Origins , an
Indigenous territory of Brazil Questions about the original
settlement of the Americas have led to various hypothetical models. The origins of these Indigenous peoples remain a matter of debate among archaeologists.
Migration into the continents In Brazil, most Native tribes living in the land by 1500 are thought to be descended from the first wave of Siberian migrants to the Americas, who are believed to have crossed the
Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago.
Genetic studies , painted by
Hércules Florence, 1827
Y-chromosome DNA An analysis of
Amerindian Y-chromosome DNA reveals specific clustering within much of the South American population. The
micro-satellite diversity and distributions of Y-chromosome lineages specific to South America suggest that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.
Autosomal DNA According to a 2012
autosomal DNA genetic study, Indigenous peoples of the Americas descend from at least three main migrant waves from Siberia. Most of their ancestry traces back to a single ancestral population, referred to as the 'First Americans'. However,
Inuit-speaking populations from the Arctic inherited nearly half of their ancestry from a second Siberian migrant wave, while
Na-dene speakers inherited about one-tenth of their ancestry from a third migrant wave. The initial settlement of the Americas was followed by a rapid expansion southward along the coast, with limited gene flow later, especially in
South America. An exception to this is the
Chibcha speakers, whose ancestry includes contributions from both North and South America. revealed that the maternal ancestry of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas traces back to a few founding lineages from Siberia, likely arriving via the Bering Strait. According to this study, the ancestors of Indigenous peoples of the Americas likely remained near the Bering Strait for a time before rapidly spreading throughout the Americas and eventually reaching South America. A 2016 study on mtDNA lineages found that "a small population entered the Americas via a coastal route around 16,000 years ago, following a period of isolation in eastern Beringia for approximately 2,400 to 9,000 years after separating from eastern Siberian populations. After spreading rapidly throughout the Americas, limited gene flow in South America resulted in a distinct
phylogeographic structure of populations, which persisted over time. All ancient
mitochondrial lineages detected in this study were absent from modern data sets, suggesting a high extinction rate. To investigate this further, we applied a novel principal components multiple logistic regression test to Bayesian serial coalescent simulations. The analysis supported a scenario in which European colonization caused a substantial loss of pre-Columbian lineages."
The Oceanic component in the Amazon region Two 2015 autosomal DNA genetic studies confirmed the Siberian origins of the Native peoples of the Americas. However, an ancient signal of shared ancestry with the
Indigenous peoples of Australia and Melanesia was detected among the Native populations of the
Amazon region. This migration from Siberia is estimated to have occurred around 23,000 years ago.
Archaeological remains Indigenous peoples of Brazil, unlike those in
Mesoamerica or the
Andes, did not keep written records or erect stone monuments. The humid climate and acidic soil have destroyed almost all traces of their material culture, including wood and bones. Therefore, what is known about the region's history before 1500 has been inferred and reconstructed from limited archaeological evidence, such as
ceramics and stone arrowheads. The most conspicuous remains of these societies are vast mounds of discarded shellfish, known as
sambaquis, found at some coastal sites that were continuously inhabited for more than 5,000 years. Additionally, substantial "black earth" (
terra preta) deposits in several places along the Amazon are believed to be ancient garbage dumps (
middens). Recent excavations of these deposits in the middle and upper Amazon have uncovered remains of massive settlements, containing tens of thousands of homes, indicating a complex social and economic structure. Studies of the wear patterns of precontact inhabitants of coastal Brazil found that the surfaces of
anterior teeth facing the tongue were more worn than those facing the lips. Researchers believe this wear was caused by using teeth to peel and shred abrasive plants.
Marajoara culture The
Marajoara culture flourished on
Marajó island at the mouth of the
Amazon River. Archaeologists have uncovered sophisticated
pottery in their excavations on the island. These pieces are large, elaborately painted, and incised with representations of plants and animals. This discovery provided the first evidence of a complex society on Marajó. Further evidence of
mound building suggests that well-populated, complex, and sophisticated settlements developed on the island, as only such settlements were believed capable of undertaking extensive projects like major earthworks. The extent, level of complexity, and resource interactions of the Marajoara culture have been subjects of dispute. In the 1950s, American archaeologist
Betty Meggers, in some of her earliest research, suggested that the society migrated from the Andes and settled on the island. Many researchers believed that the Andes were populated by Paleoindian migrants from North America, who gradually moved south after being hunters on the plains. In the 1980s, American archaeologist
Anna Curtenius Roosevelt led excavations and geophysical surveys of the mound Teso dos Bichos. She concluded that the society that constructed the mounds originated on the island itself. The pre-Columbian culture of Marajó may have developed
social stratification and supported a population as large as 100,000 people.
