The Americas

The Eastern Frontier of Minas Gerais

Throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, natives outnumbered settlers in the eastern frontier region and had superior knowledge of the terrain, appropriate strategies of violence, and adaptable subsistence strategies. These peoples typically lived in bands of 50 to 100 people and subsisted mostly by hunting, fishing, gathering, and some supplementary shifting agriculture. They resided in seasonal camps. As mobile peoples, they kept material possessions to a minimum and jealously guarded access to their foraging [End Page 231] grounds. Low-level warfare was endemic among them and against encroaching Portuguese settlers. Most Portuguese feared and vilified native Brazilians as fundamentally violent and savage.

In the final decades of the colonial period, the Portuguese began to categorize these disparate peoples. In particular, natives who resisted Portuguese incursions with violence were called botocudos, in part due to their use of distinctive botoques (lip and ear plugs). However, ‘botocudo’ was often applied indiscriminately, sometimes even to Indians that did not use botoques. The documentary record yields other labels: Maxakali, Naknenuk, Kapaxó, Pataxó, Monoxó Mapoxó, Kumanoxó, Malali, Makoni, Panhame, Kamakã Mongoió, Puri, Coroado, and Coropó. The indigenous populations of eastern Minas Gerais are typically categorized as Jê speakers, distinguishing them linguistically and culturally from Tupi peoples, who formed larger, more sedentary communities than Jê speakers did. However, recent scholarship suggests some degree of blending between these two broad categories. Fragmentary evidence suggests that some Indians were familiar with the língua geral, the Tupi-based dialect promulgated by Jesuit missionaries in the early centuries of Portuguese rule.¹⁷ Archeological evidence from the southeastern Serra da Mantiqueira also suggests that Indians identified as Coroado, Coropó, and Puri might have practiced both Jê and Tupi-Guarani cultural traditions.¹⁸

Throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, the administrative power and demographic weight of Portuguese society ebbed and flowed in this eastern periphery. Although Portuguese settlers and authorities moved slowly and fitfully into indigenous territories and often faced reversals, they eventually began to gain ground. Militarization followed, taking many forms. Private individuals sought royal permission to organize paramilitary bandeiras and entradas (crown-sanctioned paramilitary expeditions) against indigenous peoples, either in retaliation for an attack or in anticipation of hostilities. Beginning in the 1760s, royal governors also began sponsoring “conquests” in the mineiro east, in places like Cuieté and Arrepiados. These frontier outposts were manned by [End Page 232] permanent troops and had been created to attract farmers and miners to settle the area. Finally, missionaries also began to approach populations in the east, primarily in the southeastern Mantiqueira region. They founded state-sponsored agrarian villages (aldeias) to house converts. They also sought military alliances with indigenous leaders who accepted baptism and designated them military “captains.” The title of captain, while largely honorific in this context, nonetheless brought native men into the sphere of the Portuguese crown. Thus these “captains” obtained claims to status in the Portuguese world, which perhaps augmented their status claims within their home societies.¹⁹ Portuguese authorities hoped that these captains, in turn, would wage war against other indigenous societies. As most native societies in this region were small in number and mutually antagonistic, these expectations were often realized. Baptized Indians were also mobilized to apprehend fugitive slaves.

Within the framework of overlapping forms of militarization—private, public, and honorific—transculturated indigenous and mestiço middlemen became increasingly visible in the documentary record. Of early exemplars, the historian can discern little more than names and locations.²⁰ However, the period of militarization between 1808 and 1831 produced more abundant and detailed documentation that makes a deeper analysis of the dynamics of transculturation possible. Inocêncio’s story, which unfolds over this time period, is unusually well documented.

Indigenous Transculturation: Inocêncio’s Story

The Maxakali Indian, Inocêncio Gonçalves de Abreu, hailed from the hinterland of Minas Novas, an isolated mining town established in 1730 in the mineiro northeast. By the mid-eighteenth century, the town had begun to transition from mining to agriculture and ranching, although settlers continued to prospect to the east and northeast. The municipality was surrounded by rugged mountainous terrain and located between two major rivers, the Jequitinhonha/Belmonte and Mucuri/Todos os Santos, both of which flowed eastward to the Atlantic. The area was densely forested and possessed few roads. Periodically, intrepid souls hacked out trails and narrow dirt roads with primitive [End Page 233] hand tools. Unless maintained, these paths were almost immediately swallowed up by regrowth.

In the 1790s, some townspeople from Minas Novas began concerted efforts to make peace with neighboring Indians and to convince them to settle on local ranches and farms. One settler in particular, Bento Lourenço Vaz de Abreu, made contact with native tribes and served as godparent to recently converted Indians.²¹ These included the aforementioned Inocêncio and his brother, Felipe, both of whom took Bento’s surname, Vaz de Abreu. Bento Lourenço himself was best known historically for his efforts to build roads connecting landlocked Minas Novas to the coast. In the mid 1810s, he and a work crew of 80 or 90 soldiers, blacks, mulattoes, coastal Indians, and various Jê speakers spent several months hacking a road through the forest along the Mucuri River basin.²² For his efforts, the crown rewarded Bento Lourenço with a military commission as commander of a projected Eighth Rio Doce military division and the position of diretor (“director” or administrator) of the Indians of Peçanha, São Miguel de Jequitinhonha, Mucuri, and São Mateus.²³

