
1840s, the Xavante separated into two distinct nations now known as the Akwe Xavante
and the Xerente. The Xerente had had their own identity as early as the 1780s, but they
had been conquered by the Xavante. Allegedly, the cause of their separation was over re
sistance to, or living with, Luso-Brazilians. The Xerente chose to remain near settlers on
the Tocantins River, while the Xavante moved west of the Araguaia River, eventually set
tling in Mato Grosso.19
Among the indigenous enemies of the Xavante were the Canoeiro (now Avá-Ca
(p. 596)
noeiro from the Portuguese for canoer, since they plied the rivers in canoes). They spoke
a Tupi language, and some knew Portuguese and Latin prayers. In the 1830s, the territo
ry they claimed was the sertão (backlands) of the west bank of the Maranhão River
(southern Tocantins River), but before that they had lived in the mountains near the Je
suit mission of Duro. Their reputation as a “very cruel and bellicose nation” was due to
their frequent attacks on settlers and mining towns.20
Another people notable for their resistance to Luso-Brazilians were the Kayapó do Sul. A
Gê- speaking population, the southern Kayapó (Panará) lived in large villages with culti
vated fields of corn, manioc, and other crops in southern Goiás and neighboring captain
cies. Besides threatening Vila Boa, their skilled warriors attacked Luso-Brazilians on the
mines and ranches and raided for plunder. Although some made peace and settled in the
missions of São José de Mossâmedes and Maria I, they were forced west in the 1830s by
settlers anxious to seize their lands.21
These, then, were the great nations of the captaincy of Goiás who would challenge the in
vaders: the southern Kayapó, the Tupi-speaking Canoeiro, the divided Xavante and Xer
ente, the river-dwelling Karajá, the cattle-keeping Krahô, and the canoe warriors and
traders, the Apinaje (Figure 24.1). Although there were many other indigenous nations
that once occupied the territory of this captaincy, such as the Goiá (also Goyá), they did
not survive the onslaught of bandeiras, epidemic diseases, and enslavement.22
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Figure 24.1. Indigenous nations in the Captaincy of

Goiás. Diverse nations that inhabited the region of
central Brazil were the Akroá, Xacriabá, Apinaje,
Krahô, Karajá, Javaé, Tapirapé, Araés, Xavante, Xer
ente, Avá-Canoeiro, and Kayapó do Sul, who were on
ly a few of those who resisted invasion, Portuguese
colonial rule, and enslavement.
From Mary C. Karasch, Before Brasilia: Frontier Life

in Central Brazil (Albuquerque: UNM Press, 2016).
Courtesy of the author, University of New Mexico
Press, and Paul Mirocha, who designed and executed
the map.
The Invaders
The first contact occurred in the late sixteenth century, when the invaders of Central
Brazil came from the south. They were the forerunners of two-centuries of bandeiras or
ganized by the men of São Paulo, who sought the wealth of the backlands in indigenous
slaves, gold, and emeralds. They discovered the mineral wealth of Goiás in the 1720s; but
for more than a century before then, they had returned to São Paulo with indigenous cap
tives. In the 1590s, the bandeira of Antônio de Macedo and Luís Grau reached the sertão
of the Araguaia/Tocantins Rivers. Subsequent bandeiras followed their route, and by
1611, enslaved Karajá were documented in São Paulo. Other targets of these bandeiras
were the Araés, whose golden jewelry fueled the formation of bandeiras to locate their
sources of gold.23
In the 1680s, Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva, from São Paulo, went in search of their gold but
instead assaulted one of their villages and returned to Cuiabá with indigenous captives.
His son, with the same name, discovered a small amount of gold on the Vermelho River in
1722, which prompted a second expedition to the same river in 1726, where miners dis
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1835
covered even more gold. What had been a small camp grew into the town of Vila Boa de
Goiás by 1739.24
The location of gold in Vila Boa stimulated more gold-seekers to invade Central
(p. 597)
Brazil and seize indigenous lands. Unlike previous bandeiras, the new expeditions includ
ed many enslaved Africans, who were quickly set to work at “gold washing” along the
rivers. As of 1732 an estimated twelve thousand miners had reached the Maranhão River,
where they secured abundant alluvial gold until an unknown epidemic broke out, killing
the miners and forcing the abandonment of the river. Further north in the captaincy, even
more gold was discovered in the 1730s in Natividade and Traíras. By the mid-eighteenth
century, African miners and their slaveholders were scattered throughout the center and
northeast of the captaincy. Consequently, there would be a concentration of enslaved
black men in the mining cores, while the rest of the captaincy was still held by au
tonomous indigenous nations.25
Missionaries and Missions

In addition to the bandeiras, another type of expedition entered the captaincy from Belém
in order to convert the peoples of the Tocantins region. These were the Catholic mission
aries, first the Franciscans and then the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). After the Jesuit ex
pulsion of 1759, the captaincy was notable for the absence of foreign missionaries for al
most eighty years until Italian Capuchins re-introduced a missionary endeavor among the
indigenous in the 1840s. Friar Cristovão Severin de Lisboa, a Franciscan missionary, trav
eled from Belém with an expedition on the Tocantins in 1625. He and other friars were
successful in contacting indigenous populations along the river, and they won the loyalty
of a powerful cacique Tomagica. Notably, Friar Cristovão was one of the few priests who
wrote a letter protesting against indigenous enslavement. When the Jesuit priest Antônio
Vieira traveled south on the Tocantins River in the 1650s, he encountered Christianized
Indians, apparently the result of the eleven years of the friars’ work along the river.26
Not only did the Jesuits explore the Tocantins River, but they also set up missions for the
indigenous population of the captaincy. In the north, they built missions for the Xacriabá
and Akroá at São Francisco Xavier and São José do Duro. They also established missions
for the Bororo and other nations at Santa Ana do Rio das Velhas, Lanhozo, Rio das Pe
dras, and Pissarrão in the south of the captaincy.27 But the Jesuit missions did not last
long and were replaced by the Directorate missions (1757–1798), which were designed to
Christianize and civilize “pacified Indians” who agreed to settle in an aldeia under a secu
lar priest and administrator. While directorate missions existed elsewhere in Brazil, such
as Amazonia as Barbara Sommer has shown, the most famous aldeias of Central Brazil
were São José de Mossâmedes (1755; renovated 1775), Maria I (1780), and São José do
Carretão (1788).28 The first two housed the Kayapó and the third the Xavante. In spite of
imperial efforts and in part due to indigenous resistance, these establishments declined
and then closed in the nineteenth century.29
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(p. 598) Structures of Empire