Native people after the European colonisation Distribution On the eve of the
Portuguese arrival in 1500, the coastal areas of Brazil were dominated by two major groups: the
Tupi (speakers of
Tupi–Guarani languages), who occupied almost the entire length of the Brazilian coast, and the
Tapuia (a general term for non-Tupi groups, usually
Jê-speaking peoples), who primarily resided in the interior. The Portuguese arrived at the end of a long pre-colonial conflict between the Tupis and Tapuias, which had led to the defeat and expulsion of the Tapuias from most coastal areas. Although the coastal Tupi were divided into sub-tribes that were frequently hostile to each other, they were culturally and linguistically homogeneous. The fact that early Europeans encountered essentially the same people and language along the Brazilian coast greatly facilitated communication and interaction. Coastal Sequence c. 1500 (north to south): •
Tupinambá (Tupi, from the
Amazon delta to
Maranhão) •
Tremembé (Tapuia, coastal tribe, ranged from
São Luis Island (south Maranhão) to the mouth of the
Acaraú River in north
Ceará; French traders cultivated an alliance with them) •
Potiguara (Tupi, literally "shrimp-eaters"; they had a reputation as great canoeists and aggressive expansionists, inhabited a great coastal stretch from
Acaraú River to
Itamaracá island, covering the modern states of southern Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba.) •
Tabajara (tiny Tupi tribe between Itamaracá island and
Paraíba River; neighbors and frequent victims of the Potiguara) •
Caeté (Tupi group in
Pernambuco and
Alagoas, ranged from
Paraíba River to the
São Francisco River; after killing and eating a Portuguese bishop, they were subjected to Portuguese extermination raids and the remnant pushed into the Pará interior) •
Tupinambá again (Tupi par excellence, ranged from the São Francisco River to the
Bay of All Saints, population estimated as high as 100,000; hosted Portuguese castaway
Caramuru) •
Tupiniquim (Tupi, covered the
Bahian
discovery coast, from around
Camamu to
São Mateus River; these were the first Indigenous people encountered by the Portuguese, having met the landing of captain
Pedro Álvares Cabral in April 1500) •
Aimoré (Tapuia (Jê) tribe; concentrated on a sliver of coast in modern
Espírito Santo state) •
Goitacá (Tapuia tribe; once dominated the coast from the
São Mateus River (in Espírito Santo state) down to the
Paraíba do Sul River (in
Rio de Janeiro state); hunter-gatherers and fishermen, they were a shy people that avoided all contact with foreigners; estimated at 12,000; they had a fearsome reputation and were eventually annihilated by European colonists) •
Temiminó (small Tupi tribe, centered on
Governador Island in
Guanabara Bay; frequently at war with the Tamoio around them) •
Tamoio (Tupi, an old branch of the Tupinambá, ranged from the western edge of Guanabara Bay to
Ilha Grande) •
Tupinambá again (Tupi, indistinct from the Tamoio. Inhabited the Paulist coast, from Ilha Grande to
Santos; main enemies of the Tupiniquim to their west. Numbered between six and ten thousand). •
Tupiniquim again (Tupi, on the
São Paulo coast from Santos/Bertioga down to
Cananéia; aggressive expansionists, they were recent arrivals imposing themselves on the Paulist coast and the
Piratininga plateau at the expense of older Tupinambá and Carijó neighbors; hosted Portuguese castaways
João Ramalho ('Tamarutaca') and António Rodrigues in the early 1500s; the Tupiniquim were the first formal allies of the Portuguese colonists, helped establish the Portuguese
Captaincy of São Vicente in the 1530s; sometimes called "Guaianá" in old Portuguese chronicles, a Tupi term meaning "friendly" or "allied") •
Carijó (Guarani (Tupi) tribe, ranged from Cananeia all the way down to
Lagoa dos Patos (in
Rio Grande do Sul state); victims of the Tupiniquim and early European slavers; they hosted the mysterious
degredado known as the '
Bachelor of Cananeia') •
Charrúa (Tapuia (Jê) tribe in modern Uruguay coast, with an aggressive reputation against intruders; killed
Juan Díaz de Solís in 1516) With the exception of the
hunter-gatherer Goitacases, the coastal Tupi and Tapuia tribes were primarily agriculturalists. The subtropical Guarani cultivated maize, tropical Tupi cultivated manioc (
cassava), and highland Jês cultivated peanuts as the staple of their diet. Supplementary crops included beans,
sweet potatoes, cará (yam),
jerimum (pumpkin), and
cumari (capsicum pepper). Behind the coasts, the interior of Brazil was primarily dominated by Tapuia (Jê) people, although significant sections of the interior (notably the upper reaches of the
Xingu,
Teles Pires, and