Inocêncio participated in this road-building project and assisted Bento Lourenço in his administration of native tribes. He traveled regularly with his godparent to Vila Rica, the Minas Gerais capital, and to Rio, which he first visited in 1820.²⁴ The monarch then bestowed upon Inocêncio the honorific rank of “Captain of the Maxakali Indians” and extended to him an open license to return to the court whenever he wished. He was also given permission to prospect freely for gold and precious gems. These open-ended privileges were extraordinary: most Portuguese subjects, including wealthy whites, could not hope to obtain them. Subsequently, Inocêncio was accepted as a soldier into the Seventh Rio Doce Division.²⁵

Over more than two decades, Inocêncio forged relationships with members of the Portuguese community and used them to his advantage in his campaign to remove Captain Julião Fernandes Leão from his position as military commander [End Page 234] of the Seventh Rio Doce Division, headquartered in Minas Novas. In 1820, Inocêncio and a group of indigenous companions visited the emperor to request that he appoint Captain José Teodoro de Sa e Silva in Leão’s place.²⁶ Some months later, Inocêncio followed up with a lengthy petition, one of the very few documents attributed to indigenous authorship from this time and place. We do not know if Inocêncio was literate. The document may have been redacted by a third party who may have filtered or distorted his sentiments. Regardless, the petition Inocêncio presented urged the dismissal of a crown official who had run afoul of both native peoples and local settlers.

In his appeal, Inocêncio claimed to represent both the Indians and the “people,” all of whom despised the “Leão Carniceiro” or the “bloodthirsty lion.” Inocêncio maintained that Leão’s “frivolous pretexts and diabolical works” had “driven away the native men who are disposed to become useful.” If Leão were not removed, he continued, friendly natives would abandon the area. Inocêncio favored Captain José Teodoro, who had invested his own money to sponsor a settlement of 200 Botocudos. He was said to possess “much zeal and agility,” and to have inspired the Indians’ love. José Teodoro had also donated the labor of his own black slaves to grow food for the aldeia. Inocêncio was confident that under José Teodoro’s leadership, supported by subsidies of food and clothing from the crown, the native community would flourish. He concluded, “the Botocudo, while wild, is easy to fix in one place as long as he has food to eat,” reproducing Portuguese stereotypes which held that the Botocudo Indians were the most primitive among the region’s native groups, and especially difficult to “civilize.”²⁷ Inocêncio also invoked Portuguese bias favoring fixed settlement and agrarian productivity as fundamental to native acculturation in his request for goods and tools to support the needs of a permanent native settlement.

In arguing his case, Inocêncio demonstrated a fairly sophisticated understanding of Portuguese legal and discursive conventions. As was customary in petitions like this one, he provided supporting testimony from several local colonists. Notably, Inocêncio was able to convince prominent members of the dominant society to testify to advance an indigenous petition. Their testimony also suggests that their own interests were served in furthering Inocêncio’s cause. Witnesses claimed that Leão mistreated their families, falsely accused them of crimes, and subjected them to “monstrous violence” when they complained to the emperor about his “despotism.” One of the nine signatories, Feliciano [End Page 235] Rodrigues de Oliveira, alleged that Leão had arrested him without cause, taken him forcibly from his sickbed, and thrown him in jail. The witnesses also accused Leão of refusing to provide soldiers to defend them from hostile Indian attacks, yet punishing them when they took up arms in self-defense.²⁸

According to one local official, Leão had begun a feud with Capitão Mor José Pereira Freire de Moura after the latter had refused Leão as a potential son-in-law because of his race (desigualdade de côr).²⁹ Moura, a wealthy white settler who was deceased at the time of the petition, had been an effective cultural mediator in his own right. He had been nominated by Governor Bernardo José de Lorena as regent of the aldeia of the Tocoios in 1799, an unpaid and mainly honorific position.³⁰ Moura possessed a degree in canon law and was wellversed in philosophy and the natural sciences. His writings demonstrate both curiosity about and knowledge of indigenous languages and customs.³¹ As regent, Moura hired interpreters, led expeditions to the east to recruit additional Indians for Tocoios, and set up a smithy to provide them with iron tools, all at his own expense.³² He also accumulated a great deal of land, and his widow and sons retained much influence following his death.³³

Given the prestige of the Moura family, Inocêncio’s negative report on Leão was probably not the only reason behind the emperor’s decision to transfer Leão from the Seventh Division to the province of Espírito Santo.³⁴ Regardless, Inocêncio positioned himself as an articulate spokesperson for native peoples, one who could marshal the support of local elites and effectively deploy [End Page 236] the discursive strategies favored by the Portuguese crown. However, his attempts to influence local events also drew the ire of higher-ranking Portuguese officials. For example, when Dom Manoel de Portugal e Castro, leader of the provincial junta governing the Rio Doce military divisions, was called upon to evaluate the rivalry between Julião Leão and José Teodoro, he seemed less concerned with the outcome than what he saw as Inocêncio’s overdeveloped sense of entitlement. In particular, he objected to the special privileges conceded to Inocêncio by the emperor, declaring that the freedom to visit the court and to transport gold and gems without a license was “diametrically opposed to existing legislation.” Perhaps more to the point, it circumvented Portugal e Castro’s place in the regular chain of command.³⁵

