Guerre et prophétie dans le nord-est du Brésil au XVIe siècle autour des Européens et des Indiens

How can we write the history of the European “conquest” of indigenous lands today? Using the example of northern Brazil, which was integrated into Portuguese America between 1570 and 1620 at the cost of long wars and intense negotiations, I would like to invite students to reflect on ways of writing this history. This land belonged to the Potiguara, a Tupi-speaking people who were long allies of the French who called them the Cannibals.

By crossing different Portuguese and French sources, the idea is to propose a history that takes into account « indigenous history », reflecting the Potiguares' point of view.This history of the conquest also involves placing missionary sources in the context of war and considering the religious and prophetic dimension of the military conquest. This history of an indigenous and colonial territory is a « connected history » with an european dimension. 

The seminar will offer a historiographical reflection by presenting sources and will raise the question of how to write this polyphonic and complex history.

Suggested readings: 

• Monteiro, John, « The Heathen Castes of Sixteenth-Century Portuguese America : Unity, Diversity and the Invention of the Brazilian Indians. » Hispanic American Historical Review, Duke University Press, 2000, p 698-723
• Charlotte de Castelnau L’Estoile, « The Uses of Shamanism: Evangelizing Strategies and Missionary Models in Seventeenth-Century Century Brazil. » in Jesuits II Cultures Sciences, and the Arts, edited by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris and T. Frank Kennedy, University of Toronto Press, 2006. p. 616-637.