Sepé Tiaraju led the fight against the
Portuguese and Spanish colonial powers in the
Guerras Guaraníticas (
Guarani War) and was killed three days before a massacre that killed around fifteen hundred of his fellow soldiers. After 250 years of the date of his death he still remains a very influential figure in the popular imagination and a
folk saint in
Rio Grande do Sul. This conflict in South America resulted from the land demarcations established by the European powers with the
Tratado de Madrid (1750). According to this treaty the Guarani population inhabiting the Jesuit missions in the region had to be evacuated. After one hundred and fifty years living a unique communal life, neither the prospect of returning to the forests nor moving to another place were considered as options by most mission Guaranis. Further treaties such as the
San Idelfonso Treaty (1777) and the
Badajoz Treaty (1801) still grappled with issues related to this topic. The Christianized Guarani population residing in the Jesuit missions (called
missões or
reduções, in Portuguese), that is in
Brazil, Paraguay and
Argentina combined, is estimated to have numbered approximately eighty thousand at the start of the conflict. At that time these so-called
evangelized Guaranis – as opposed to the many Guaranis living the traditional way and not in the Jesuit missions – raised what is believed to have been the largest herd of cattle in all of Latin America. Therefore, the Europeans' interests in the area extended beyond land appropriations. ==Legacy==