The Forbidden Lands: Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence, and the Persistence of Brazil’s Eastern Indians, 1750-1830 9781503625273

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The Forbidden Lands

HAL LANGFUR

The Forbidden Lands Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence, and the Persistence of Brazil's Eastern Indians, 1750-1830

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All rights reserved. This book has been published with the assistance of the University at Buffalo-SUNY and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Langfur, Hal. The forbidden lands : colonial identity, frontier violence, and the persistence of Brazil's eastern Indians, 1750-1830 I Hal Langfur. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-8047-5180-3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN o-8047-6338-0 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Brazil-Territorial expansion. 2. Brazii-History-1763-1822. 3. Brazil-History-Empire, 1822-1889. 4· Minas Gerais (Brazil)History. 5. Land settlement-Brazil-Minas Gerais-History. 6. Violence-Brazil-Minas Gerais-History. 7· Indians of South America-Brazil-Minas Gerais--History. 8. BlacksBrazil-Minas Gerais-History. 9· Brazil-Race relations. I. Title. f2534-L325 2006 981' 51033-dc22 2005037517 Original Printing 2006 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Typeset by TechBooks, New Delhi, in 10/12.5 Minion

FOR KERRY, BRIDGER, AND DEVON

Contents

Acknowledgments A Note on Conventions

xiii XVll

Introduction: A Forgotten Frontier in Colonial Brazil Part One: Colonization 1

2

Uncertain Refuge: The Shifting Geography of a Frontier in the Making

21

Ordered Space, Disorderly Peoples: Challenging Portugal's Frontier Policies

3 In the Eastern Forests: Territorializing Colonial Society 4 The "Useless People": Free Persons of Color and the Racial Geography of the Frontier Part Two: Confrontation

55

89

127

161

5 The Assault on the Eastern Sertao 6 Sources of Conflict: The Elusive Evidence oflndian Incorporation and Resistance

191

7 Cannibalism and Other "Abominable Scenes": Frontier Violence as Cultural Exchange

227

viii I Contents

8 VVar

262

Conclusion: Unfinished Conquests, Unwritten Histories

289

Appendix: Governors of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, 1750S-182os

303

~~

~

Bibliography Index

397

373

Map, Illustrations, Figures, and Tables

Map The Eastern Sertiio, Minas Gerais, Brazil, ca. 18oo

6

Illustrations 1.1. Portraits of the Botocudo

25

1.2. Portraits of the Coroado and the Coropo

26

1.3. Portraits of the Puri

27

1.4. Portraits of the Maxakali and Kamakii

28

1.5. A Botocudo farnily on a journey

30

1.6. Puri natives in their shelter

31

1.7·

Authorized travel in the mining district

33

1.8. Dutch map depicting native atrocities and ethnic divisions 1.9. Cartouche from map of Sahara region 2.1. Mining district racial hierarchy: slaves washing for diamonds along the Jequitinhonha River

58

2.2. A runaway slave hunter 4.1. Laboring on the Doce River

130

5.1. A deadly encounter between soldiers and natives

166

5.2. Hunting for game

167

5·3· A river crossing

168

x I Map, Illustrations, Figures, and Tables

5·4· A Kamaka chief

181

5·5· A Kamaka woman 6.1. A European depiction of the eastern Indians as savages

197

6.2. Natives and settlers interact in the forest

211

6.3. Village Indians

212

7.1.

Patax6 with ax and knife

232

p. A priest's painting ofBotocudo cannibalism

245

Botocudo practicing ritualized violence

248

7-3·

7-4· A Puri ritual dance

252

8.1. Burying the dead

278

8.2. Opening a new road along the Mucuri River

286

Figures 2.1. Divergent Crown and Captaincy Frontier Geographies,

ca. 1770

6o

3-J. Percentage Distribution of Population by Comarca (Region), 1767-1821

110

3.2. Demographic Structure of Selected Population Centers, 1804

118

3-3· Sesmaria Concessions, Minas Gerais, 1700-1836

123

6.1. Expeditions and Violence Compared, 1764-1808

218

Tables 3.1.