Institutional Limits: Inocêncio and his Military Superiors

Guido Tomás Marlière, a French military officer who assumed command of the Rio Doce divisions in Minas Gerais in 1824, also developed a conflicted relationship with Inocêncio. Marlière resented Inocêncio’s attempts to challenge established social hierarchies and influence the balance of power and authority in the hinterland of Minas Novas, calling him “Inocêncio, but hardly innocent.”³⁶ In one instance, he alleged that Inocêncio had sold Maxakali lands illegally and had effected the unauthorized transfer of a group of Naknenuk Indians from a group of landowners in Bahia to new patrons in Minas Gerais.³⁷ The transfer had been accomplished without Marlière’s approval or consent, and he insisted that the Indians “be restored to those to whom they belong.”³⁸ Marlière added that the Naknenuks were speakers of the linguageral, a standardized version of Tupi. As such, Inocêncio, a native Jê speaker, should have no authority over them.³⁹

Marlière (1768-1836) was, by most accounts, an effective cultural mediator in his own right. Born in France, he had joined the military as an adolescent. After fighting across much of Western Europe, he emigrated to Portugal in 1797 and married a Franco-Portuguese woman with connections to the Portuguese court. He enlisted in the Portuguese military in 1802 and subsequently traveled with João VI’s entourage to Brazil, in 1807. In 1811, he was charged with, and later acquitted of, spying for Napoleon Bonaparte. He also got [End Page 237] into trouble for voicing anticlerical views. Two years later he accepted a transfer to the frontier garrison of São João Batista, located near the first indigenous mission parish established in Minas Gerais (1767). Marlière worked his way up the administrative hierarchy of the Rio Doce divisions, earning the rank of colonel and an appointment as Indian Director in 1824.⁴⁰

Marlière interpreted native cultures for his superiors and subordinates and for the settlers, priests, and learned European scientists who passed through Minas Gerais, producing a veritable documentary deluge about relationships among Indians, soldiers, and settlers in the eastern sertões. He preferred the peaceful methods of gift-giving and persuasion to effect acculturation, rather than pursuing the offensive war that continued officially until 1831. He justified his approach with reference to a centuries-long history of unprovoked and excessive brutality toward native peoples by settlers, concluding that more of the same was unlikely to convince native peoples to coexist peacefully with the Portuguese. Marlière’s voluminous private correspondence and published essays in the mineiro press express sincere admiration and sympathy for indigenous peoples who operated within the limits sanctioned by Portuguese and Brazilian authorities.⁴¹ He valued acculturated Indians as settled farmers, soldiers, and translators (línguas) and especially prized those who were able to mediate with hostile tribes. Within the existing chain of command and social hierarchies, Marlière could be a benevolent and generous patriarch, but he did not in any way appreciate unregulated autonomy on the part of subordinates like Inocêncio.

A major point of contention was Inocêncio’s tendency to absent himself for lengthy intervals without prior authorization. Marlière saw this behavior on the part of an enlisted soldier as tantamount to desertion, despite the fact that Inocêncio had standing orders to seek out other Indians and persuade them to relocate to state-sponsored aldeias. Following one such disappearance in 1824, Marlière secured an arrest warrant for Inocêncio and his brother Felipe.⁴² A [End Page 238] month later, at Marlière’s urging, the emperor demoted Felipe from his post as aldeia schoolteacher and ordered the two brothers transferred from the Seventh Division to the Sixth.⁴³ In theory, once removed from their established social networks, the brothers would have less opportunity for insubordination or irregular behavior.⁴⁴ Inocêncio, however, fled the Seventh Division well before the arrest warrant caught up with him, forewarned, as Marlière concluded disapprovingly, because “people of this sort have many friends.”⁴⁵ Inocêncio then made his way to the court in Rio with his brother, his wife, and a group of 14 Indians from Belmonte, Bahia, the same journey with which this essay begins. The monarch must have forgotten that he had authorized Inocêncio’s arrest some months earlier, because, as previously noted, he provided liberal gifts and sent Inocêncio freely on his way.⁴⁶

Military authorities apprehended Inocêncio in February 1825 in Vila Rica. A Botocudo named João, who had recently returned from Germany, reported Inocêncio for selling the gifts that the emperor had given him.⁴⁷ Marlière managed to recover a small portion of the goods, including the gilded portrait of the emperor, which he retained at his headquarters to impress any Indians who might congregate there.⁴⁸ He also required Inocêncio to sell all of the “pompous insignia” that he wore as an “Indian captain” to prevent him from “fooling” any other Indians in the future.⁴⁹

Meanwhile, the 14 Indians from Belmonte who had accompanied Inocêncio had fared rather well, despite Marlière’s assertion that they had received nothing from “this imposter.”⁵⁰ As they had been willing to undertake a long and arduous trek to Rio in Inocêncio’s company, it is unlikely that the Belmonte Indians were as negatively disposed toward him as Marlière alleged. In any event, the Frenchman sent them back to Belmonte with a military escort, and a knife, a rifle, and a change of clothing apiece. The exception was an Indian woman, Rosa, whom Felipe had impregnated. Marlière detained her, hoping that Felipe might marry her.⁵¹ [End Page 239]

Marlière had the two brothers placed in solitary confinement and then transported to the far eastern outpost of Cuieté in early March.⁵² This posting to the Sixth Division would also renuite Inocêncio with his wife, an indigenous woman from nearby São Miguel.⁵³ Before long, however, both men were on the run again. Inocêncio deserted in the company of a convict and allegedly set off to “incite the Botocudos to rebel.” He and his followers made their way undetected across the border to Espírito Santo.⁵⁴ In June, Felipe escaped with some stolen goods, thanks to the aid of some recently baptized Indians.⁵⁵