Bandeiras and missions enabled the Portuguese to claim hegemony in Central Brazil, but
this was still a violent frontier in which indigenous peoples and Africans contested con
quest and colonial governance. The Portuguese were able to cling to power until the
1820s, due to their imperial system, the wealth generated by the gold mining economy,
and their armed forces, including bandeiras and militias that defended local
communities.30
The first resident governor of Goiás was Dom Marcos de Noronha in 1749. Henceforth, as
captain-general, each governor was responsible for the delivery of the Crown’s share of
gold (the quinto), as well as the defense of the captaincy. The governor’s authority came
directly from the Crown in Portugal, and he corresponded with the Overseas Council and
other state councils in Lisbon. One of the governor’s most important obligations was to
see to the spread of Christianity to pagan “gentiles” and support the missions. In order to
accomplish these goals, each governor mounted armed expeditions of conquest and “paci
fication” that included experienced bandeira leaders and indigenous warriors, who re
turned with indigenous captives to share with the governor. Official support for conquest
and enslavement of war captives was re-affirmed in a royal letter of September 5, 1811
that authorized offensive war against all those who refused “pacification” and settlement
in missions on the Tocantins-Araguaia frontier.31
In the late colonial period, the economy of Goiás was still centered on gold mining and
the control of gold circulation and trade. There was no one source of gold in Goiás but
rather many locations of gold and some diamond mines; and gold mining took place in
many towns, such as Traíras, São José, São Félix, Natividade, Santa Luzia, Meia Ponte,
and Vila Boa. Each of these locations served as a pole of development for a surrounding
agro-pastoral economy that provided food and cattle to the miners, as well as to indige
nous raiders. As the output of the mines declined in the eighteenth century, then Goianos
focused more on agriculture and ranching. In the future, the true wealth of Central Brazil
would be based on the land, where people raised cattle, sugar cane, corn, beans, manioc,
tobacco, cotton, and coffee.32
Other sectors of the economy remained underdeveloped. There were a limited number of
retail stores, but there were many taverns in the mining towns. And craft activities in
cluded metal working and carpentry; distilling sugar cane (aguardente); processing
foods, hides, and shoes; and spinning, weaving, and sewing cotton cloth. At that time, the
captaincy largely depended on imported manufactured goods, especially luxury items and
iron wares, and was thus most reliant for its tools and weapons on long-distance mer
chants.33
Because of gold, long-distance trade was linked to the Atlantic world. In the first half of
the eighteenth century, Salvador, Bahia, was essential to trade between Goiás, Europe,
Africa, and Asia. Even as late as 1804, Salvador was the north’s principal trading partner.
Portuguese merchants organized legal commerce and contraband trade in gold from
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Goiás to Salvador. After the decline of the mines, cattle, tobacco, and cotton were trans
ported along the old gold routes to Bahia.34
The Tocantins River formed another important trade route dominated by the mer
(p. 599)
chants of Belém, who outfitted river boat expeditions that traveled south on the river to
connect with the mining towns. They sent enslaved Africans, European manufactures,
foodstuffs, and salt to exchange for gold. To the west, the Araguaia river trade also flowed
north to the port of Belém, as well as west to Cuiabá, Mato Grosso. In the 1820s, mer
chants, traveling on the rivers to Belém, traded directly with the Indians in iron wares,
clothing, and beads for the women. They also gifted salt, tobacco, and manioc meal to fa
cilitate trade.35
Vila Boa not only looked to Salvador but also to the southeast since the great majority of
its imports came from Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo. After 1783, the legal quinto route ran
from Vila Boa to Vila Rica (Ouro Preto) in Minas Gerais, and then overland to Rio de
Janeiro. European goods loaded on mules and enslaved Africans followed the same route
back. By 1804 an official study of the captaincy’s population and economy revealed that
Rio provided the greatest volume of imported goods to the south of the captaincy.36
Other southern routes were by river, and the men of São Paulo traded with Goiás via the
Tietê and Paranaíba rivers. Others journeyed overland to Goiás with pack animals laden
with salt, tools, and foodstuffs. Upon arrival in Vila Boa, they sold everything, including
the animals, and returned to São Paulo with gold. Notably, in 1804, São Paulo was second
to Rio in the value of imports into the south.37
Thus, the rivers of the interior of South America made possible the trade of late colonial
Goiás. Only one small leg of a vast interior trade network based on gold was under the
authority of the Portuguese governor resident in Vila Boa, and segments of it were even
controlled by indigenous nations, such as the Karajá. Long distance traders had not only
linked Central Brazil with the Atlantic economy of the late eighteenth century but also
with the interior of South America, including Spain’s viceroyalties.
To defend its trade and wealth in gold, the Portuguese had only a small number of men in
the regular army and depended on the recently conquered and enslaved peoples to fight
for them. In 1736 the Portuguese company of mounted dragoons had only fifty men, while
in 1808 there were only sixty.38 Those who actually fought the indigenous nations of Goiás
and took war captives were the pedestres (indigenous foot soldiers, such as the Akroá),
the pardo regiments, composed of brown men of African descent, and the Henriques
(black troops). They also protected towns from enemy attacks, kept peace within the mis
sions, and hunted down African fugitives and re-enslaved them.39 Therefore, nonwhite
troops and their families often bore the brunt of indigenous vengeance attacks.
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War and Intertribal Relations

