Bandeirantes - Slave Raids

Slave Raids

In the beginning, the main focus of the bandeirantes was to enslave natives. They carried this out by disguising themselves as Jesuits, often singing mass to lure the natives out of their settlements. However, more often they relied on surprise attacks. If luring the natives with promises didn’t work, the bandeirantes would surround the settlements, and set them alight in order to force out the natives. The natives would be captured and placed into a large outdoor pen, until there were enough of them enslaved to justify a trip back to the coast, where they would be sold as slaves. It could be weeks or months until this was the case, and so hundreds of captives died of exposure. On the journey to the coast, the captives would be stripped, and tied to a long pole to prevent them from trying to flee the group.

There were over 2.5 million Indigenous peoples in Brazil in 1500. By the middle of the 18th century, the number had dropped to between 1 million and 1.5 million. Many tribes living close to the Atlantic coast intermixed with Portuguese or died of diseases. Others had fled into the interior, and their flight created an ever-greater need for slaves, one that was not entirely satisfied by importing them from Africa. Native slaves sold for about $30–$40, while the imported African slaves sold from $100–$500. The bandeirantes were able to sell many native slaves due to their cheap price, and hence made a large profit.

Some of the most famous bandeirantes were Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva (the Anhanguera), Antônio Dias de Oliveira, Fernão Dias Pais (the Hunter of Emeralds), Domingos Rodrigues do Prado, Antônio Rodrigues de Arzão, Domingos Jorge Velho, Salvador Furtado Fernandes de Mendonça, Antônio Raposo Tavares, Estêvão Ribeiro Baião Parente, Brás Rodrigues de Arzão, Manuel de Campos Bicudo, Francisco Dias de Siqueira (the Apuçá), Pascoal Moreira Cabral, Antônio Pires de Campos, Manuel de Borba Gato, Francisco Pedroso Xavier, Lourenço Castanho Taques, Tomé Portes del-Rei, Antonio Garcia da Cunha, Matias Cardoso de Almeida, Salvador Faria de Albernaz, José de Camargo Pimentel, João Leite da Silva Ortiz, João de Siqueira Afonso, Jerônimo Pedroso de Barros and Bartolomeu Bueno de Siqueira. In 1628, Antônio Raposo Tavares led a bandeira, composed of 2,000 allied Indians, 900 mamelucos and 69 white Paulistanos, to find precious metals and stones or to capture Indians for slavery or both. This expedition alone was responsible for the destruction of most of the Jesuit missions of Spanish Guairá and the enslavement of over 60,000 indigenous people.

From 1648 to 1652, Tavares also led one of the longest known expeditions from São Paulo to the mouth of the Amazon river, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Rio Negro, and covering a distance of more than 10,000 km. The expedition arrived in Andean Quito, part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, and stayed there for a short time in 1651. Of the 1200 men who left São Paulo, only 60 reached their final destination in Belém.