The Heathen Castes of Sixteenth-Century Portuguese America: Unity, Diversity, and the Invention of the Brazilian Indians

The Portuguese first arrived on the eastern coast of South America in April 1500, but it was only in the final quarter of the sixteenth century that they began to produce systematic accounts that described and classified indigenous populations.1 However, with the exception of Pero de Magalhães Gândavo’s brief História da província de Santa Cruz, published in Lisbon in 1576, and various Jesuit letters widely disseminated throughout Europe in several languages, the most important Portuguese writings remained unpublished for centuries.2 For example, both Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s rich descriptive treatise of 1587, considered by many to be the single most important sixteenth-century account, and Jesuit father Fernão Cardim’s writings circulated in multiple manuscript copies and probably did not have a great deal of influence before the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the Tratado descritivo, as Soares de Sousa’s texts came to be known, and the Tratados da terra e gente do Brasil, a compilation of Cardim’s works, provide a clear guide to the accumulated perceptions and images that the Portuguese had about the vast, varied, and largely incomprehensible indigenous universe during this crucial period in Portuguese-indigenous relations.3This article examines Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s writings in two steps: first, in the historical context of the late sixteenth century; and second, in the historiographical context of the nineteenth century, when his detailed descriptions and schematic classifications were absorbed by Brazil’s first national historians as objective ethnographic facts. One of the problems that this created lay in the tendency for Brazilian historians to project back to 1500—the emblematic eve-of-conquest date—a portrait of indigenous diversity and interethnic relations that actually developed much later, reflecting the deep transformations that had already affected many of the coastal societies. Nonetheless, like other historiographical traditions in the Americas, these early accounts were written by the observers themselves and interpreted by latter-day historians to convey a static and permanent image of pristine societies as if they had been untouched by contact with Europeans. At the same time, this approach has ignored the role of indigenous polities and actors in their response to European expansion, which played an important part in shaping the kinds of ethnic configurations that have been passed down generation after generation as “original” and timeless, only to be upset, dilapidated, and, finally, destroyed by Western colonialism. Recent ethnohistorical trends, however, have begun to undermine these long-established views, interweaving careful documentary research and new anthropological perspectives to produce a refreshing portrait of creative indigenous responses, which, against all odds, carved out a significant place in colonial history in ways that can no longer be omitted from the historical register.4In 1587 Portuguese sugar planter and overland explorer Gabriel Soares de Sousa undertook a long journey from Bahia to Madrid, in an effort to garner royal support so that he could search the endless sertão for silver mines. As part of his credentials, he presented Dom Cristóvão de Moura with three manuscripts, offering precious information and perceptive insights on the land, people, and early history of the Portuguese colonies in the Americas.5 The first text, the Roteiro geral: Com largas informações de toda a costa do Brasil, provided a succinct description of the Atlantic coast from the “land of the Caribs,” north of the Amazon river, to the River Platte. The second and certainly the most important text was the Memorial e declaração das grandezas da Bahia de Todos os Santos, de sua fertilidade e das notáveis partes que tem, a meticulous description of the topography, plants, animals, and native populations of Bahia; this text is so rich and evocative in detail that it has come to be known as the greatest work written about Brazil in the sixteenth century.6 The third text constituted a libelous invective against the Jesuits of Bahia, criticizing the missionaries not only for their supposedly rapacious economic activities but also for their unwanted interference in the Indian labor question. In sharp contrast to the other two texts, this text offers a clearer understanding of the historical and political contexts within which Gabriel Soares de Sousa recorded his lasting impressions of the Tupinambá Indians.7Although Soares de Sousa’s account has been widely used since the mid-nineteenth century in the consolidation of a long-standing tradition of Tupi studies in Brazil, surprisingly little has been written about the author himself or the conditions under which he documented his observations. Actually, little is known about this writer beyond what his own writings express, along with the will he penned in 1584, later reproduced by Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen in his critical edition of the text.8 Born in Portugal in the mid-sixteenth century, Gabriel Soares de Sousa set off for the Indies in 1569, possibly headed for the fabled Monomotapa mines in East Africa, in the powerful fleet commanded by Francisco Barreto, former governor of India, who aimed to expel the Muslims from that region and seize the gold mines.9 For reasons unknown and fortunately for him, Soares de Sousa remained in Salvador when the fleet called there, rather than going on to the Estado da India, where other talented writers of his generation went. Gabriel Soares de Sousa and his brother João Coelho de Sousa settled in Brazil, and established a sugar mill along the Jiquiriçá River, near Jaguaripe, an expanding new plantation zone to the south