Juruena Rivers, roughly corresponding to modern
Mato Grosso state) were the original pre-migration Tupi-Guarani homelands. In addition to the Tupi and Tapuia, two other Indigenous mega-groups were commonly identified in the interior: the
Caribs, who inhabited much of what is now northwestern Brazil, including both shores of the
Amazon River up to the delta, and the
Nuaraque group, whose constituent tribes inhabited several areas, including most of the upper Amazon (west of present-day
Manaus) and significant pockets in modern
Amapá and
Roraima states. s, c. 1816, by
Prince Maximilian The names by which different Tupi tribes were recorded by Portuguese and French authors in the 16th century are poorly understood. Most do not seem to be proper names but rather descriptions of relationships, usually familial—e.g.,
Tupi means "first father,"
Tupinambá means "relatives of the ancestors,"
Tupiniquim means "side-neighbors,"
Tamoio means "grandfather,"
Temiminó means "grandson,"
Tabajara means "in-laws," and so on. Some etymologists believe these names reflect the ordering of migration waves of Tupi people from the interior to the coasts. For example, the first Tupi wave to reach the coast might have been referred to as "grandfathers" (Tamoio), soon joined by the "relatives of the ancients" (Tupinambá), which could mean relatives of the Tamoio or a Tamoio term for relatives of the old Tupi in the upper Amazon basin. The "grandsons" (Temiminó) might represent a splinter group, while the "side-neighbors" (Tupiniquim) could denote recent arrivals still establishing their presence. However, by 1870, the Tupi tribes' population had declined to 250,000 Indigenous people, and by 1890, it had diminished to approximately 100,000.
First contacts in the Brazilian Tupinambá tribe, as described by
Hans Staden (Dutch),
Tapuias (Brazil) dancing, 17th c. When the
Portuguese explorers first arrived in Brazil in April 1500, they found, to their astonishment, a wide coastline rich in resources and teeming with hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people living in a "paradise" of natural abundance.
Pero Vaz de Caminha, the official scribe of
Pedro Álvares Cabral, the commander of the discovery fleet that landed in the present state of
Bahia, wrote a letter to the King of Portugal describing in glowing terms the beauty of the land. In "Histoire des découvertes et conquêtes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde," Lafitau described Indigenous Brazilians as not wearing clothing but painting their entire bodies red. Their ears, noses, lips, and cheeks were pierced. The men shaved the front, top of the head, and over the ears, while women typically wore their hair loose or in braids. Both men and women accessorized with musical porcelain collars and bracelets, feathers, and dried fruits. Lafitau also described the ritualistic nature of their cannibalism practices and highlighted the important role of women in the household. Before the arrival of Europeans, the territory of present-day Brazil had an estimated population of between 1 and 11.25 million inhabitants. During the first 100 years of contact, the Amerindian population was reduced by 90%. This drastic decline was primarily due to diseases and illnesses brought by the colonists, compounded by slavery and European violence. The Indigenous people were traditionally semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migratory agriculture. For centuries, they lived semi-nomadic lives, managing the forests to meet their needs. When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Native peoples primarily inhabited the coast and the banks of major rivers. Initially, Europeans viewed them as
noble savages, and
miscegenation began almost immediately. Portuguese claims of tribal warfare,
cannibalism, and the pursuit of Amazonian
brazilwood for its prized red dye convinced the colonists that they needed to "civilize" the Native peoples (originally, the Portuguese named Brazil
Terra de Santa Cruz, but it later acquired its current name (see
List of meanings of countries' names) from the brazilwood). However, like the Spanish in North America, the Portuguese brought diseases to which many Amerindians had no immunity. Measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, and influenza caused the deaths of tens of thousands. The diseases spread rapidly along Indigenous trade routes, likely leading to the annihilation of entire tribes without direct contact with Europeans. By 1800, the population of
Colonial Brazil had reached approximately 2.33 million, of which only around 174,900 were Indigenous. By 1850, that number had dwindled to an estimated 78,400 out of a total population of 5.8 million.