Brutal treatment by the bandeiras and militias, enslavement, and forced labor in the mis
sions exacerbated frontier violence. As John Monteiro argued for the sixteenth century,
we stress here “the fundamental importance of war in intertribal relations,” as well as
(p. 600) “a culture of terror” with “senseless brutality” on all sides during the late eigh
teenth century. There were, however, interludes of peace making, the formation of al
liances, and coalition building, including with Luso-Brazilians, that were designed to
maintain indigenous “autonomy and territorial control.” The nations that pursued a vari
ety of strategies are among those who have endured to the present.40
One of the more significant characteristics of warfare in Central Brazil was the use of the
rivers in fighting one’s enemies or raiding for goods. Since the Tocantins River is narrow
and rocky in parts of its long trajectory from the central plateau to the delta of the Ama
zon River, invaders found it treacherous to navigate unless they traveled in large well-
armed expeditions because warriors hid in bushes on the river banks “in order to ambush
them.” The Apinaje most likely struck Luso-Brazilian expeditions, and they also raided for
tools and beads along the river and attacked the quilombo of Pederneiras near
Alcobaça.41
The best colonial description of Apinaje canoe warfare comes from 1774, when warriors
encircled the canoes of Antônio Luiz Tavares Lisboa on the Tocantins River. At the rapids
of Três Barras, he saw “formed regiments” on the beach, while three canoes of warriors
reinforced the circle around him. Each regiment was led by an Apinaje captain, except for
the one headed by Joaquim Angola. They fought with bows and arrows until Lisboa’s men,
using firearms, forced them to retreat; but the next day they attacked again from the
shore or from two ubás.42
According to Curt Nimuendajú, their principal motive for warfare was “blood revenge.”
When soldiers from a garrison (presídio) raided their fields, the Apinaje ambushed and
killed them. In retaliation, Luso-Brazilians used artillery against one or more of their vil
lages. In turn, the Apinaje joined in coalition with the Karajá, Xavante, and Xerente to de
stroy the presídio of Santa Maria do Araguaia in 1813.43 In spite of such violence, the Ap
inaje later forged alliances with Luso-Brazilian officers and even allied with pro-indepen
dence forces against Portuguese royalists in the 1820s. Subsequently, they served as
hired warriors for the governors of Goiás.44
Other reasons for warfare and alliances were pursued along the Tocantins River. In 1808,
for example, the merchant Francisco José Pinto de Magalhães convinced the
Porekamekrã Timbira to ally with him in return for his protection. But he left for Pará,
and the Macamecrã (the Krahô), who lived on the east bank of the Tocantins River, took
advantage of his absence to gather palm fruit claimed by the Porekamekrã across the riv
er. The ensuing war was “bloody,” but after Pinto de Magalhães returned in 1810, he suc
ceeded in making peace between them with the assistance of a Macamecrã woman.45
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Almost a decade later some of the Porekamekrã were living in Cocal on the Tocantins Riv
er, when they were visited in 1819 by the Austrian traveler Johann E. Pohl, a noted scien
tist who came as part of a scientific expedition to Central Brazil with the backing of the
Portuguese imperial family.46 According to him, they had a military chief or “captain,”
who was assisted by a council of elders in making decisions for war or peace. At that
time, Captain Romão, who was “praised for his love of peace,” occupied this position. In
order to demonstrate how his people made war, Captain Romão and his (p. 601) warriors
reenacted the whole process of diplomacy and conflict for the European visitor. According
to tradition, diplomacy was the initial step to try to prevent war. Therefore, in this reen
actment an enemy’s ambassador entered the village to argue with an envoy about the
cause of the war. Additional ambassadors followed, which suggests that they made more
than one attempt to resolve conflicts. Showing what happened when these efforts were
unsuccessful in achieving peace, the envoy returned running. After sounding their horns,
troops of Indians appeared, each one carrying a bow in one hand and a horn in the other
with a sheaf of arrows on each shoulder. Some carried clubs. From the opposite side of
the forest, a second “division,” representing the enemy, went out in files. Catching sight
of their adversaries, they shot arrows so that they flew over their heads without wound
ing them. Next combat shifted to war clubs until the game became too violent, and Cap
tain Romão stopped the fight. Traditionally, the vanquished side asked the victor for
peace.
In 1815 the Porekamekrã had made peace, presumably in this way, with the mulatto ban
deira leader, Antônio Moreira da Silva, who offered peace to the larger of their two vil
lages, to which they agreed and performed a ceremony of alliance on the banks of the To
cantins River.47 Some of the Porekamekrã from the other village, however, did not trust
Moreira da Silva and hid their families in the forest. With the bandeira were some Krahô
warriors, who convinced them to come out of their hiding places; they were quickly taken
prisoner and their girls and women raped. Many were killed, but the survivors were tak
en to São Pedro de Alcântara (now Carolina), and there 130 were sent as captives to Pará.
The violence the bandeira exerted against the second village convinced the Indians of the
first one to travel to the town bearing “green twigs in token of peace.” After being settled
nearby, they too were abused and enslaved until their protector Pinto de Magalhães sent
some of them back to Cocal.48
In order to stop such practices, five nations, including the Krahô, protested against the
powerful who executed “horrible atrocities […] depriving them of their liberty, treating
them as slaves of Ethiopia; [and] robbing them of their lands.” In 1821, the “princes” of
the “United Indian Nations” asked the King to restore “the liberty of their persons, and
property, and of their commerce;” and to demarcate lands, on which to build a “majestic
temple” for St. John the Baptist. After a long process, the petition of the five nations final
ly resulted in a royal decision to demarcate their lands in 1822.49
The Krahô arrived at the end of the colonial period as strong allies of Luso-Brazilians,
who helped them fight and enslave their neighbors and seize their territories. Thus, both
Krahô warriors and cattlemen pushed other nations west into the captaincy of Goiás; but
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1835
after the cattlemen had consolidated their control over Krahô lands, they no longer need
ed them as allies and turned against them, forcing them to settle in the mission of Pedro
Affonso in 1848.50
In contrast to the Tocantins River region, there are few descriptions of inter-ethnic war
fare and peacemaking from the Araguaia River for the eighteenth century. Although Je
suits reported on fierce resistance from the Karajá, they reveal little about their warfare
or contacts with other nations. The Xavante were among their enemies because (p. 602)
they commonly raided Karajá fields for food in the dry season; and if they could, they kid
napped Karajá women. When the Karajá raided or went to war, they also took captives
and enslaved them.51
Besides the Xavante, there was also hostility between the Karajá and the Apinaje. When
Tomás de Sousa Vila Real visited the Karajá and allied with one of their leading men, he
personally observed a raid on the Apinajé in 1793, when they captured a woman with two
small girls and carried off their canoes. The previous year, the principal (head chief) of
the Karajá had traveled to Pará in order to ask the governor for help in defending his peo
ple against the Apinaje. The Karajá maintained peaceful contacts, by way of contrast,
with the Javaé. Lieutenant José Pinto da Fonseca reported on their ritual meeting in 1775.
When the Javaé arrived at Bananal Island, the two nations met each other; they did not
fight but formed a large circle. Next, a warrior from each nation went into the circle and
then out of it, forming a line and running paired; they greeted everyone with loud cries
and sounds of their horns. The Karajá symbol of peace was a pipe that they smoked in the
direction of the place “where the sun is born.”52
After they allied with the Portuguese and accepted the status of vassals, the Karajá
agreed to the establishment of a mission and garrison on Bananal Island. By 1813, howev
er, they had become so fearful of losing their lands that they apparently initiated the
coalition with the Xerente and Xavante designed to eliminate the presídio of Santa Maria
do Araguaia. Their justification for the destruction of the garrison was that “the whites
had taken their lands and wanted to enslave them.” The surprise attack on Santa Maria
revealed that former enemies could ally together against Luso-Brazilians, but coalitions
and alliances did not always last.53
The same changeable behavior was true for the Xavante, and sources reveal that raiding
and warfare were combined with diplomacy on other occasions. Before 1750, the Xavante
had largely raided for food on small farms and cattle ranches, taking captives back to
their villages. At this time, they were willing to make peace with Luso-Brazilians, but af
ter being treated like slaves at the mission of Carretão, they had become “violent and
vengeful” enemies of the Luso-Brazilians.54
The Xavante, however, had many other enemies. Historically, the Xavante who lived west
of the Tocantins River raided the Karajá. Other Xavante crossed over the Tocantins River
into Maranhão and Piauí to raid ranches for cattle. They lived in one captaincy but took
advantage of administrative boundaries to secure food. Since the Xavante were often the
aggressor nation, they incorporated others, such as the Akroá and Xerente, and even en
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1835
couraged black slaves to run away and join them. Perhaps for this reason, the Xerente
were often at war with them in the 1820s.55
Like the Xavante, the Xerente had many enemies in the north. In the face of threats from
the Xavante in the 1820s, they sought Luso-Brazilian help at Porto Real (today Porto Na
cional). Other enemies of the Xerente were the Canoeiro, the Macamecrã (Krahô), the Ap
inaje, and the Kayapó. Their motivations for war against Luso-Brazilians often involved
vengeance. As Pohl clarifies, “All the murders” of boatmen on the Maranhão River had on
ly one motive—“retaliation for ignominy endured and revenge for deceived confidence
and the kidnapping of their offspring.”56
In preparation for warfare, young men were expected to participate in war games.
(p. 603)
In the case of a real war, however, a messenger summoned the council of chiefs to make
the decision for war or peace. Three chiefs led the Xerente into war, while warriors were
divided into four companies, which were each under two leaders. An attack usually began
with the sound of whistles, followed by arrows shot from ambush and an assault with
clubs and lances. Either the enemy surrendered, or both sides moved to hand-to-hand
combat. To frighten their enemies, they roared like “tigers,” displaying their teeth, and
shooting flaming arrows. After they won a battle, they killed all adults with blows to the
head from their war clubs.57
Unlike the Xavante, the Xerente did not enter a mission in large numbers until the 1820s,
when Cunha Matos founded the aldeia of Graciosa on the Tocantins River in 1824. The
Xerente agreed to move to Graciosa to secure his protection against their enemies, in
cluding the Xavante of the Sono River. But when Cunha Matos left the north in 1825, the
Xerente quickly abandoned Graciosa because they had not received weapons and soldiers
to protect themselves; they returned to raiding and warfare with Luso-Brazilians through
the nineteenth century.58
In contrast to those groups who made peace, the only contact the Canoeiro seem to have
had with other nations was in combat; even their women participated in the fighting. Ac
cording to Friar Berthet, the Canoeiro were an “object of terror” to other Indians as late
as the 1880s. As canoe Indians, they attacked Luso-Brazilian expeditions traveling on the
Tocantins River. When ranchers tried to build ranches along the banks of that river, the
Canoeiro drove them out. Elsewhere, they raided ranches for horse meat and cattle, often
reducing a ranch to ashes. In the nineteenth century, they were daring enough to assault
mining towns: in fact, destroying Tesouras. In particular, they struck towns on Sundays
and set fire to churches.59 They refused to enter into peace negotiations with Luso-Brazil
ians; only a few of them ever spent time in a mission, resisting all efforts to settle them
there because they did not want to be “our slaves.” If their enemies did not surrender or
make peace when overwhelmed, they did not permit them to surrender later since they
took no captives and killed everyone, including children.60 Obviously, the Canoeiro were
an impressive example of courageous resistance against over-whelming odds and Luso-
Brazilian weaponry. Although they succeeded in keeping some of their lands through
much of the nineteenth century, their descendants struggled to survive and live au
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1835
tonomous lives, as Goianos relentlessly massacred them, driving them almost to extinc
tion.61
The Kayapó were notable for their resistance to Luso-Brazilians, but unlike the Canoeiro
they were also famous for settling in missions in the 1780s after decades of warfare.
Thus, there are two contradictory images in elite discourse: one of the “savage” club-
wielding warrior and the other of the peaceful mission Indian, symbolized by Dona Dami
ana da Cunha, a famous Kayapó woman from the mission of São José de Mossâmedes.62
The Kayapó had many reasons for warfare, primarily to defend themselves against the
bandeiras that enslaved them. In the eighteenth century, they confronted bandeiras from
three captaincies: Goiás, Minas Gerais, and Mato Grosso. According to Odair Giraldin, the
Kayapó motive for war was “vengeance.” Each time they were (p. 604) attacked, they re
taliated. After local whites assaulted a Kayapó village in the 1760s, the Kayapó struck the
mining town of Santa Luzia.63
As the bandeiras pressured them and as cattlemen invaded their lands, the Kayapó often
faced subsistence crises, especially those who lived in the more arid and less fertile lands
of eastern Mato Grosso or in the region south of the Paraná River. They retaliated against
ranchers by raiding for food, mainly cattle and horses. Or, they attacked the well-supplied
convoys of food-laden mules that plied the roads from Vila Boa to Cuiabá or to São Paulo.
According to David Mead, one of their powerful motivations for raiding was the search for
plunder.64
Another reason for war was injustice. In one occasion, for instance, a group of Kayapó
from one of the aldeias went to petition the governor, but they were badly treated and put
in irons. When other Kayapó learned of this, they deserted their aldeia and took up arms.
Their forcible removal from the aldeia of São José de Mossâmedes in the 1830s constitut
ed an especially bitter injustice. Those who had lived with Dona Damiana at the mission
resented the decision to transfer them against their will to Mato Grosso. After an inter
lude, many Kayapó waged war again in the 1850s due to settler invasion of their lands,
especially in the Claro and Bonito River regions.65
In addition to Luso-Brazilians, traditional enemies of the Kayapó were the Bororo and
fugitive Africans who lived in quilombos. In 1742, a bandeira destroyed an entire Kayapó
village with the help of 120 Bororo from Mato Grosso. As allies of the bandeira leader An
tônio Pires de Campos, the Bororo had also participated in other bandeiras against the
Kayapó, taking their heads as war trophies or enslaving them. Fugitive Africans were par
ticular targets of the Kayapó, but they also killed enslaved Africans while at work on
mines and ranches. The Kayapó also raided quilombos, taking captives to sell to the Por
tuguese.66 The southern Kayapó resisted Luso-Brazilian invasion of their lands in three
captaincies as long as the 1880s. Although some had tried peace in the eighteenth centu
ry, they abandoned mission life after being expelled from São José in the 1830s. Ultimate
ly, they disappeared into the forests of Mato Grosso to live autonomous lives and be re-
contacted in the late twentieth century as the Kreen-Akarore (Panará).67
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1835
In brief, inter-ethnic warfare in Central Brazil was episodic, interrupted by periods of
peace that usually did not last long. When Portuguese governors presumed that perma
nent conquests had taken place, they were misguided. Traditionally, negotiated peace
agreements were only interludes in what seemed to be continuous warfare among ene
mies. Sometimes people fought over resources, such as palm fruit; at other times thefts of
women and food led to violent confrontation. Luso-Brazilian intrusions, beginning in the
1590s, clearly provoked vengeance warfare, shifting patterns of alliances, and migration
to escape enslavement. Although some nations profited by allying with Luso-Brazilians
and agreeing to settle in missions, others did not, such as the Canoeiro. Still others like
the Araés never had a chance to choose and disappeared as an identifiable group in Goiás
due to diseases and enslavement.
Clearly, abilities in warfare enabled some indigenous peoples to survive and contest the
Portuguese for hegemony. In the first half of the nineteenth century, they almost (p. 605)
succeeded in driving settlers from vast portions of the north of the captaincy, that is, the
modern state of Tocantins. They were even strong enough to burn down entire towns.
Their skills in warfare and hit-and-run raids were remarkably enduring over two cen
turies. But what is also notable from the documentary record, as opposed to Portuguese
discourse, is that diplomacy and peacemaking were also pursued by the very warriors
and their leaders who fought each other. Not only did they have “ambassadors” that in
cluded women, but also diplomatic procedures for making peace with their enemies. With
such traditions, they also mastered the protocols of peace with their colonial enemy by
accepting the protection of local military officers and the vassalage relationship to a dis
tant Crown in Portugal. Because of skills in warfare and diplomacy, they skillfully prevent
ed the closure of the frontier to the benefit of the Portuguese in the late colonial period
and ensured the survival of their nations.
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Urban, Greg. “A História da Cultura Brasileira Segundo as Línguas Nativas.” Translated
by Beatriz Perrone-Moisés. In História dos Índios no Brasil, edited by Manuela Carneiro
da Cunha, 87–102. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992.
Notes:
(1.) Hal Langfur, The Forbidden Lands: Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence, and the Per
sistence of Brazil’s Eastern Indians, 1750–1830 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2006), 260 note 82, 363–364. For more evidence of such violence see Mary Karasch, Be
fore Brasília: Frontier Life in Central Brazil (Albuquerque: UNM, 2016), which draws on a
variety of archival sources in Brazil and Portugal.
(2.) Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, ed., Historia dos Índios no Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia
das Letras, 1992); John Monteiro, Negros da Terra: Índios e Bandeirantes nas Origens de
São Paulo (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994).
(3.) Juciene Ricarte Apolinário, Os Akroá e Outros Povos Indigenas nas Fronteiras do
Sertão (Goiânia: Kelps, 2006); Jézus Marco de Ataídes, Sob o Signo da Violência: Colo
nizadores e Kayapó do Sul no Brasil Central (Goiânia: UCG, 1998); Marlene Castro Ossa
mi de Moura, ed., Índios de Goiás: Uma Perspectiva Histórico-Cultural (Goiânia: UCG, Ed.
Kelps, 2006).
(4.) Dulce Madalena Rios Pedroso, “Avá-Canoeiro: A História do Povo Invisível—Séculos

