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| Author(s): |
Fernanda Aires Bombardi
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2024-02-23 |
| Examining board members: |
Eduardo Natalino dos Santos;
Camila Loureiro Dias;
Mark Harris;
Auxiliomar Silva Ugarte
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| Advisor: | Eduardo Natalino dos Santos |
| Abstract | |
In this research, we analyze the reductions, which were carried out by Jesuits affiliated with the Province of Quito, and the descimentos, which were conducted by Carmelites sent by the Portuguese Crown, promoted among the Omáguas, Yurimáguas, Aysuares, Ybanomas and Manaos, indigenous groups inhabiting the Amazon River basin delimited by the Napo and Negro rivers between the years 1686-1757. The analytical focus revolves around three aspects: the agreements that laid the foundations for reduction or descimentos, the experiences of displacement, and the processes of territorialization in the Missions. To achieve this, we analyzed a wide range of sources from various colonial agents, located in 16 national and foreign archives and libraries. The investigations cover the period from 1686 to 1757, and the study region focuses on the axis established by the Napo, Içá, Japurá, Solimões, and Negro Rivers - a region claimed as belonging to both the colonial territories of Portugal and Spain - where interethnic relations among the indigenous groups analyzed in this research were intense. We argue that the descimentos and reductions occurred in three distinct conjunctures (1686-1700; 1701-1721; 1722-1757), during which indigenous territorial control, primarily materialized by native long-distance trade networks, was gradually replaced by a network of religious missions. These, combined with the enslaving actions of war and rescue troops ad the oconomy of drogas do sertão, disrupted this indigenous power and compelled the populations of the Upper and Middle Amazon to join a Jesuit or Carmelite religious mission or flee from the areas of greater Portuguese and Spanish influence in the region. In the first conjuncture (1686-1700), we found that the power relations between Jesuit or Carmelite evangelizers and groups of Omáguas, Yurimáguas and Aysuares were more balanced, with indigenous territorialities being maintained due to long-distance commercial networks mobilized by the natives. In the second (1701-1721), an unequal power relations between indigenous groups and colonizers was established, mainly due to the intensification of disputes between missionaries representing the two crowns in the western Amazon. The territories of the Omágua, Yurimágua and Aysuares groups began to be centrally affected and the delimitation of the borders between the two Iberian colonial domains was established more clearly. In the third conjuncture (1722-1757), the epicenter of indigenous commercial networks, located in the Middle Amazon, was dismantled in a great guerra justa. The territory of the Manaos on the Rio Negro began to be occupied by a network of Portuguese religious missions. Theses missions, that was connected to each other and integrated with the interests of other colonizing agents, guaranteed the dominance over almost the entire western Amazon territory claimed by Portugal since the end of the Iberian Union. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 17/14921-1 - Indigenous descimentos and reducciones in Western Amazon (1686-1757): processes of displacement and territorialization of Omáguas, Yurimáguas, Aysuares, Ybanomas and Manaos |
| Grantee: | Fernanda Aires Bombardi |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |