Heather Roller’s Amazonian Routes analyzes indigenous mobility and resilience during the second half of the 18th century in northern Brazil. Focusing her study on the period of the Directorate, when mission settlements transitioned to the control of secular authorities, Roller explores the nuances of resistance, resilience, and ethnogenesis. The impact of the transition to secular rule, the importance of expeditions as opportunities for mobility and agency among Indians, the role of Indians in the founding of descimentos, absentees as part of the pattern of mobility, and struggles for autonomy in the aftermath of the Directorate’s abolition are the examples of Roller’s argument of an interplay between mobility and community as part and parcel of Indian resilience and adaptation to colonialism.
The impact of the transition to the Directorate, in addition to the role of expeditions on behalf of the colonial state, marked a shift in which attempts were made to impose Portuguese, establish forms of labor tribute through state-sponsored collecting expeditions around the region for cacao and other profitable material while attempting to control the movement of the population in the various settlements. Instead of seeing the labor requirements on lengthy expeditions as part of a process of colonial domination, Roller presents evidence of Indian agency through expeditions as a means of traveling to other communities, as opportunities to avoid other settlement obligations. In a similar fashion, Indios aldeados, often with the connivance of local administrators, took advantage of absenteeism to avoid obligations in one community by moving to others. New settlements, or descimentos, also became important for communities as gente nova were incorporated into communities. Furthermore, mixed-race people and non-natives joined these flexible settlements, complicating the question of service obligations and vagrancy.
Concluding with the impact of privatization of land and enterprises previously managed by povoações after the Directorate is terminated, Roller alludes to the problem of seeing Amazonian indigenous communities as only victims rather than resilient peoples whose mobility complemented community formation. Indigenous communities took advantage of their environment, as well as the colonial state itself, to retain or form new relationships. Viewing the history of the region solely through the lens of Indian flight from colonial incursions omits the plethora of strategies indigenous communities exploited in their colonial sphere.
Roller’s use of textual sources, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of her monograph, exemplifies how one can write the history of peoples who did not leave written records. Reading between the lines of the testimonies of native crewmen in forest collecting expeditions, for example, the author can give voice, albeit mediated, to Indian men. Although not an unbiased source, these testimonies provide some insight into the ways indigenous men voluntarily joined forays that meant several months away from their families. Moreover, they voice the concerns of native men against cabos (or their complicity with them) directly, buttressing her larger argument of indigenous resilience and mobility as complementary factors.
Equally important to Roller’s argument, the role of environment in unique ecosystem in which mobility is required due to the soil and one in which commercial agriculture is limited in the 18th century, also raises important questions on the nature of colonialism in northern Brazil and social formation among the myriad indigenous communities. Like Spalding in the Andes, who saw the Andean geography as one necessitating reciprocal relations, the riverine geography is indispensable to northern Brazil. Mobility, aided by rivers and streams, facilitated social connections across a large region, creating links across a vast waterway system the Portuguese could not completely control. Though not positing an environmentally determinist explanation, Roller achieves a fine balance between environment shaping social formation as a factor in indigenous resilience.
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