Population and Annual Growth Rate of Minas Gerais by Region, 1767-1821

109

3.2. Slaves Employed in Agriculture, Ranching, and Mining by Region, 1766

112

3·3· Population and Annual Growth Rates of Selected Urban and Frontier Parishes, 1818-1826

114

3·4· Population of Other Selected Frontier Settlements

114

3·5· Population of Abre Campo and Furquim by Civil Status and Gender, 1804

116

Map, Illustrations, Figures, and Tables I xi 3.6. Population of Abre Campo and Furquim by Age Group, 1804

u6

4-1. Estimated Population of Minas Gerais by Racial and Legal Category, 1776-1821

131

4.2. Estimated Population of Comarca of Rio das Mortes by Racial and Legal Category, 1776-1821

132

5-l.

Expeditions to the Eastern Sertao, 1755-1804

165

6.1. Violent Engagements with Indians in Eastern Sertiio, 1760-1808

216

6.2. Identity of Aggressor

219

6.3. Identity of Victims oflndian Attacks

220

6.4. Objective oflndian Attacks on Soldiers

220

8.1. Objectives oflndian Attacks on Settlers

266

Acknowledgments

My first visit to Brazil many years ago began in the western border town of Corumba, where my traveling companion and I boarded a train and crossed the great grasslands of Mato Grosso do Sui on our way to the Atlantic coast. Anyone would find that trip difficult to complete without experiencing some measure of awe at the beauty and vastness of the nation's interior. As a son of the western United States, I became irrevocably fascinated by Brazil's frontier history, although I as yet had little idea of its complexity. Ultimately, the contrasts between the North American history I knew and the South American history I came to know would prove as revealing as any commonalities. Even so, this book remains the result of questions that began to form as I watched the farms and ranches roll by from the open window of that train. Little did I imagine that I was heading in the same direction, west to east, chosen by or forced upon many of the individuals who would inhabit my research as I traced their movements through the forests, mountains, and river valleys of tropical Portuguese America during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. From its inception a decade ago at the University of Texas, this project benefited from the insight and rigor of mentors Richard Graham, who counseled me to let it steep, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham, who urged me to be bold. I followed the former advice perhaps too well, and hope I incorporated the latter well enough. Alida Metcalf also became an incisive critic and steadfast supporter from an early stage, as did Mary Karasch, Judy Bieber, and Barbara Sommer, all of whom have themselves advanced the study of Brazilian frontier and indigenous history. At a crucial juncture, Laura de Mello e Souza, as a visiting scholar, shared her unrivaled knowledge of the history of colonial Minas Gerais, the gold-mining region at the center of this study, as well as invaluable sources from her research in progress. Similarly, John Monteiro, first on a visit