The resourceful Inocêncio made it to Rio once again but was arrested in June 1825. Marlière recommended that he be held under the most stringent security until he could be escorted back to the Sixth Division under armed guard.⁵⁶ At this point, Inocêncio disappears from the documentary record. He might have been killed, or lost favor with the Indians he purportedly represented, or simply opted out. Perhaps he concluded that the rewards of military enlistment were simply not worth the hassle. Clearly, he had established himself as an effective go-between. He had obtained personal privileges and lavish gifts from the emperor, and was able to attract followers from an extensive region of northeastern Minas Gerais and beyond. His range of movement included four provinces: Minas Gerais, Bahia, Espírito Santo, and Rio de Janeiro. However, Marlière’s energetic efforts to have Inocêncio comply with military discipline and submit to the chain of command might well have outweighed any tangible benefits that Inocêncio could hope to negotiate with the crown. Apparently, the days when he could walk down to Rio to have his concerns addressed had ended.

The Complex Appeal of Indigeneity

Marlière was appointed Indian Director for the province of Minas Gerais in 1824. In that position, he sought to cultivate cultural intermediaries who exemplified the ideals of elite society, in social status or ideological orientation, or both. When he could, he sought out educated, wealthy individuals who demonstrated an ability to interact effectively with native peoples. This may have reflected the personal preferences of the hierarchically minded Frenchman. [End Page 240] On the other hand, it may have demonstrated a desire on the part of the new Brazilian state to move away from the practice of filling lower-level positions of authority with persons of color, widespread in colonial Minas Gerais and elsewhere during periods of political crisis or instability.⁵⁷ Regardless, pragmatism typically trumped idealism in a region where qualified individuals were in short supply and indigenous, racially mixed, and poorly educated men continued to serve as cultural intermediaries.

Minas Novas was distant from Marlière’s headquarters, so he needed reliable allies who were capable of carrying out his wishes from afar. These included Padre José Pereira Lidoro, an aged but dedicated priest, described as white, whom Marlière placed in charge of administration of the aldeias of the Jequitinhonha River basin in 1824.⁵⁸ He affectionately gave the old missionary an obscure indigenous nickname, “meu bom Jurujú,” and admiringly compared his zeal to Bartolomé de las Casas and William Penn.⁵⁹ Within a year, Lidoro had come to administer a total population of over 1,000 natives distributed in nine state-sponsored aldeias and had founded a school for Brazilian and Indian children.⁶⁰ To reward his dedication, Marlière recommended that Lidoro be promoted to the position of vicar of his frontier parish.⁶¹

Marlière also empowered those local fazendeiros who were known for dispensing charity to their indigenous neighbors.⁶² This “charity” probably functioned as a form of exchange of goods for labor, and possibly protection from violence. Somewhat curious, given Marlière’s own reputation for nonviolence, was his appointment of fazendeiro and local quartermaster Antonio José Coelho to the position of provisional Indian Director of the Mucuri River valley.⁶³ Coelho had previously requested of Marlière the provision of some soldiers from the Fifth Division, as they were “more willing to kill Indians” than those from the local Seventh Division. At that time, Marlière had fumed, “This stupid man doesn’t know that for every Indian he has killed, a hundred [End Page 241] reprisals will fall upon himself and his estate.”⁶⁴ Somehow, Marlière came to believe that Coelho might adopt more pacific methods and advised him to distribute gifts and to use his slaves and the local soldiers to clear and plant fields for the Indians’ benefit.⁶⁵

Having identified trustworthy associates, none of whom were indigenous or racially mixed, to manage affairs in Minas Novas and its eastern hinterland, Marlière was able to focus on the more centrally located populations in the Doce River basin. He began to groom three brothers from Cuieté, headquarters of the Sixth Division, as potential translators and middlemen. José, Simplício, and Norberto were the sons of the late division commander, Manoel Rodrigues de Medeiros. They were nominally white, and illiterate. According to military records, José Rodrigues de Medeiros enlisted in the Doce divisions at age 18, in 1809. Norberto enlisted in 1822 at age 16.⁶⁶ Marlière praised their language skills and their diligence and courage in seeking out autonomous native groups. He had them both promoted to the rank of sergeant, José in the Sixth Division and Norberto, in the Second.⁶⁷

Very little is known about Simplício. In 1824 and 1825, he was entrusted with the escort of some young Botocudo boys to the court, but there he disappears from the documentary record. Dom Pedro had requested that four youths from the Jequitinhonha river valley be admitted to a Rio boarding school.⁶⁸ Marlière selected some boys of the same “nation” from the Doce River basin instead, as a number of Botocudos with good Portuguese language skills were then living in the households of soldiers of the Sixth Division.⁶⁹ It is not clear if they were orphans, slaves, servants, or had ended up under the tutelage of military men by other means—the kidnapping and enslavement of Indian children was common practice through the 1850s.⁷⁰ Three of the five, José Ponamgrán, José Haûme, and Lino Bokeûne-Tainúk, had been baptized. The other two, named Ik-núk and Krène-mang, were receiving Christian instruction.⁷¹ [End Page 242] Their mixed names suggest their relative degree of linguistic and religious acculturation. Simplício escorted the boys to Ouro Preto, and from there, to Rio de Janeiro.⁷² They arrived in Rio in mid July and were admitted to the Imperial Seminary of São Joaquim.⁷³ From there no more is heard of them. One wonders who their parents were, how they felt about being cooped up in school all day, and if they even survived to return home. It is doubtful that they became the “agents of civilization” hoped for by Portuguese officials.

