Colony of the sertão: Amazonian expeditions and the Indian slave trade

Americas

Volumn 61, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 401-428

  Sommer, Barbara A ^a  

^a GETTYSBURG COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750342500     PISSN: 00031615     EISSN: 15336247     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tam.2005.0053     Document Type: Review

References (71)

1. Dauril Alden, "Indian Versus Black Slavery in the State of Maranhão During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," Bibliotheca Americana 1:3 (1983), p. 96
2. Vieira to Padre Provincial do Brasil, 1654, in Cartas do Padre António Vieira, ed. J. Lúcio d'Azevedo, 3 vols. (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1925), vol. 1, p. 366
3. Padre António Vieira to Câmara do Pará, Pará, 12 Feb. 1661, in Azevedo, Cartas, vol. 1, pp. 579-83
4. We should not overlook the significant African slave population in the region early on, or the continued reliance on native labor after the crown abolished Indian slavery in 1755, however. For a recent study of Africans in the region, see Flávio dos Santos Gomes, "A 'Safe Haven': Runaway Slaves, Mocambos
5. and Borders in Colonial Amazonia, Brazil," Hispanic American Historical Review 82:3 (August 2002), pp. 469-498
6. Quoted in Alden, "Indian Versus Black Slavery," p. 103
7. Dauril Alden and Joseph C. Miller, "Out of Africa: The Slave Trade and the Transmission of Smallpox to Brazil, 1560-1831," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18:2 (Autumn 1987), pp. 205-06
8. Termo de Junta de Missões, 31 Oct. 1744, in Paul David Wojtalewicz, "The 'Junta de Missões': The Missions in the Portuguese Amazon" (M.A. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1993), pp. 135-36
9. João Capistrano de Abreu, Chapters of Brazil's Colonial History 1500-1800, trans. Arthur Brakel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 109
10. David Graham Sweet, "A Rich Realm of Nature Destroyed: The Middle Amazon Valley, 1640-1750" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974), pp. 218-19
11. See Royal Order, Lisboa, 27 Feb. 1725, in Annaes da Bibliotheca do Pará 1 (1902), pp. 225-231
12. Sweet, "A Rich Realm," p. 157
13. Samuel Fritz, Journal of the Travels and Labours of Father Samuel Fritz in the River of the Amazons between 1686 and 1723, trans. George Edmundson (London: Hakluyt Society, 1922), p. 77
14. Robin Michael Wright, "History and Religion of the Baniwa Peoples of the Upper Rio Negro Valley" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1981), pp. 127-28
15. Commander Francisco Ferras Cardozo, Lieutenant Coronel João Pacheco do Couto, and their companions discovered gold on the Manoel Alves River above the Tocantins falls. See Termo, Governor's Palace, Belém, 4 Feb. 1739, APEP, cod. 25 (985), doc. 140 (130)
16. See Fritz, Journal of the Travels, pp. 84-103, 118-131, for example; Nádia Farage, As muralhas dos sertões: os povos indígenas no rio Branco e a colonização (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra; ANPOCS, 1991)
17. Ignacio Szentmartonyi, "Sequente Notitiate de Rio Negro," in Robin Wright, "Indian Slavery in the Northwest Amazon," Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi 7:2 (December 1991), p. 155
18. This comparison has been made, for example, by Richard M. Morse, ed., The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the Brazilian Pathfinders (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), p. 20
19. See Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, trans. Janet Whatley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)
20. See John Manuel Monteiro, Negros da terra: índios e bandeirantes nas origens de São Paulo (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994)
21. Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002)
22. John Monteiro, "O escravo índio, esse desconhecido," in Índios no Brasil, ed. Luís Donisete Benzi Grupioni, 3rd ed. (São Paulo: Global; Brasília: MEC, 1998), p. 105
23. These terms were also used in São Paulo, see Monteiro, Negros da Terra, especially pp. 137, 155, 165. I have not seen "negros da terra" used in the North. Caution is advised when trying to distinguish between African and Indian "negros."
24. Other valuable studies include Mathias C. Kiemen, "The Indian Policy of Portugal in the Amazon Region, 1614-1693" (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 1954)
25. Expedito Arnaud, "A legislação sobre os índios do Grão-Pará e Maranhão nos séculos XVII e XVIII, Boletim de Pesquisa da CEDEAM 4: 6 (1985), pp. 34-72
26. Heloísa Liberalli Belotto, "Trabalho indígena, regalismo e colonização no estado do Maranhão nos séculos XVII e XVIII," Revista Brasileira de História 2:4 (1982), pp. 177-92
27. Colin MacLachlan, "The Indian Labor Structure in the Portuguese Amazon, 1700-1800," in Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil, ed. Dauril Alden (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 199-230
28. Perdigão Malheiro, A Escravidão no Brasil: ensaio histórico, jurídico, social, 3d ed., 2 vols. (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes; Brasília: INL, 1976)
29. For accounts of the horrific abuses perpetrated in the sertão, see John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500-1760 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), especially chaps. 15 and 18