of the Recôncavo. After inheriting charts of the hinterland and a few precious stones from his deceased brother, Soares de Sousa visited Philip II’s (Philip I of Portugal) court in 1586 to secure royal favors and titles. After a considerable waiting period, during which he rewrote his descriptive treatise, he received the lofty commission of Captain-Major and Governor of the Conquest and Discovery of the São Francisco River, with permission to seek and exploit silver mines in the interior. He returned to Brazil in the Flemish vessel Abraham, which was on its way to Bahia to pick up a shipment of sugar and brazilwood. The ship ran aground at the mouth of the Vazabarris river in Sergipe and much of his equipment was lost. After traveling overland to Salvador, Soares de Sousa managed to outfit his expedition with assistance from Governor Dom Francisco de Sousa, a mining enthusiast, and he set off for the São Francisco river. But the mines that had proved so elusive to his brother and to many others for years to come were not to be found, and Gabriel Soares de Sousa died shortly after setting out on his expedition, in the sertão near the headwaters of the Paraguaçu. His bones were sent back to Salvador to be buried in the Benedictine church under a tombstone that reads, “Here lies a sinner,” as Soares de Sousa had stipulated in his will.Although subsequent accounts offer different versions, the circumstances surrounding Soares de Sousa’s death point to the of and the context his text on the of to do Salvador, Soares de Sousa died near the place of his after was and the of and provided an by other of the One a the and the from the who had been to the Soares de Sousa to up the after which all the ran the to their own in the where all died of its this the of the mining and which was to a to the for years to and overland provided the setting for Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s treatise on both the Roteiro and the Memorial his long as a plantation and activities in an when the of the was of in the surrounding In to the Soares de Sousa also the as they provided for his to the sertão and labor on the most of the historical and descriptive information presented in his account from this colonial as his indigenous were in Soares de Sousa was about the of the information he provided and that his description of the Tupinambá was on from the this was than a all the significant if that an important part of his account on the Tupinambá was set in an as if their and were a of the of the was to Portuguese it in a historical of with the most the In the the were from the coast by the a Tupi came from the in search of the of the and of this After many the Tupinambá of the and of this this new the of the their and who no they managed to expel the from the of the Soares de Sousa the Tupinambá have remained of this of Bahia for many against their with great the of the this information was from and in these from generation to it as the Tupinambá were with only of their Soares de Sousa’s first was to and of the diversity that the Brazilian coast so to many other sixteenth-century descriptions of indigenous Soares de Sousa’s treatise established a two Tupi and the described in detail in the most part of his account, provided the for Tupi his of the was the so many and so in and languages, in to much about have to and much information about their and at this is not on Tupi early writers as Soares de Sousa as the of Tupi by in in his description of the the author an that the in the and of these had an historical he managed to a rather detailed description of their Soares de Sousa the of his and classified as they as other who only to their In the author set and for all they of all it was not to about their and for different of the indigenous Soares de Sousa played off various The most approach was to a contrast with European and indigenous in of what it than what it a widely disseminated a by Pero de Magalhães Soares de Sousa provided a to the by the of Tupi he that three and in their The to that the and by the Jesuit do not in In Soares de Sousa that they did not the had no to and the of his own the of the that they had no or to and did not their and also by the Jesuits in their Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s little as colonial it was in this that most of the he actually to the other of to to an and The colonial context other important for example, the was than a a two by and the other no or of this from the of who the of the colonial and the of the The and provided crucial with as in as a third within a to to who was In the sixteenth century, Portuguese used this to both in South with their rich and the as as different native in and South considered to have no at the context to the and or Gabriel Soares de Sousa this in his text, with In his on he the Jesuit of by Tupinambá who in of their so that not to this as a this point clearer in his of the the first missionaries this proved since was as for to to their and they all back to the from their and they had of than with these they have no than three and these with new he did not of this in his text, Soares de Sousa possibly was to the by who had from the Jesuits and the during this period, the plantation zone Jaguaripe, near his But he also have known about other of a he to as a of from the colonial the as the described by a Jesuit in the the to a native before these Portuguese not from the church or for if to will with in the and But these Portuguese do not and if so few who already seize what can when the but to and the Tupinambá to a a from a and point of sixteenth-century observers also had to the different Tupi the Soares de Sousa it to from the the same as the Tupinambá and they have the same and and on the same as the a and Soares de Sousa was to that the and Tupinambá is no in and than that the of Lisbon and of with the later Soares de Sousa a different that their was as different