XVIII e XIX” (MA diss., Universidade Federal de Goiás, 1992); André Amaral de Toral,
“Cosmologia e Sociedade Karajá” (MA diss, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro,
1992); Odair Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará: Luta e Sobrevivência de um Povo Jê no Brasil
Central (Campinas: UNICAMP, 1997); David L. Mead, “Caiapó do Sul: An Ethno-history
(1610–1920)” (PhD diss., University of Florida, 2010).
(5.) John Hemming, Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); Heather F. Roller, Amazonian Routes: Indigenous
Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2014); Barbara Sommer, “The Amazonian Native Nobility in Late Colonial Pará,” in
Native Brazil: Beyond the Convert and the Cannibal, 1500–1900, ed. Hal Langfur (Albu
querque: UNM, 2014), 108–132; David McCreery, Frontier Goiás, 1822–1889 (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2006); Karasch, Before Brasília.
(6.) Horieste Gomes, Antônio Teixeira Neto, and Altair Sales Barbosa, Geografia: Goiás-
Tocantins (Goiânia: UFG, 2005), 51 and maps, 42, 55.
(7.) Mary Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery? Vila Boa de Goiás, 1780–1835,” in
Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500–1820, ed. Christine
Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 143–169.
(8.) Luiz Cruls, Planalto Central do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 1957), 215–220.
Page 18 of 25