xiv I Acknowledgments from Brazil where he has helped transform the field of colonial ethnohistory, suggested important avenues of investigation, as he has done many times since. I benefited from the encouragement and constructive criticism of my colleagues in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where I spent five productive years, especially Robert Toplin, Michael Seidman, and Susan McCaffray. Kathleen Berkeley, in her capacity as department chair and unstinting friend, marshaled an ample share of her prodigious energies in support of the project. Norman Fiering was instrumental in providing a year of further research and writing at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, a matchless environment for scholars studying the early modern Atlantic world. Other individuals who at one point or another offered intellectual guidance include Susan Deans-Smith, Enylton de Sa Rego, David Montejano, Gunther Peck, Myron Gutmann, Starling Pullum, Hendrik Kraay, Matthew Edney, A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Valeria Gauz, Matthew Restall, and Neil Whitehead. Stuart Schwartz and Bert Barickman combed the entire manuscript in its penultimate form, making recommendations that greatly enhanced the final version. Repeated research trips to Brazil have brought me in contact with numerous friends and scholars whose practical assistance, camaraderie, and expertise I have treasured. In each of these realms, I owe particularly large debts-which show no signs of diminishing-to Maria Leonia Chaves de Resende in Sao Joao del-Rei and Valter Sinder and Vania Belli in Rio de Janeiro. Jose Bessa Freire provided the opportunity to discuss my work with the members of his Programa de Estudos dos Povos Indigenas at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Antonio Carlos de Souza Lima placed the library and other resources of the Museu Nacional at my disposal. Manalo Florentino and Junia Ferreira Furtado steered me to important sources in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, respectively. I also wish to thank Jose Celso de Castro Alves, Dona Jarice Ferreira de Andrade, Luiz Carlos Villalta, Douglas Libby, and Izabel Missagia de Mattos for extending their aid, ideas, and friendship. Many Brazilian archivists and library professionals, whose institutions are listed in the bibliography, greatly facilitated my research. Of the few I can name here individually, my special thanks go to Carmen Tereza C. Moreno, Vera Lucia Garcia Menezes, Pedro Tortima, Aida Maria Palhares Campolina, and Monsenhor Flavio Carneiro Rodrigues. Expert research assistance was provided in Mariana's archives by Maria Teresa Gons:alves Pereira. In Lisbon, Tiago C.P. dos Reis Miranda, Virginia Maria Trindade Valadares, and James Wadsworth were particularly generous. With research sites on three continents, this undertaking would not have been possible without the financial and institutional support of the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the John Carter

Acknowledgments I xv Brown Library, the Tinker Foundation, the Conference on Latin American History, the David L. Boren NSEP Graduate International Fellowship Program, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Historical Association. The University at Buffalo- SUNY supported the acquisition and reproduction of images to complement the text. The Hispanic American Historical Review, The Americas, and Ethnohistory published portions of several chapters in earlier forms. I wish to thank the editors for permission to use expanded versions of that material. Norris Pope and John Feneron at Stanford University Press guided the final publication process with their renowned expertise and enthusiasm. The completion of a book of this sort presupposes a commitment that inevitably involves those who are closest to its author. As such, I counted repeatedly on the support of both sides of my family, particularly my parents, Bert and Rosalyn Langfur, my sister, Meg Langfur, and my wife's parents, Michael and Laing Reynolds. Finally, there are those patient few who live with the project on a daily basis as it ends up taking longer and demanding more than anyone expected. Whatever has come of this effort would have amounted to far less without the love and cherished companionship of Kerry Reynolds, my wife and finest critic, my partner on that train trip across Brazil, and ever since. It is to her and to our dear children, Bridger and Devon, who joined our journey along the way, that I dedicate this book.

A Note on Conventions

For textual consistency, I have adopted contemporary Brazilian orthography but retained diverse original spellings, grammar, and punctuation in citations of historical manuscripts and imprints. The names and spellings of indigenous groups follow those most widely used by Brazilian scholars, although they too vary widely in the notes according to the original sources. The real (pl. reis) was the basic unit of currency in colonial Brazil. One mil-reis equaled one thousand reis and was written 1$ooo. One con to de reis (or simply one con to) equaled one thousand mil-reis, and was written 1:ooo$ooo. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century, the Portuguese Crown set the value of one oitava of gold (an eighth of an ounce) at 1$200 in Minas Gerais.

The Forbidden Lands

Introduction A Forgotten Frontier in Colonial Brazil

A

s R E v o L u T I o N A R Y sentiments stirred on both sides of the Atlantic in 1789, the governor in charge of Brazil's great inland mining district, the captaincy of Minas Gerais, hurried to increase military forces at strategic points. Having discovered a conspiracy by local plutocrats who planned his assassination, an armed uprising against the Portuguese Crown, and the declaration of an independent republic, Governor Luis Antonio Furtado de Mendon