from the as the e and which was to that the a In his to this of and the author considered that the of these two is so it clear that they were a single in which is what the The they is that the others as they by the and of other in of the to different indigenous a brief sixteenth-century Portuguese classified indigenous populations along the Brazilian coast as a of the used in South and widely disseminated accounts going back as as and Soares de Sousa was no to this it since at point in his account he an and the of in South several Portuguese writers of the sixteenth and to the in their of the on a different societies or as different as e and the colonial however, the and of and were by European expansion, as and royal in native societies or with indigenous at a of and transformations that affected indigenous in or near colonial Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s account of the Tupinambá to images of and on information passed on by and these descriptions provide an of Tupinambá the of colonialism. Nonetheless, an to be by in the to Soares de Sousa’s text to the Tupinambá from this as if the had not However, at the same time, his account many that this image of the traditions and also had to do with the conditions of colonial the description of Tupinambá and from the colonial not only by the Portuguese but by the Tupinambá In a the Memorial from other sixteenth-century accounts that to project which, to had to do with the of or than the the and his native he presented himself as a of and much Soares de Sousa’s native who had been in contact with for the author this point in with the of the that what this it to be the to do in about in to the and conditions of this however, a that colonial writers with to Soares de Sousa with the that the and their had on the Tupinambá than with the that could also to the and from this Soares de Sousa the to that indigenous were up in a historical where the of proved both and The and were all Tupinambá in a but in the colonial context they were in to this first the used by of and who to and indigenous populations ethnic as if the of ethnic had already before the or the long and the of an indigenous Brazil the of a of ethnic and of and the rich of and unknown to the Europeans. than the that was to relations and not only it Indian and but it established a of and which these relations came to be the new ethnic described by colonial during the second of the sixteenth century not only European and but also the and of different indigenous who in their own deal with the new on by the of colonial of the they have at the they were Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s writings remained unpublished for However, like so many other historical and descriptive written in Portuguese about Brazil during the colonial period, Soares de Sousa’s texts circulated in manuscript and different were or by other his edition of the text in the nineteenth century, Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen different copies in various European and both and with the exception of accounts published in several European for a the only work on Brazil written in Portuguese to be published in the sixteenth century was Pero Magalhães Gândavo’s História da província de Santa Cruz, in in contrast to the on America and to the writings published in Portuguese during the sixteenth century on the and of in to and political the of Portuguese and in the a Soares de Sousa’s writings in the early nineteenth century, as part of and of unpublished or at the do this first edition also to the work to its The first edition of the work in published by the of in Lisbon in its project of and other writings in a on Portuguese the do Brasil, the of edition was so that Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen to a long in historical which not only proved that Soares de Sousa was the author but also out the for a new critical and a of the different manuscript in Soares de Sousa’s text beyond this As of the of Brazil’s and in de in Varnhagen a generation of and to a national historical tradition from the this the many with to descriptions of indigenous the coastal of the by in a national history and accounts the historical and ethnographic to indigenous in for the most part by the image of a the to their with the the of in of their early an with native the generation that up with the Dom himself began to a national that the and coastal Tupi at was not the only to on this as the many and political that the of the new also published accounts in European these same the of ethnographic was by an national and their on a with but perceptions and by historians and other same for a documentary was in História do Brasil, a edition that began to be published in this constituted the first historiographical in it important as of Brazil and writings on Brazil, both of used different manuscript of Soares de Sousa’s description of the both of to who the author In of these works, the historical Tupinambá in and began to a contrast the the Atlantic at the of Brazilian and the who in the way of point of the role that were to in this project rather clear from the as he to native In had a by the and on to the of to on the and of considered the Brazilian to be populations that to The Brazilian he than the of a His was in an text and he that can be no that the is about to will on when will be in an to Brazilian the of his João Francisco certainly had to do with his but it also his own as as the political conditions of the Brazilian he probably had on Varnhagen certainly began to a journey he undertook to the south of São in when he came contact with the of and that in that he since a deep and a has of in that Brazil has a a of Brazilian have been at the of these of in so many within its The this his História do Brasil, as his description of the Tupi could only the and of an of their not of but of and in the of is no is only this a secure