1835
(9.) Mary C. Karasch, “História das Doenças e dos Cuidados Médicos na Capitania de
Goiás,” in Saúde e Doenças em Goiás, ed. Lena Castello Branco F. de Freitas (Goiânia:
UFG, 1999), 20–25.
(10.) Voto do Comiçario Francisco Jozé Pinto de Magalhaens Cap.am d’Ordenanças …,

São Pedro de Alcântara, 11 August 1815, Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (henceforth
BNRJ), II-31, 19,13; and Ofício de José de Almeida de Vasconcellos to Martinho de Mello e
Castro, Vila Boa, January 1774, Instituto Histórico e Geográphico Brasileiro, Rio de
Janeiro (henceforth IHGB), Arquivo 1.2.7., vol. 36, 169–170.
(11.) Dulce Madalena Rios Pedroso, “Avá-Canoeiro,” in Índios de Goiás: Uma Perspectiva
Histórico-Cultural, ed. Marlene C. O. de Moura (Goiânia: UCG, Ed. Kelps, 2006), 101;
Cruls, Planalto Central, 85 (map) and 77–82; Carta da Provincia de Goyaz, 1874, Library
of Congress, Washington, D.C., Map Library; map in Johann Baptiste von Spix and Carl
Friedrich Philipp von Martius, Viagem pelo Brasil, 1817–1820: Excertos e Ilustrações,
trans. Lúcia Furquim Lahmeyer (São Paulo: Edições Melhoramentos, 1968), 100; and
Martiniano J. Silva, Quilombos do Brasil Central: Violência e Resistência Escrava, 1719–
1888 (Goiânia: Ed. Kelps, 2003), 373–394.
(12.) Monteiro, Negros da Terra, 13 (map), 79–80; Manoel Rodrigues Ferreira, As Ban
deiras do Paraupava (São Paulo: Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo, 1977), map 76.
(13.) Gilka V. F. de Salles, Economia e Escravidão na Capitania de Goiás (Goiânia: CE