Simplício’s brother Norberto was sent on a separate mission. He went north to Minas Novas, accompanied by two Indians named Cham and Nakarene, to try to negotiate a peace with some Naknenuks who had been harassing some landowners there.⁷⁴ Marlière hoped the Indians might be persuaded to relocate to the Doce River where they might be more easily supervised. Norberto made his way to the Seventh Division and after commandeering a few more soldiers and Indians he disappeared for some months into the forested region between the Jequitinhonha and Doce rivers.⁷⁵ He then reappeared with some “tame” Indians (mansos) from the Jequitinhonha and proposed forming a separate aldeia at a site called Sapé. The local commander of the Seventh Division, unaware of Norberto’s orders from Marlière, threatened to arrest him for desertion.⁷⁶

However, Norberto proved unpredictable. In November 1827, Marlière received word that he had “induced” a group of Indians (bugres) living near the Sixth Division headquarters to rebel and that they had proceeded to loot and destroy crops and livestock on properties near Peçanha. With 110 armed Indians, Norberto returned briefly to the headquarters of the Sixth Division to collect two native soldiers. Hearing of this, Marlière accused Norberto of “fomenting a revolution,” concluding that he was “even worse than Inocêncio,” and issued a warrant for his arrest.⁷⁷ Norberto wandered about for several months and it was [End Page 243] rumored that like Inocêncio before him he intended to seek an audience with the emperor.⁷⁸ Three-quarters of his followers abandoned him, however, and the remainder fell ill and sought refuge at the Sixth Division. Norberto turned himself in at the Third Division in June 1828, claiming that he had accompanied the unruly Indians simply to prevent them from perpetrating even greater excesses.⁷⁹

His excuses are not very credible in light of subsequent events. The following year, he was reported in the company of some Botocudo and Peurun “families” at Bananal, near Cuieté and was said to be spreading false rumors among the Indians to stir them to hostile action against the Portuguese.⁸⁰ Marlière issued a second arrest warrant and discharged him for repeated desertions in October 1829.⁸¹ Norberto eventually turned himself in, sought an imperial pardon, and was reintegrated into the Fifth Division at his former rank, based on his prior service record with the Botocudos.⁸² Apparently his linguistic and cultural skills were in such high demand that his irregular behavior could be overlooked. In 1831, Norberto was still enrolled as a sergeant and earned praise from Marlière’s successor in command for his “good conduct.” He and his brother José also appear in the Cuieté census of the late 1830s, listed as farmers, both with young pardo children. Norberto remained active as a guide and expert in native cultures and languages. In 1850, he and his three sons, a slave, and two followers were hired for an exploratory trip up the Doce River. He was described as a person known to the Botocudo and adept in their language and practices.⁸³

Marlière continued to search for more compliant Indian interpreters and intermediaries, generally with little long-term success. Although he saw military enlistment as a means to “civilize” indigenous men, he seemed reluctant to empower them as equals.⁸⁴ Perhaps his interactions with Inocêncio left him wary. His experience with white officers like Norberto would prove that conflicted loyalties were not limited to native intermediaries. Norberto’s lengthy disappearances among various indigenous tribes suggest that he found aspects of native society compelling and that he had something to offer in exchange. Clearly, he knew enough about interacting with them to secure a warm welcome. [End Page 244] From Marlière’s point of view, however, these absences were merely desertions, dereliction of duty, and a disgrace.

Going Colonial: Marlière’s Right-Hand Man, Pokrane

Marlière’s ideal of society was informed by the theories of Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his mind, everybody—settlers, soldiers, slaves, free Afro-descendants, and native peoples—needed civilizing in order to become equal and convivial in “fraternity and civic and patriotic spirit.” He had faith in the idea of the noble savage and the potential for progress within uncorrupted native societies. Perhaps these beliefs help to explain the depth of his disappointment and frustration regarding Inocêncio. Marlière believed that native peoples were fundamentally good, honest, and innocent by nature but needed management by the state agents to free them from barbarism. He therefore advocated protectionist policies and limited tolerance for indigenous cultural preferences, until the natives could become “civilized” enough to understand and obey the nation’s laws.⁸⁵

Exemplifying these biases was Marlière’s most reliable indigenous intermediary, Pokrane, a Botocudo Indian from the Doce River valley near the border with Espírito Santo. He is probably the best known of Marlière’s indigenous allies, due to a hagiographic treatment of him that was published in the Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro in 1855.⁸⁶ During his lifetime, he also received periodic coverage in the Brazilian press. Pokrane was born around 1800. In 1824, he accompanied his father to visit Marlière’s estate and there he remained. Official biographies suggest that he was powerfully swayed by Marlière’s charisma; it is equally likely that his father ordered him to remain or that he saw potential strategic advantages to this alliance. In any event, Pokrane came under Marlière’s special protection when the Frenchman became his godparent at baptism. He took his benefactor’s name, thereafter going by Guido Pokrane. He signaled his willingness to adapt to Portuguese norms by giving up the botoque, or lip disk, “the insignia of his former barbarism.”⁸⁷

