THE PROJECT

IN THE STEPS OF THE ANCIENT EXPEDITION

THAT GAVE SHAPE TO MODERN BRASIL

The route followed by Antonio Raposo Tavares in 1650

and the contours of today's country.

Presented to the Rootes Memorial Fund by:

Rosalba Icaza, PhD student in Politics and International Relations;

Sergio Mejia, PhD student in History and

Rolando Vazquez, PhD student in Sociology

1. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Historical Background

After the separation of the Iberian crowns in 1640 (held together since the 1580s) the issue of defining the borders between the Portuguese and the Spanish American domains came to the fore of colonial policies: a rush of expeditions of discovery and settling was encouraged by both Crowns with the intention of taking jurisdiction over the huge tract of land between the Andes and the Brasilian sertoęs (or back-lands) as well as sovereignty over its inhabitants. The Spanish Crown, more intent in affirming its rule over the rebellious Inca nation and in exploiting the silver of Potosi, recurred for this eastward expansion to the christianising zeal of the Jesuits. They were most effective in bringing the Indians to live in communities and cost nothing to the Crown?s treasury, but their reducciones (settlements) were militarily week. The Portuguese, on the other hand, resorted to the paulistanos, who were reputed due to their engagement in a unique form of slave trade: back-land Indian hunting. This business was carried on by expeditions called bandeiras (?flags?) that interned themselves in the lowlands of what is now southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, the Brazilian back-landsand the Amazon basin, to take Indian prisoners and sell them in the markets of Rio de Janeiro and Salvador de Bahia.

The Original Route

The Portuguese Rapôso Tavares had been until 1648 a rather typical slave hunter and raider of the Jesuit missions, to the point that his biographer and contemporary, the Jesuit Antonio Vieira, referred to him as ?the infamous?.  With the Crown?s support he organized a major expedition composed of 200 other Portuguese men and a force of more than a thousand allied Indians. The bandeirantes left Sao Paulo in May 1648, and headed westwards along the Tietę river. At the point where this river joins the Paraguay river, a group split off the main expedition and went west to procure a booty in the Paraguayan Jesuit missions while Rapôso kept his route towards the town of San Fernando (the contemporary city of Corumba) where he and his men arrived by August. There they spent the rainy season and planted crops. By May 1649, the whole expedition united, the men headed west through the Sao Jorge mountain range, crossed the Paraguay river, interned themselves in the dry lowlands known as the Chaco, reached the Guapore river (which marks the contemporary limit between Brazil and Bolivia), rafted downstream to the Madeira, reached the Amazon and in 1651 came out to the town of Belem. From there, they came to Salvador de Bahia and then back to Sao Paulo through the sertăo. Rapôso Tavares? bandeira ranks among the least known of the great expeditions of discovery despite the fact that its geopolitical consequences have proved to be most enduring. In fact, the very route followed by Rapôso and his men marks a great deal of Brazil?s contemporary international borders.

Our Objectives

It is our intention to travel along the route followed by this bandeira along the borders of contemporary Brazil, with two specific objectives in mind:

A. To craft a vivid narrative of Rapôso Tavares? ancient expedition following its footsteps in modern Brazil.

In the preliminary phase of our project, which has been going on for two months already, we are collecting the written materials where the facts of the expedition have been recorded. Among these, we give priority to the writings of Antonio Vieira, a contemporary Jesuit priest who wrote an account of the expedition [1].To this end we will visit important academic institutions showing the interest of Warwick and bringing the presence of our University to the academic community in Brazil. To these conventional sources, we will add our travel perceptions as a foremost source to tell a more vivid and enriched narrative of what even today is a great trip of exploration.

B. The observation of the human geography along the route.

By observing the human geography, we want to emphasise that even thought history will be our guide into modern Brazil, the main focus of our attention will be the people that lives in this lands and who are often marginalized from the main trends of the Brazilian buoyant economy. The exploration of history and exclusion will bring about a unique outcome that will enable us to be more conscious of the deeply rooted complexities of the Brazilian society and will be of great help to promote a more accurate understanding of the social conditions of ?this Latin America? that tends to be so disregarded in the developed world and particularly in the community of Warwick.

In order to do this, we will profit from previous research (also ongoing over the last two months and to be continued until departure) that will afford us with an informed and more efficient traveller?s glance. We have been establishing contacts along the route and preparing strategic visits to universities, NGOs and communitarian organizations. We speak of human geography simply because we are aware of the limitations of our contact with the communities given our travelling situation.

[1] Vieira, Antonio; Cartas. Edited in3 volumes; Lisbon, Oficina da Congragaçăo do Oratório, 1735-1746.