The Indigenous of Brazil have a historical reality that is often under addressed in Brazil's effort to advocate for its perception as a nation that has attained racial democracy.
In fact, Brazil's emphasis on its African heritage as a result of the slave trade history, all but ignores the first 100 years of Indigenous contact history.
Darcy Ribeiro's research addresses this concern. Brazilian People: The Formation and Meaning of Brazil describes the historical origins of the Brazilian people through the enslavement and genocide of the millions of Indigenous Americans over the course of a century and before the full development of the globalization of the African slave trade. Ironically, the systematic process of colonization via the fathering of children with Indigenous women by invading Europeans served to establish the first true Brazilians. For a nation that finds a good portion of its genetic and cultural heritage resulting from the Indians of Brasil,the author highlights with passion how poorly served the Indians are as a result of a patch-work of government policies that have relegated the surviving Indigenous populations to the interior regions on demarcated reserves, rendering them invisible.
Despite this legacy, which Ribeiro describes as "bith pangs" (p. 316), he views Brazil with a destiny of hope to break through the imposed "cultural silence" (Paulo Freire, 1973); and perhaps the having of voice will release the Indigenous of Brazil from their cloak on invisibility along with many of its other citizens.
- Hardcover: 332 pages
- Publisher: Univ Pr of Florida; 1st edition (30 September 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0813017777
- ISBN-13: 978-0813017778
- Product Dimensions: 16.1 x 3.5 x 23.5 cm
- Boxed-product Weight: 703 g
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
75,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #22 in History of Brazil
- #5 in Latin American History Textbooks
- #125 in Anthropology Textbooks