Pokrane’s acculturation was only partial. While admirers claimed that he never betrayed his Portuguese allies, succumbed to drunkenness, or violated Marlière’s [End Page 245] trust, his command of spoken Portuguese remained limited. He attended church and had his children baptized, but never married under the Christian sacrament and practiced polygamy. He also secured powerful godparents for his sons, including Marlière, his successor Commander Miguel Ribas, and the emperor himself.⁸⁸ Pokrane negotiated a number of peace agreements among rival tribes and with the Portuguese, but he was more than willing to use violence to defend his own interests. He continued to attack his enemies, killing some and taking others prisoner.⁸⁹ Pokrane also engaged in revenge killings of Puri Indians whom he believed had used sorcery to murder some of his people, and he retaliated against any soldiers or settlers who attacked his community.⁹⁰ He thus risked being attacked in turn by other natives or by disgruntled soldiers or settlers.⁹¹

Marlière called Guido Pokrane “his right hand in the civilization of the Indians.”⁹² He was credited with the pacification of his own brother Mavon Potion, his brother-in-law Noeni, and the captains Vitivet, Oratinon, Kitot, Magor, and Xaquixeme, each the leader of between 60 and 130 families or tribes that together represented an adult population of between 1,800 and 2,000.⁹³ In addition to negotiating treaties, Pokrane also established his own state-sponsored aldeia, which he apparently ruled with an iron hand and in so doing earned Marlière’s approval. It was located on the Manhuaçu river, to the east of Cuieté, the headquarters for the Sixth Division. At its peak it housed more than 300 people distributed among 120 families. They constructed thatched huts and barricades and planted manioc, beans, rice, corn, sugar, bananas, and oranges, and raised chickens and pigs. Pokrane secured subsidies to build processing mills for sugar and manioc flour. His community generated an agricultural surplus and in periods of scarcity he provided corn and rice gratis to the struggling frontier outpost of Cuieté. He obliged all inhabitants to work regularly, subjecting slackers to military punishment in the stocks. Children were required to attend school or take up residence with Portuguese godparents who would teach them to read and write. One military commander opined wistfully that if all Indians behaved similarly, it would save the nation a lot of money.⁹⁴ [End Page 246]

One must ask why these Indians were willing to subject themselves to a regimen of such harsh labor. The likely answer is that Pokrane’s alliances with powerful figures provided a level of funding and other resources that would be difficult to obtain otherwise. Pokrane, like Inocêncio before him, traveled to Rio de Janeiro several times, securing audiences with the emperor. A year after Marlière’s death in 1836, Pokrane made a new alliance with a British engineer, Frederick Wilner, an employee of the Anglo-Brazilian Doce River Navigation Company.⁹⁵ Wilner arranged for Pokrane to have an audience with the adolescent heir to the throne just weeks prior to Dom Pedro II’s coronation in 1840. Pokrane toured the capital dressed in a military greatcoat decorated with gold insignia and topped with an old-fashioned militia beret. He was received graciously by the prince and his sisters and given a tour of the palace.⁹⁶ He requested iron tools, cauldrons, and firearms for his own use and to use in cementing alliances with other chiefs.⁹⁷ The minister of the empire found his request for farm tools “interesting and useful” and reasoned that given Brazil’s labor shortage and the imminent closure of the African slave trade it served “reason, religion and humanity” to provide whatever tools the “savage Indians of our forests” required to “come to love civilization.”⁹⁸

No itemized record of what Pokrane received has survived. He probably got the typical mix of utilitarian metal tools, sewing notions, clothing, jewelry, hats, military insignia, and other adornments. However, the expenses involved in Pokrane’s pilgrimage and the transportation of the presents back to the aldeia amounted to about 10 percent of the total budget for the Rio Doce aldeias for the year.⁹⁹ News of Pokrane’s windfall caused resentment on the part of less well-favored communities, in particular native groups to the north and east of Manhuaçu who complained bitterly of neglect. They were also especially concerned that Pokrane had obtained arms and ammunition, which he then used to wage war on neighboring tribes and to steal their women.¹⁰⁰

Pokrane’s access to scarce resources that provided a decisive military advantage probably goes far to explain how he was able to attract and keep followers under his rigid regime. His access to guns also likely contributed to his ability to negotiate peace treaties with other native groups. Fear may have been a more potent motivator than persuasion: Pokrane had a reputation as a fearless [End Page 247] warrior and his name, meaning ‘lame arm,’ evoked the many wounds he had sustained in battle. By the early 1840s, however, the preferential treatment he was able to negotiate caught up with him. He died in 1843 under mysterious circumstances, possibly murdered by two newcomers to his village. After his death, leadership of the aldeia passed to Pokrane’s brother, Mavon Pantinan, and then to Jucanac, his nephew. By 1845, when Capuchin missionaries arrived to minister to the area, the community was impoverished and decimated by disease.¹⁰¹

The Limits of Transcultural Mediation

Lacking both consistent policies and steady funds, the Brazilian empire could not maintain a lasting peace with native peoples without the intervention of competent and reliable cultural intermediaries. Yet, despite the hopes of state agents like Marlière, intermediaries were rarely neutral parties, nor did they consistently favor the needs of the dominant society. Most individuals discussed in this paper, regardless of their formal racial or ethnic identity, did the unthinkable and went native, at least some of the time.

