Discursos sobre um povo da fronteira Brasil-Paraguai: A construção da memória não indígena acerca dos Guaicuru (1795-1860)

Abstract

The first contact the Portuguese had with what they called the western hinterlands was through explorations by bandeirantes. They were the first to encounter, confront and have their interests thwarted by the resistance of an indigenous people they called ‘índios cavaleiros’, due to their use of horses in their attacks. Contact between the Portuguese and the indigenous Mbayá-guaicuru (or just Guaicuru) during much of the colonial period was marked by friction, which was often costly to colonial forces and interests. During the 19th century, a strong historical evolutionist thought was perpetuated in the writings of intellectuals, both in Europe and in America, the latter under the influence of the former. This thinking, although heir to the Enlightenment of the previous century, did not fail to perpetuate a Christian morality established long before. In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, the 19th century was marked by a political project, shaped by the interests of power groups, which sought to build an ideal of a Brazilian nation, separate from its uniquely Portuguese origins. In the process that took shape, different figures were re-signified according to these interests, such as indigenous peoples. The research proposed here sought to understand the construction of official discourses about the Guaicuru, a people originally from the border region between Brazil and Paraguay, examining which aspects were emphasized and depreciated in the collective memory that was established about this people by non-indigenous people, shaped by the plural interests that took shape in 19th century Brazil. The motivations that permeated discourses about these indigenous people associated with the issue of land and work also received special attention in this work. This dissertation was based on a corpus documental containing military reports, travel reports, works by scholars, parliamentary debates and newspapers, dating from the first years after the Peace Treaty (1791) between the Portuguese Crown and the Guaicuru, and extending to the period before the start of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870).