Slavery and the bandeiras The mutual feeling of wonderment and goodwill was to end in the subsequent years. The Portuguese colonists, all males, began to have children with female Amerindians, creating a new generation of mixed-race people who spoke Amerindian languages, including a
Tupi language called
Nheengatu. The children of these Portuguese men and Amerindian women soon formed the majority of the population. Groups of fierce explorers organized expeditions known as "
bandeiras" (flags) into the interior to claim territory for the Portuguese crown and to search for gold and precious stones. Intending to profit from the
sugar trade, the Portuguese decided to cultivate sugar cane in Brazil and to use Indigenous slaves as the workforce, following the example of the Spanish colonies. However, capturing Indigenous people proved difficult. They were soon afflicted by diseases brought by the Europeans, against which they had no natural immunity, leading to high mortality rates.
The Jesuits in Brazil.
Jesuit priests arrived with the first
Governor General as clerical assistants to the colonists, with the intention of converting the Indigenous people to
Catholicism. They argued that the Indigenous people should be regarded as human and succeeded in obtaining a
Papal bull,
Sublimis Deus, which declared that, regardless of their beliefs, they should be recognized as fully rational human beings with rights to freedom and private property, and thus should not be enslaved. '' (1909), by Antônio Parreiras (1850-1937), a painting representing the Native Iracema who falls in love with a European colonizer Jesuit priests, such as Fathers
José de Anchieta and
Manuel da Nóbrega, studied and recorded the Indigenous languages and founded mixed settlements, such as
São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, where colonists and Amerindians lived side by side, spoke the same
Língua Geral (common language), and freely intermarried. They also began to establish more remote villages inhabited only by "civilized" Amerindians, known as Missions or
reductions (see the article on the
Guarani people for more details). By the middle of the 16th century, Jesuit priests, at the behest of Portugal's monarchy, had established missions throughout the country's colonies. They aimed to Europeanize and convert the Indigenous populations to Catholicism. Some historians argue that the Jesuits provided a period of relative stability for the Amerindians However, the Jesuits also contributed to European imperialism. Many historians view Jesuit involvement as an ethnocide of Indigenous culture, where the Jesuits attempted to 'Europeanize' the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil. In the mid-1770s, the fragile coexistence between the Indigenous peoples and the colonists was once again threatened. Due to a complex diplomatic situation involving Portugal, Spain, and the
Vatican, the Jesuits were expelled from Brazil, and their missions were confiscated and sold.
Wars in the early 19th century A number of wars broke out between various tribes, such as the
Tamoio Confederation, and the Portuguese. Occasionally, the Amerindians allied with Portugal's enemies, such as the French during the
France Antarctique episode in
Rio de Janeiro. At other times, they sided with Portugal against rival tribes. During this period, a German soldier named
Hans Staden was captured by the
Tupinambá and later released. He documented his experiences in his famous book
Warhaftige Historia und Beschreibung eyner Landtschafft der Wilden Nacketen, Grimmigen Menschfresser-Leuthen in der Newenwelt America gelegen (1557), which translates to
True Story and Description of a Country of Wild, Naked, Grim, Man-Eating People in the New World, America. There are documented accounts of smallpox being
used as a biological weapon by some Brazilian villagers seeking to eliminate nearby Amerindian tribes, not always aggressively. One notable instance, according to anthropologist Mércio Pereira Gomes, occurred in Caxias, in southern Maranhão. Local farmers, desiring more land for their cattle farms, gave clothing from sick villagers (which would normally have been burned to prevent further infection) to the Timbira. The clothing infected the entire tribe, who had neither immunity nor a cure. Similar incidents occurred in other villages throughout South America.
The rubber trade The 1840s brought trade and wealth to the
Amazon with the development of the
vulcanization process for
rubber, leading to a worldwide surge in demand. The best
rubber trees in the world grew in the Amazon, and thousands of rubber tappers began working the plantations. When the Amerindians proved to be a difficult labor force, peasants from surrounding areas were brought in. This created ongoing tension between the Indigenous population and the new arrivals, as the Amerindians felt their lands were being invaded in the pursuit of wealth.