The well-meaning Padre Lidoro was an exception, as was, of course, Guido Marlière. While Marlière learned enough about Jê peoples to write marvelously detailed and sensitive ethnographic accounts, he never showed any desire to live by their customs, save at the time of his death when he was buried in a style that reflected both indigenous and European practices.¹⁰² Similarly, Padre Lidoro, while seemingly conversant in requisite native languages, seemed unwavering in his Portuguese identity and loyalty to official policy. His ability to maintain the peace, however, was contingent upon a consistent flow of subsidies to permanent agrarian settlements, which were vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the weather. It is possible that Lidoro’s early success in getting Indians to settle in state-sponsored aldeias may have been facilitated by his access to relief funds for the hard-hit Jequitinhonha area during the devastating twoyear drought that began there in 1824.¹⁰³ Marlière supported Lidoro and his native parishioners by repeatedly seeking aid from the government and shaming the provincial president when funding was not forthcoming.¹⁰⁴ [End Page 248]

However, Lidoro could not consistently control settlers who took matters into their own hands. For example, in 1824, the priest reported settler attempts to usurp Massali lands and rights. He also reported a Portuguese attack on an unincorporated aldeia called Caxoeirinha, on the Minas/Bahia border near the town of Belmonte. Two Indians were killed, and the Indians retaliated, attempting to recruit acculturated “tame” Indians to their cause as well.¹⁰⁵ These attacks might have prompted Inocêncio’s escort of Indians from Belmonte to the court in 1825. A series of attacks on settlers by Pataxó Indians from further east, perhaps motivated by drought-related shortages, began in 1826 and fueled retributive violence in the region well into the next year, leading some settlers to abandon their properties.¹⁰⁶

In October 1827, Indians killed two Brazilians and wounded a third just a few miles from the military post at Arapuca. The attack was motivated by the kidnapping of a native child by a man named João Pego Moço Brazileiro. The rape of an indigenous woman by a “Christian” man had also been reported. Despite these obvious extenuating circumstances, Marlière unconvincingly blamed two mulatto deserters and interpreters from the Fifth Division for inciting unrest. It was said that they had assumed leadership of a large band of Indians in the Serra Negra from where they raided fields and livestock.¹⁰⁷ If this accusation is true, it speaks again to the transcultural potential of the average, racially mixed frontier soldier to coexist with native peoples and even assume leadership positions among them. It also speaks to the limits of Marlière’s authority over low-status, unauthorized cultural middlemen.

Finally, we must also consider the possibility that settlers could do as well as intermediaries as did poorly paid frontier soldiers and priests, if not better. For example, the extended Pego family, who had settled in the municipality of Minas Novas early in the nineteenth century, maintained working relationships with local tribes for several decades. Manoel Luis Pego settled in the area with his sons Feliciano, Tomas, and Felisberto, in 1801. In 1809, the family relocated to the site of the present-day city of Capelinha, between Minas Novas and Filadelfia (present-day Teófilo Otoni). After Manoel died, around 1812, Feliciano became the family patriarch and established the chapel for which Capelinha was named.¹⁰⁸ He and his many brothers established good relationships [End Page 249] with Jê-speaking tribes. Antonio Negreiros Pego served in the Seventh Rio Doce military division and “distinguished himself in the civilization of the Indians.” He enjoyed the high regard of his commanding officer, and was entrusted with the transport of military pay packets, earning regular promotions.¹⁰⁹

The ability to attract and retain indigenous allies made Feliciano a valuable local resource in mediating ongoing tensions between tribes and settlers in northern Minas. A prominent fazendeiro, Feliciano was active in road building and the canoe-based trade with Espírito Santo. He “domesticated” a small group of Indians in the mid 1820s and invited them to live on his estate. Under his tutelage they learned Portuguese and some accepted baptism. They provided labor for the fazenda, and Feliciano hired them out to other local settlers.¹¹⁰ He was often called upon to mobilize his Indians as interpreters to ease hostilities between local fazendeiros and unincorporated tribes.¹¹¹ At times he used them as military auxiliaries to attack other Indians. For example, in 1832, Feliciano was paid a handsome sum to attack an independent indigenous settlement in retaliation for hostilities that had taken place between 1828 and 1830. His group of about 50 men, including his own Indian allies, killed at least 40 warriors in that engagement.¹¹² The local municipal council, although eager to appropriate Feliciano’s native interpreters when it served their purposes, took a dim view of his aspirations to receive honors, subsidies, and official posts based on his record of cultural mediation. Council members blamed a member of his family, João Pego Moço, for unleashing the above-mentioned conflict of 1828 by kidnapping an indigenous child. They also criticized requests made by the Pego family for provincial subsidies to facilitate indigenous catechism as self-serving bids to facilitate exploitation of native labor on their own estates.¹¹³

One must ask how and if the Indians benefited from an alliance with the Pego family. What did the Pegos provide in exchange for labor and military services? [End Page 250] It may be that in a situation of increasing population pressures, trigger-happy settlers, meddling state agents, intrusive road building, and well-meaning missionaries, settlers who made few demands and provided access to scarce resources were the best option among the dismal alternatives available. Barbara Sommer in her research on the Amazon, and Alida Metcalf in her work on early colonial Bahia, have shown that many Indians favored individual agreements with private landowners over a life of benevolent but rigid supervision in Jesuit aldeias.¹¹⁴ Private landowners might have subjected their native dependents to periodic labor obligations but probably left them alone much of the time. In recruiting them for specific campaigns against other native groups, they might also have provided resources for their indigenous allies to avenge themselves against enemy tribes. Most landowners who reported native populations resident on their estates also took credit for baptizing them, although such claims may have been formulaic bids for official sanction of their activities. Regardless, frontier agriculturalists did not have the wherewithal to compel native attendants to be observant Christians, especially given the scarcity of clergy in frontier regions.