GRAF-UFG, 1992), 61; Padre Luiz Antônio da Silva e Souza, Memoria sobre o Descobri
mento, Governo, População e Cousas mais Notaveis Da Capitania de Goyaz [1812], BNRJ,
9, 2, 10, 38.
(14.) Odair Giraldin, “AXPÊN PYRÁK: História, Cosmologia, Onomástica e Amizade For
mal Apinaje” (PhD diss., Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2000); Da Viagem que se
faz da Cidade de Bellem [sic] do Grão Pará, athe ás ultimas Colonias dos Dominios Por
tuguezes nos Rios Amazonas, e Negro Pelo Tenente Colonel de Engenharia João Vasco
Manoel de Braun, 1782, Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon (henceforth BNL), Rare Books, Cod.
568, f. 41; Silva e Souza, Memoria sobre o Descobrimento, BNRJ, 9, 2, 10, 43–44; and
Curt Nimuendajú, The Apinayé, trans. Robert H. Lowie, ed. Robert H. Lowie and John M.
Cooper (New York: Humanities Press, 1967), 1–10.
(15.) For the Krahô see Greg Urban, “A História da Cultura Brasileira Segundo as Línguas
Nativas,” trans. Beatriz Perrone-Moisés, in História dos Índios no Brasil, ed. Manuela
Carneiro da Cunha (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1992), 88, 90; Mary Karasch,
“Catequese e Cativeiro,” in História dos Índios no Brasil, ed. Manuela Carneiro da Cunha,
402, 408–409; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 190; Curt Nimuendajú, The Eastern Timbira,
trans. and ed. Robert H. Lowie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), 22–27; Iz
abel Missagia de Matos, “Colonization, Mediation, and Mestizaje in the Borderlands of
Nineteenth-Century Minas Gerais, Brazil,” in The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the
Page 19 of 25

1835
Iberian World, ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 413–440 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2019).
(16.) Urban, “A História da Cultura Brasileira,” 88, 90–91; Apolinário, Os Akroá e Outros
Povos Indigenas, 45–49, 77–79.
(17.) Gomes, Teixeira Neto, and Sales Barbosa, Geografia, 49; Toral, “Cosmologia e So
ciedade Karajá,” 14–16; map in Marivone Matos Chaim, Os Aldeamentos Indígenas na
Capitania de Goiás (Goiânia: Oriente, 1974), 43; Mônica Veloso Borges, “Diferenças entre
as Falas Feminina e Masculina no Karajá e em Outras Línguas Brasileiras: Aspectos
Tipológicos,” Liames: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 4 (2004): 103–113. Karajá contacts
with the bandeiras of 1755 and 1775 are narrated in Mary Karasch, “Rethinking the Con
quest of Goiás, 1775–1819,” The Americas 61, no. 3 (January 2005), 463–492. On trade,
see letter of Souza Von Araujo J. to Santos e Sousa, Niquelandia 1776, Arquivo Histórico
do Estado de Goiás, Goiânia (henceforth AHG).
(18.) Laura R. Graham, Performing Dreams: Discourses of Immortality among the Xavante
of Central Brazil (Tucson: Fenestra Books, 2003), 25–27; Aracy Lopes da Silva, “Dois
Séculos e Meio de História Xavante,” in História dos Índios, ed. Manuela Carneiro da
Cunha, 362–365; map 1751 in Chaim, Aldeamentos, 43; Johann E. Pohl, Viagem no Interi
or do Brasil, trans. Milton Amado e Eugênio Amado (Belo Horizonte: Ed. Itatiaia, 1976),
236–242.
(19.) Lopes da Silva, “Dois Séculos,” 364–365; Graham, Performing Dreams, 25–26 and
map of the Xavante reserves, 30; Curt Nimuandajú, The Serente, trans. from the manu
script by Robert H. Lowie [1942] (New York: AMS Press 1979), 1–2, 4; Urban, “A História
da Cultura Brasileira,” 88.
(20.) Dulce Madalena Rios Pedroso, Eliana Granado, Ester Silveira, Hélio Madalena, and
Monica Pechincha, Avá-Canoeiro: a Terra, o Homem, a Luta (Goiânia: UCG, 1990), 91–
128; André A. Toral, “Os Índios Negros ou os Carijó de Goiás: A História dos Avá-Ca
noeiro,” Revista de Antropologia 27–28 (1984–1985): 287–326; Silva e Souza, Memoria so
bre o Descobrimento, BNRJ, 9,2,10, 28, 43.
(21.) Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará; Mead, “Caiapó do Sul.”
(22.) On the Goiá, see Gomes, Teixeira Neto, and Sales Barbosa, Geografia, 49; and Mon
teiro, Negros da Terra, 137.
(23.) On early bandeiras, see Affonso de E. Taunay, História das Bandeiras Paulistas, vol. 2
(São Paulo: Edições Melhoramentos, 1975), 183–184; Monteiro, Negros da Terra, 79; Fer
reira, Bandeiras do Paraupava, 117–127; Salles, Economia e Escravidão, 314, notes 4 and
7; and José Martins Pereira de Alencastre, Anais da Província de Goiás [1863] (Brasília:
Ed. Gráfica Ipiranga, 1979), 77–78.
Page 20 of 25

1835
(24.) John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 377–378, 381–384; Padre Luiz Antônio
da Silva e Souza, “Memoria sobre o Descobrimento, Governo, População, e Cousas mais
Notaveis Da Capitania de Goyaz [1812],” Revista Trimensal de História e Geographia 16
(4th term 1849): 76–77; Taunay, História das Bandeiras Paulistas, vol. 2, 189–199; and
Alencastre, Anais, 28, 30, 32–47.
(25.) Salles, Economia e Escravidão, 75–76; Luiz Palacin, Goiás: 1722–1822 (Goiânia: Ori
ente, 1976), 33–42; and Silva e Souza, “Memoria sobre o Descobrimento,” 96.
(26.) J. Trindade da Fonseca e Silva, Lugares e Pessoas: Subsídios Eclesiásticos para a