30. John Manuel Monteiro, "Escravidão indígena e despovoamento na América Portugesa: S. Paulo e Maranhão," in Brasil nas vésperas do mundo moderno (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1992), pp. 150-51
31. Hemming, Red Gold, pp. 223-28
32. H. B. Johnson, "Portuguese Settlement 1500-1580," in Colonial Brazil, ed. Leslie Bethell (1987; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 44
33. Joyce Lorimer, ed., English and Irish Settlement on the River Amazon, 1550-1646 (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1989), pp. 115-22
34. Monteiro, "Escravião indígena," p. 156
35. João Felipe Bettendorff, Crônica da missão dos padres da Companhia de Jesus no Estado do Maranhão, 2d ed. (Belém: Fundação Cultural do Pará Tancredo Neves; Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, 1990), p. 97
36. Cristóbal de Acuña, "Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio del Amazonas, en el año 1639," in Informes de Jesuitas en el Amazonas, 1660-1684 (Iquitos, Peru: IIAP; CETA, 1986), pp. 95-96
37. Fritz, Journal of the Travels, pp. 91, 96
38. Sweet, "A Rich Realm," pp. 141-42, 466
39. Monteiro, "O escravo índio," p. 112
40. João de Abreu de Castelbranco, Belém, 4 Dec. 1737, APEP, cod. 25 (985), doc. 19; APEP, cod. 26 (933), docs. 53, 118[a], 204, 292; Sweet, "A Rich Realm," pp. 598-600, and Appendix J, pp. 729-33
41. "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 87-88, 108-110, 113
42. Similar trade items were valued in other regions of Brazil, see Monteiro, Negros da Terra, p. 63
43. Wright, "Indian Slavery in the Northwest Amazon," pp. 164-77; APEP, cod. 44 (1110)
44. Instructions to the purveyor of the royal treasury, Belém, 3 Feb. 1739, APEP, cod. 25 (985), doc. 139 (128)
45. Márcio Meira, ed., Livro das Canoas: documentos para a história indígena da Amazônia (São Paulo: Núcleo de História Indígena e do Indigenismo da Universidade de São Paulo; FAPESP, 1994)
46. 26 Aug. 1744, "The 'Junta de Missoes,'" pp. 131-32
47. 22 Sept. 1745, "The 'Junta de Missoes,'" p. 143
48. 31 Oct. 1744, "The 'Junta de Missoes,'" pp. 135-36
49. 3 Nov. 1747, "The 'Junta de Missoes,'" pp. 148-50
50. 9 Nov. 1743, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 127-28
51. 18 Jan. 1738, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 93-94
52. 19 Jan. 1739, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 111-12
53. 27 Oct. 1741, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 119-120
54. 23 Dec. 1745, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" p. 145
55. Pedro de Braga, 1758, Inquisição de Lisboa, hereafter IL, Processo 5169, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (Lisbon), hereafter ANTT, fls. 71-75
56. Braga, IL, Processo 5169, ANTT, fl. 81v
57. João Roiz' da Crus to governor, Fortaleza de Jesus Maria Jozeph, 16 Aug. 1752, BNL, PBA, cod. 625, fls. 110-112v
58. [Francisco Xavier Mendonça Furtado to king], Pará, 12 Nov. 1751, AEP, vol. 1, p. 60
59. The captains of descimentos and cunhamenas have largely disappeared from the historiography, due in part I suspect to their vilification by mid-eighteenth century reformers, who perceived the cunhamenas as powerful agents of disorder. Notable exceptions are Robin Wright and David Sweet, who refened to them as "private slavers" and "transfrontiersmen, " respectively. See Wright, "History and Religion of the Baniwa," pp. 126-28
60. Instructions to the treasurer of resgates, 2 Dec. 1753, APEP, cod. 55 (986), doc. 758
61. 5 Oct. 1744, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" p. 135
62. 15 Mar. 1745, "The 'Junta de Missões,'" pp. 139-40
63. Arthur Cézar Ferreira Reis, História do Amazonas, 2d ed. (Belo Horizonte: Editora Itatiaia; Manaus: Superintendência Cultural do Amazonas, 1989), pp. 77-78
64. Sweet, "A Rich Realm," pp. 620-21 n. 44
65. Alida Metcalf has described a similar competition between mamelucos and Jesuits in sixteenth-century Bahia. See Alida C. Metcalf, "O jesuita como intermediário na Baía nos fins do século XVI," in De Cabral a Pedro I: Aspectos da colonização Portuguesa no Brasil, ed. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (Porto: Universidade Portucalense Infante D. Henrique, 2001), pp. 79-88
66. [Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado to Pombal], Pará, 26 Jan. 1752, AEP, vol. 1, p. 212
67. [Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado to Pombal], Pará, 25 Feb. 1754, AEP, vol. 2, p. 515
68. For more on Pombaline reform of the Amazonian missions, see Colin MacLachlan, "The Indian Directorate: Forced Acculturation in Portuguese America," The Americas 28 (April 1972), pp. 357-87
69. Rita Heloísa de Almeida, O Diretório dos índios: um projeto de civilização no Brasil do século XVIII (Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1997), chap. 5
70. Barbara A. Sommer, "Negotiated Settlements: Native Amazonians and Portuguese Policy in Pará, Brazil, 1758-1798" (Ph.D. diss., University of New Mexico, 2000), chap. 2
71. Ângela Domingues, Quando os índios eram vassalos: colonização e relações de poder no Norte do Brasil na segunda metade do século XVIII (Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2000), chap. 2