Conclusion

This essay explores some of the opportunities and constraints faced by cultural intermediaries in eastern Minas Gerais during the transitional period from colony to empire.

As represented by Marlière and other higher-level state agents, middlemen who abandoned core aspects of Portuguese identity, especially their Christian faith, fell under suspicion. Inocêncio, who wandered about at will, beyond the reach or approval of the proper authorities, evoked the image of the wandering savage who refused to subsume himself to a fixed location or social control. Nobody really knew what these interpreters did when they disappeared for months on end. Most of these middlemen were affiliated with the military, and the boundaries of what they were asked to do on their assignments remain unclear. When did an exploratory foray into the forests to seek out independent tribes become desertion? Under what circumstances did allegiances fluctuate? Inocêncio, as an indigenous man, probably never earned the full trust or respect of the military authorities. But what of Norberto, ostensibly white, but raised on an indigenous frontier and facile in at least one native language? His [End Page 251] divided loyalties would be seen as all the more treacherous because he was seen as Portuguese by his superiors, even if his primary identity might have been a transculturated one. Transculturated individuals, Voigt reminds us, may be just as likely to resist an imperial project as to serve it.¹¹⁵

The missing piece of this puzzle, of course, is how these various intermediaries gained authority or legitimacy among indigenous populations. Given the fragmentary nature of Jê societies, we cannot assume that even native leaders would have held any sway beyond their immediate kin group. In this regard, Inocêncio seems to have enjoyed broader currency among Jê speakers in the mineiro northeast than Pokrane ever did beyond his own private fiefdom. Ongoing access to scarce manufactured goods, particularly metal, arms, and ammunition, provided advantages, but native groups were also capable of making adequate substitutes with the materials they had on hand. Portuguese officials also had a limited repertoire of exchange. While they could provide practical and luxury items, food, and clothing, they generally did not intensify social relationships through the exchange of women or the adoption of children. Non-indigenous men might take up with native women but rarely did this happen in reverse. Nor did indigenous women and children who ended up in Portuguese settlements and homes leave records of their experiences.

State agents like Marlière envisioned an ideal acculturated Indian who was sedentary, Christian, and above all, loyal and subordinate. Under the tutelage of the Portuguese state, such Indians would eventually meld into Portuguese society through interracial marriage or intensification of other social relations. Evidence presented in this essay shows that native peoples might, at best, occupy a transcultural middle ground within which they interacted with members of the dominant society, potentially extracted resources, and provided specific services in return. It also suggests that military service, for men who could navigate multiple cultures, could constitute something of a refuge, rather than a prison sentence.

This essay does not purport to negate a historiography that presents the Portuguese and Brazilian militaries as coercive institutions that used impressment and intimidation to compel poor men of color to serve in the armed forces. One needs only to look at desertion rates in the eastern sertões to validate this interpretation. However, there is considerably less scholarly discussion about men whose enlistment was an active choice.¹¹⁶ Just as exceptional circumstances permitted [End Page 252] the recruitment of slaves during wartime mobilization, the exigencies of frontier service also provided unusual opportunities for men who otherwise might face limited prospects.¹¹⁷ Inocêncio, for example, attempted to effect the appointment of a local military commander who would benefit his indigenous followers as well as certain segments of the settler population. His duties as a soldier also allowed him a great deal of physical mobility, at a time when Portuguese norms of honor and respectability were predicated on having a fixed residence and a stable occupation. The relatively poor, illiterate Medeiros brothers exercised a similar degree of autonomy in carrying out their orders. Finally, Pokrane, by being willing to impose Brazilian policies of acculturation on his own people, was able to gain access to resources that enhanced his own power and gave him tools to fight more effectively against his indigenous enemies. All of these men seemed to have little difficulty in evading arrest or punishment for violations of military discipline. Whether this had more to do with institutional weakness on the part of the Rio Doce divisions or an unusual degree of tolerance accorded to these men in light of their skills as translators and cultural interlocutors is not entirely clear. It does, however, allow us to question the relative capacity of the Brazilian military to coerce its soldiery.

These examples also point to physical mobility among cultures as an essential ingredient to transculturated empowerment. One need point only to the numerous counter-examples of native peoples who were permanently and tragically wrested from their home societies. Lacking the opportunity to return, they were unable to mediate to their advantage. It is likely that the vast majority of women and children who were seized as war captives and incorporated into Portuguese households did not enjoy social mobility.¹¹⁸ Similarly, the “Botocudo” Indians who accompanied European travelers back to Europe were reduced to captivity, albeit a more genteel one.¹¹⁹ For example, Queck, the Krenak guide of Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, gained prestige and international visibility while serving as the prince’s guide in Brazil. Maximillian brought him to Germany in 1818 as an adolescent, and there he remained, living a pampered but isolated existence in the prince’s castle until his death in [End Page 253] 1834 from liver disease allegedly caused by excessive alcohol consumption. After his autopsy, the prince donated his skeletal remains to the anatomical museum of the University of Bonn. Only in 2011 were his bones repatriated to the Krenak peoples in Brazil, a return that was symbolically meaningful for them but woefully tardy and inadequate for Queck.¹²⁰ [End Page 254]