place at the of Brazilian historical it was not the only an the throughout the nineteenth century, like against a largely by de e a since the early colonial period the of different colonial created to or to indigenous the that place in the the of and support for a new period of set in the of the and or in the setting of the who the and of the and who their and Varnhagen which he was on and he to support from Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s sixteenth-century of the first out by historians in their of sixteenth-century accounts like written by Soares de Sousa and by Jesuit Fernão the other most important account penned in the second of that to the a to their this had out the of diversity for sixteenth-century writers and colonial it a new in the The Tupi were to a where they had to the consolidation of Portuguese the Brazilian coast their their to with the Portuguese the for Brazil’s first But they were to way to the for in place in and in the of the a colonial of which was by of different populations and was by many of the as the national But the Tupi themselves had played out their and came to be in and as in the emblematic by of The a Tupinambá his on a about to be by the on the other in of historical to the came to an as rather than as they the who in the way of different from the who to the this the coastal Tupi their as a people, the to in their the nineteenth century, they the of a to like Varnhagen to this a the indigenous the of Brazil as as the of Brazil and several of were in the first as the of historical texts and second as the to by the in a sharp contrast the of the and the Indian in Varnhagen used Soares de Sousa’s text to point out the and of Tupinambá and their In Soares de Sousa’s account what he considered to be of all native which on the part of a by this on than in and in Varnhagen from Soares de Sousa’s Tupinambá to that is what place in The for as which they and back to their the on the of their in other they who had their after these his to Soares de Sousa’s text, Varnhagen the and from a mid-nineteenth century and the of to the as a this remained to the text, as Soares de Sousa himself and deep in his meticulous of of Tupinambá Varnhagen was of the that these descriptions to and called to of the rich information by Soares de Sousa, his important on Tupinambá and on Varnhagen a great deal of in or of Tupinambá of their In Soares de Sousa’s on for example, he could not out that is the of and that buried under the greatest can proved in his of Tupinambá and certainly of the most of indigenous that sixteenth-century than reflecting the significant ethnographic information by Soares de Sousa’s account, Varnhagen to the with Soares de Sousa’s on the of Tupi which he with the the In the all other in the in provided a for Portuguese much different from the by Soares de The in his was so at the of the sixteenth century, that European had not that have by its own this that the were other was not several missionaries and royal this to their own and it was crucial for Varnhagen and others to an Indian in a with Soares de Sousa’s text, Varnhagen which with Tupinambá work who that of little and in the of in the to and to down they to his of Gabriel Soares de Sousa, Varnhagen also to to the of indigenous Soares de Sousa’s historical for within the Tupi of this from the a Tupi the São Francisco river in the second of the sixteenth century. Soares de Sousa described as the same and as the as as the same they in at in the this was back to the by their where they their their was called In his Varnhagen with the sixteenth-century his with of ethnographic that in the nineteenth century, Tupi to down the two he in Jesuit de de be a however, to that this ignored the historical of the ethnographic he developed for sixteenth-century of the as of of ethnic diversity the largely on the information in Soares de Sousa’s account, that this was of the and of a people, a under way before the of the he this in his to Soares de Sousa’s account, he developed it much in his História and in of his final published in in of the most that set Varnhagen not only from Gabriel Soares de Sousa but also and from his had to do with the of the For many the Tupi were the most different had begun to that had place in a and Soares de Sousa remained on that that the Tupi began their on the coast from deep in the Varnhagen from the as He this to an in a meticulous in and the and of the Tupi and the both by an from as of his have to to the by other that was in than the Varnhagen to the from which they had in their of and few in Brazil to have the effort to the for in Brazilian historical during for example, and de Magalhães an response to the História do in an published in the the indigenous which part of Brazil’s for the most the that the of Brazilian history the of the a that few historians have to the and of indigenous which, to this to Brazilian history an to be by of Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s description of the Tupinambá within the Francisco Adolfo Varnhagen this from the historical context that this description in the first he the that was to in the of indigenous populations to this to the of a or to the of Soares de Sousa’s were to to in the century, as first the way in his effort to and in historical and ethnographic important of But it was who the Tupinambá a in Brazilian as his meticulous and of Tupinambá and of their as of the most of in historians to from the as if to as to or back and the of in Bahia, most historians indigenous to to the that the they can do is to what has to a of the of and that have indigenous populations the But a of colonial like Gabriel Soares de Sousa’s descriptive treatise can that this history was and than the long-standing historiographical tradition by Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen to from edition de de of the

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.