História de Goiás (Goiânia: UCG, 2006), 39–43; José Luiz de Castro, A Organização da
Igreja Católica na Capitania de Goiás, 1726–1824 (Goiânia: UCG, 2006), 103–110.
(27.) Fonseca e Silva, Lugares, 44–51; Castro, A organização da Igreja Católica, 105–110.
(28.) Barbara Sommer, “Conflict, Alliance, Mobility, and Place in the Evolution of Identity
in Portuguese Amazonia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World,
ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 613–634 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2019).
(29.) For the directorate missions, see Rita Heloísa de Almeida, O Diretório dos Índios:
Um Projeto de “Civilização” no Brasil do Século XVIII (Brasília: UnB, 1997). For Goiás,
see Pohl, Viagem, 152–157; Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Viagem à Província de Goiás, trans.
Regina Regis Junqueira (Belo Horizonte: Ed. Itatiaia, 1975), 63–66, 70–71; Giraldin,
Cayapó e Panará, 100; and Mead, “Caiapó do Sul,” 226–284. An illustration of São José in
ruins is in Native Brazil, ed. Hal Langfur, 212.
(30.) These themes are elaborated in Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 143–
169.
(31.) On the Carta regia of 1811, see Mary Karasch, “Catechese e Cativeiro,” in História
dos Índios, ed. Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, 402.
(32.) Palacin, Goiás, 81–93; McCreery, Frontier Goiás, 105–108. The decline of income
from the quinto is in Table 3 in Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 153.
(33.) Noticia Geral da Capitania de Goiás, 1783, BNRJ, Manuscript Section, Cod. 16.3.2.
For craftsmen in five mining towns, see AHG, Documentação Diversa (henceforth
AHGDD), no. 68, Correspondência Dirigida do Comandante das Armas—Raimundo José
da Cunha Matos, 1823–1824, Água Quente, ff. 112–121; Cocal, 99–106; Pontal, ff. 175–
185; São José do Tocantins, 123–142; and Traíras, 86–98. They included metal workers,
carpenters, tailors and seamstresses, shoemakers, spinners, and weavers.
(34.) For more on the captaincy’s trade, see Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,”
158–162.
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1835
(35.) Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 158–159; and AHGDD, no. 69, Origenais
dos Comandantes dos Registros e Presídios da Província, to Cunha Matos, from Pacifico
Antônio Xavier de Barros, Porto Real, February 20, 1824, 151.
(36.) AHGDD, no. 69, Origenais dos Comandantes dos Registros e Presídios da Província,
to Cunha Matos, from Pacifico Antônio Xavier de Barros, Porto Real, 20 February 1824,
161–162; and Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon (henceforth AHU), Cod. 2109, Re
flexoens economicas sobre as tabellas statisticas da Capitania de Goyaz pertencentes ao
anno de 1804 e feitas no de 1806.
(37.) Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 160–162; and AHU, Cod. 2109, Reflex
oens, 1806.
(38.) Palacin, Goiás, 156–158; and Dom Francisco de Assis Mascarenhas, Mappa das Com
panhias de Dragoens, e Pedestres da Capitania de Goiaz, Vila Boa de Goias, April 15,
1806, AHU, Goiás, caixa 43.
(39.) Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 154–155.
(40.) Monteiro, Negros da Terra, 29; Heather F. Roller, “Autonomous Indian Nations and
Peacemaking in Colonial Brazil,” in The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian
World, ed. Danna A. Levin Rojo and Cynthia Radding, 641–666 (New York: Oxford Univer
sity Press, 2019).
(41.) Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (henceforth ANTT), Ministério do

Reino, maço 598, to Conde de Oeiras from Frei João, Bishop of Pará, Pará, 8 November
1760 (copy); BNL, Rare Books, Cod. 568, Da Viagem que se faz da Cidade de Bellem, …
de Braun, 1782, 4; Nimuendajú, Apinayé, 3, 120–122; and AHU, no. 995, caixa 17, Goiás,
1756–1799 [1779?].
(42.) Nimuendajú, Apinayé, 2–3; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 187.
(43.) Nimuendajú, Apinayé, 120; Mary Karasch and David McCreery, “Indigenous Resis
tance in Central Brazil, 1770–1890,” in Native Brazil, ed. Hal Langfur, 228.
(44.) Hemming: Amazon Frontier, 188–189; AHGDD, no. 18, no. 48, Silveira Mendonça,
from Cunha Matos, Ofício, 62; Karasch and McCreery, “Indigenous Resistance,” 228–229.
(45.) Nimuendajú, Eastern Timbira, 27–28; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 190–192; and
IHGB, Arq. 1.5.16, Major Francisco de Paulo Ribeiro, Viagem ao Rio do Tucantins [sic] em
1815, pelos sertoens do Maranham [sic] 1818, 268.
(46.) Pohl, Viagem, 255–256.
(47.) “Roteiro da Viagem que Fez o Capitão Francisco de Paula Ribeiro a’s [sic] Fron
teiras da Capitania do Maranhão e da de Goyaz no Anno de 1815 [1848],” Revista Trimen
sal de Historia e Geographia 10 (1870): 45–46; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 184–185;
Page 22 of 25

1835
Goiás (Capitania), Copia da Memoria oferecida pelo Capitam d’ordenanças Francisco Jozé
Pinto de Mangalhens [Magalhães] em 3 de Janeiro de 1813, BNRJ, I-31,21,9.
(48.) Ribeiro, Viagem, ff. 276, 278–279; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 184–185; AHGDD,
no. 18, Correspondência, Cunha Matos, 1823–1825, f. 50; Nimuendajú, Eastern Timbira,
27–28.
(49.) ANTT, maço 500, Ministério do Reino, Negocios do Brasil e Ultramar, 1730–1823.
(50.) Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 190–191; Ribeiro, Viagem, ff. 271–272; Nimuendajú,
Eastern Timbira, 4; and Mary C. Karasch, “Catechism and Captivity: Indian Policy in
Goiás, 1780–1889,” in Native Brazil, ed. Hal Langfur, 216.
(51.) On Karajá enemies, see Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 474. On Apinajé see D.
Francisco de Souza Coutinho to Martinho de Mello e Castro, Pará, 8 March 1793, IHGB,
Lata 281, pasta 4, doc. 1; IHGB, lata 281, pasta 4, doc. 3, 8 February 1793; and IHGB, La
ta 281, pasta 4, doc. 3, 17–28 January 1793.
(52.) Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 477–478.
(53.) Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 480; Alencastre, Anais, 331–336.
(54.) Ofício of Tristão da Cunha Menezes to Martinho de Mello e Castro, Vila Boa, 17 July
1784, f. 283, IHGB, Arq. 1.2.7, v. 36; Rita Eloisa Almeida Lazarin, “O Aldeamento do Car
retão: Duas Histórias” (MA diss., University of Brasília), 133; and Pohl, Viagem, 237–239.
(55.) On Xavante enemies see Spix and von Martius, Viagem pelo Brasil, 229; Oswaldo
Martins Ravagnani, “A Experiência Xavante com o Mundo dos Brancos” (PhD diss., Escola
de Sociologia e Politica de São Paulo, 1978), 91–92; Memoria, Pinto de Magalhães, 1813,
BNRJ, I-31,21,9; Correspondência, Cunha Matos, 1823–1825, f. 48, AHGDD, no. 18;
Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 481–485.
(56.) Pohl, Viagem, 238.
(57.) On Xerente enemies and warfare, see Nimuendajú, Serente, 9, 75–77; Hemming,
Amazon Frontier, 194; Memoria, Magalhães, 1813, RJBN I-31, 21, 9; Spix and von Mar
tius, Viagem, vol. 2, 229.
(58.) On Graciosa, see Registro de Correspondências Militares ao Governo Civil da