The legacy of Cândido Rondon In the 20th century, the Brazilian government adopted a more humanitarian approach and began offering official protection to the Indigenous people, including establishing the first Indigenous reserves. The situation for the Amerindians improved around the turn of the century when
Cândido Rondon, a man of both
Portuguese and
Bororo ancestry, and an explorer and progressive officer in the Brazilian army, began working to gain the Amerindians' trust and establish peace. Rondon, assigned to extend telegraph communications into the Amazon, was a natural explorer with a keen curiosity. In 1910, he helped establish the
Serviço de Proteção aos Índios (SPI), now known as FUNAI (
Fundação Nacional do Índio, National Foundation for Indians). SPI was the first federal agency tasked with protecting Amerindians and preserving their culture. In 1914, Rondon accompanied
Theodore Roosevelt on his famous expedition to map the Amazon and discover new species. During these travels, Rondon was appalled by the treatment of the Indigenous people by settlers and developers, and he became their lifelong friend and protector. Rondon, who died in 1958, is considered a national hero in Brazil. The Brazilian state of
Rondônia is named in his honor.
SPI failure and FUNAI woman
with body paint After Rondon's pioneering work, the SPI was handed over to bureaucrats and military officers, and its effectiveness declined after 1957. The new officials did not share Rondon's deep commitment to the Amerindians. Instead, the SPI sought to integrate tribal groups into mainstream Brazilian society. The promise of wealth from reservation lands attracted cattle ranchers and settlers, who continued encroaching on Indigenous territories, with the SPI facilitating this intrusion. Between 1900 and 1967, an estimated 98 Indigenous tribes were wiped out. Due largely to the efforts of the
Villas-Bôas brothers, Brazil's first Indigenous reserve, the
Xingu National Park, was established by the federal government in 1961. During the social and political upheaval of the 1960s, reports of mistreatment of Amerindians increasingly reached Brazil's urban centers and began to affect public opinion. In 1967, following the publication of the
Figueiredo Report, commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior, the military government launched an investigation into the SPI. It was soon revealed that the SPI was corrupt and failing to protect Native peoples, their lands, and their culture. The 5,000-page report cataloged atrocities including slavery, sexual abuse, torture, and mass murder. Additionally, Indigenous peoples are legally recognized as one of several "
traditional peoples". In practice, however, Brazil's Indigenous people still face significant threats and challenges to their continued existence and cultural heritage. The process of land demarcation is slow, often involving protracted legal battles, and
FUNAI lacks sufficient resources to enforce legal protections on Indigenous lands. Since the 1980s, exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest for mining, logging, and cattle ranching had surged, which poses a severe threat to the region's Indigenous population. Settlers illegally encroaching on Indigenous land continue to destroy the environment necessary for traditional ways of life, provoke violent confrontations, and spread disease. Deforestation for mining also affects the daily lives of Indigenous tribes in Brazil. On 13 November 2012, the national Indigenous people association from Brazil, APIB, submitted a human rights document to the United Nations, detailing complaints about proposed laws in Brazil that would further undermine their rights if approved. Many terms from Native languages have been incorporated into official
Brazilian Portuguese. For example, "Carioca," the term used to describe people born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, derives from the Tupi-Guaraní word meaning "house of the white (people)." , in celebration of
Indian Day, 2011 Within hours of taking office in January 2019, Bolsonaro made two major changes to FUNAI, affecting its responsibility to identify and demarcate
Indigenous territories. He moved FUNAI from under the Ministry of Justice to the newly created Ministry of Human Rights, Family, and Women, and he delegated the identification of traditional habitats of Indigenous people and their designation as protected territories—a task attributed to FUNAI by the constitution—to the Agriculture Ministry. Bolsonaro argued that these territories had tiny, isolated populations and proposed integrating them into larger Brazilian society. Critics feared that such integration would lead to
cultural assimilation of the Brazilian Natives. Several months later, Brazil's National Congress overturned these changes. The
European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which aims to create one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and Indigenous rights campaigners. They fear that the deal could lead to increased
deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by expanding market access for Brazilian beef. A 2019 report by the Indigenous Missionary Council on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil documented an increase in invasions of Indigenous lands by loggers, miners, and land grabbers. The report recorded 160 cases in the first nine months of 2019, up from 96 cases for all of 2017. Additionally, the number of reported killings increased from 110 in 2017 to 135 in 2018. On 5 May 2020, following an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Brazilian lawmakers released a report examining violence against Indigenous people, Afro-Brazilian rural communities, and others involved in illegal logging, mining, and
land grabbing. == Indigenous rights movements ==