History of the Indians, of North and South America

by Samuel G. Goodrich

“The Indians were, as late as 1798, the occupants of the woods, and were generally found resident on the banks of the rivers and streams which intersected the country. An elderly gentleman, who was secretary to the undertaking, informed me that it was necessary for the commissioners and workmen to go constantly armed, to be protected against their hostility. The Puvis lay on the River Parahiba, and others on the streams which fall into it.

“By a mistaken humanity, however, permission was afterwards given to the Brazilians to convert their neighbours to Christianity; and for this laudable object, they were allowed to retain them in a state of bondage for ten years, and then dismiss them free, when instructed in the arts of civilized life, and the more important knowledge of Christianity. This permission, as was to be expected, produced the very opposite effects.

“A decree for the purpose was issued so late as the year 1808, by Don John, and it was one of the measures which he thought best to reclaim the aborigines, who had just before committed some ravages. He directed that the Indians, who were conquered, should be distributed among the agriculturists, who should support, clothe, civilize, and instruct them in the principles of our holy religion, but should be allowed to use the services of the same Indians for a certain number of years, in compensation for the expense of their instruction and management.

“This unfortunate permission at once destroyed all intercourse between the natives and the Brazilians. The Indians were everywhere hunted down for the sake of their salvation; wars were excited among the tribes, for the laudable purpose of bringing in each other as captives, to be converted to Christianity; and the most sacred objects were prostituted to the base cupidity of man, by even this humane and limited permission of reducing his fellow-creatures to slavery.

“In the distant provinces, particularly on the banks of the Maranhāo, it is still practised, and white men set out for the woods to seek their fortunes; that is, to hunt Indians and return with slaves. The consequence was, that all who could escape retired to the remotest forests; and there is not one to be now found in a state of nature in all the wooded region.

“It frequently happened, as we passed along, that dark wreaths of what appeared like smoke arose from among distant trees on the sides of the mountains, and they seemed to us to be decisive marks of Indian wigwams; but we found them to be nothing more than misty exhalations, which shot up in thin, circumscribed columns, exactly resembling smoke issuing from the aperture of a chimney.

“We met, however, one, in the woods, with a copper-colored face, high cheek-bones, small dark eyes approaching each other, a vacant, stupid cast of countenance, and long, lank, black hair hanging on his shoulders. He had on him some approximation to a Portuguese dress, and belonged to one of the aldêas formed in this region; but he had probably once wandered about these woods in a state of nature, where he was now going peaceably along on a European road.

“We had passed, in going through Valença, one of these aldêas of the Indians of the valley of Parahiba, Christianized and instructed in the arts of civilized life. Another, called the Aldêa da Pedra, is situated on the river, nearer to its mouth, where the people still retain their erratic habits, though apparently conforming to our usages.

“They live in huts, thatched with palm-leaves; and when not engaged in hunting and fishing, which is their chief and favorite employment, they gather ipecacuanha, and fell timber. They are docile and pacific, having no cruel propensities, but are disposed to be hospitable to strangers. Their family attachments are not very strong, either for their wives or children, as they readily dispose of both to a traveller for a small compensation.”

One of the most ferocious tribes of Brazil was the Botocudos, thought to be the remains of a powerful and most cruel race, which the early settlers called Aymores. This tribe disfigured themselves by making a large hole in the under-lip, and wearing therein a piece of white wood, or some ornament. They also cut large holes in their ears, and stuck feathers in the aperture for ornaments. They used to go entirely naked, and, brown as the beasts of the forest, were frightful objects to behold.