Província, 1823–1826, ff. 167–169, AHGDD, no. 70; and Ofício ao conselho da Província,
from Cunha Matos, Traíras, 26 February, 1825, AHGDD.
(59.) Friar Michel Berthet, “Uma Viagem de Missão pelo Interior do Brasil [1890],” trans.
Laura Chaer, in Memorias Goianas I (Goiânia: Centauro, 1982), 145; Hemming, Amazon
Frontier, 193; Ofício to Silveira Mendonça from Cunha Matos, f. 62, AHGDD, no. 18, no.
48; and Pedroso, “Avá-Canoeiro,” 100–103, and maps, 130–131.
Page 23 of 25

1835
(60.) Ofício de Miguel Lino de Moraes …, expondo o estado econômico [e politico] da
provincia de Goiaz” (cópia), Goiás, 1 December 1830, BNRJ, I-28,31,26, Goiás (Província);
and Virgilio Martins de Mello Franco, Viagens pelo interior de Minas Geraes e Goyaz (Rio
de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1888), 120–121.
(61.) Toral, “Os Índios Negros,” 287–326. On twentieth-century contacts, see Pedroso,
“Avá Canoeiro,” 104–177.
(62.) Karasch, “Damiana da Cunha: Catechist and Sertanista,” in Struggle and Survival in
Colonial America, ed. David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash (Berkeley: University of Califor
nia Press, 1981), 102–120.
(63.) Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará, 49, 55–56, 80–81, 94; and Mead, “Caiapó do Sul,” 99–
108. Mead, 436–437, argues that plunder was also a motivation for raids among the
Kayapó do Sul.
(64.) Mead, “Caiapó do Sul,” 81–85; Jézus Marco de Ataídes, “A Chegada do Colonizador e
os Kayapó,” in Índios de Goiás: Uma Perspectiva Histórico-Cultural, ed. Marlene C. O. de
Moura (Goiânia: UCG, Ed. Kelps, 2006), 67; and Ofício de Lino de Moraes, 1 December
1830, BNRJ, I-28, 31, 26.
(65.) Goiás, Redução dos índios da Capitania de Goiás, do Arquivo do Dr. Ernesto Ferreira
França Filho, s. d. Removal to Arinos, IHGB, lata 397, doc. 2; Mary Karasch, “Interethnic
Conflict and Resistance on the Brazilian Frontier of Goiás, 1750–1890,” in Contested
Ground: Comparative Frontiers on the Northern and Southern Edge of the Spanish Em
pire, ed. Donna J. Guy and Thomas E. Sheridan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1998), 131; and Karasch and McCreery, “Indigenous Resistance,” 230–233.
(66.) For the Bororo see Alencastre, Anais, 74–75; Mead, “Caiapó,” 146–150. For quilom
bo attacks see Redução dos índios, IHGB, lata 397, doc. 2.
(67.) Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará, 121–128, 133–136. On contact, see Mead, “Caiapó do
Sul,” 16–25.
Mary Karasch
Mary Karasch, Professor of History emerita at Oakland University in Rochester,

Michigan where she taught until 2010, received her doctorate from the University of
Wisconsin. She also taught at Catholic University, Washington, DC (1981–1983), Uni
versidade de Brasília (1977–1978), and Universidade Federal de Goiás (1993, 1996).
Her principal publication is Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (A vida dos es
cravos no Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850) (1987). Her new book, Before Brasília: Frontier
Life in Central Brazil (2016), traces the social evolution of the states of Goiàs and To
cantins from a colonial society characterized by enslavement and conquest to one in
Page 24 of 25

1835
tegrated by a predominantly free population of color along with autonomous indige
nous nations.
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Riverine Borderlands and Multicultural Contacts in Central Brazil, 1775–

Riverine Borderlands and Multicultural Contacts in

Print Publication Date: Dec 2019 Subject: History, European History

Abstract and Keywords

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“Riverine Borderlands” builds on recent ethno-historical scholarship on Central Brazil. Al­

The Geographical and Cultural Background of

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Figure 24.1. Indigenous nations in the Captaincy of

From Mary C. Karasch, Before Brasilia: Frontier Life

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Missionaries and Missions

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(p. 598) Structures of Empire

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War and Intertribal Relations

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Chaim, Marivone Matos. Os Aldeamentos Indígenas na Capitania de Goiás. Goiânia: Ori­

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Giraldin, Odair. Cayapó e Panará: Luta e Sobrevivência de um Povo Jê no Brasil Central.

Graham, Laura R. Performing Dreams: Discourses of Immortality among the Xavante of

Mead, David L. “Caiapó do Sul, an Ethnohistory (1610–1920).” PhD diss., University of

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Nimuendajú, Curt. The Apinayé. Translated by Robert H. Lowie, edited by Robert H.

Palacin, Luiz. Goiás: 1722–1822. Goiânia: Oriente, 1976.

Pedroso, Dulce Madalena Rios. “Avá-Canoeiro: A História do Povo Invisível—Séculos XVIII

Pedroso, Dulce Madalena Rios. “Avá-Canoeiro.” In Índios de Goiás: Uma Perspectiva

Roller, Heather F. Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in

Avá-Canoeiro.” Revista de Antropologia 27–28 (1984–1985): 287–326.

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(4.) Dulce Madalena Rios Pedroso, “Avá-Canoeiro: A História do Povo Invisível—Séculos

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(10.) Voto do Comiçario Francisco Jozé Pinto de Magalhaens Cap.am d’Ordenanças …,

(13.) Gilka V. F. de Salles, Economia e Escravidão na Capitania de Goiás (Goiânia: CE­

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(21.) Giraldin, Cayapó e Panará; Mead, “Caiapó do Sul.”

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(26.) J. Trindade da Fonseca e Silva, Lugares e Pessoas: Subsídios Eclesiásticos para a

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(39.) Karasch, “The Periphery of the Periphery?,” 154–155.

(41.) Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (henceforth ANTT), Ministério do

(42.) Nimuendajú, Apinayé, 2–3; Hemming, Amazon Frontier, 187.

(46.) Pohl, Viagem, 255–256.

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(52.) Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 477–478.

(53.) Karasch, “Rethinking the Conquest,” 480; Alencastre, Anais, 331–336.

(56.) Pohl, Viagem, 238.

(58.) On Graciosa, see Registro de Correspondências Militares ao Governo Civil da

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Mary Karasch, Professor of History emerita at Oakland University in Rochester,

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