Bandeirantes

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The bandeirante Domingo Jorge Velho
Monumento às Bandeiras in Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo

Bandeirantes ("banner bearer", from port. Bandeira = flag) are the names of the members of Portuguese expedition troops who explored and opened up the Brazilian interior in search of gold, diamonds and slaves from the 17th century . They moved along the rivers to La Plata and the Amazon . Settlements were created, some of which still exist today.

history

These expedition troops were called "Bandeiras" or "Entradas"; Entradas were the expeditions commissioned by government agencies, while the Bandeiras were funded by private business people. The name Bandeiras (from Portuguese bandeira = flag) comes from the practice of hoisting the Portuguese flag in new areas as a sign of occupation.

Sometimes there were small groups of 15 to 20 people, sometimes there were large expeditions with several hundred participants. The expeditions were very risky, many a gang member never returned, as they fell victim to the Indians as well as the fever or poisonous snake bites. They took cassava , corn, beans and dried meat with them as food . As a rule, the Bandeirantes were accompanied by male family members and slaves and were on the road for a long time.

One of the most important possessions was horses, which gave them mobility. They were only partially equipped with the expensive and fragile firearms. Instead, they were often armed with crossbows, bows, and swords. Attack dogs were used to hunt down Indians . Due to their intention to enslave indigenous people , the Bandeirantes came repeatedly into conflict with the Jesuits and their Jesuit reductions and were fought by them.

The Bandeirantes penetrated the forests by generally following the courses of rivers or the paths used by the local population. The Rio Tietê was one of the main entrances to the São Paulo hinterland . They crossed Brazil in all directions, so the bandeirante António Raposo Tavares came from São Paulo to the Amazon , Fernão Dias Pais and his son-in-law Borba Gato opened up what is now Minas Gerais and established countless branches there; Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva , known as “Annex uera”, discovered gold in what is now Goiás .

The best-known Bandeiras came from São Paulo and were mainly responsible for the development of the interior and the extension of the borders of the Portuguese colony of Brazil far beyond the line which, in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), marked the border between the Portuguese and the Spanish territorial claims in the New World (today's states of Goiás , Mato Grosso , a large part of Minas Gerais , Rio Grande do Sul , Paraná and Santa Catarina went to Brazil).

Because of their importance for today's size of Brazil, the Bandeiras are still very much worshiped here. Probably the most impressive monument is the " Monumento às Bandeiras " by the Italian-Brazilian sculptor Victor Brecheret , which is located in São Paulo in Ibirapuera Park and shows the strong mixture of such a bandeira of Europeans, Africans and Indians.

Famous Bandeirantes

literature

  • Sharon Landers: Bandeiras. In: The historical encyclopedia of world slavery. Santa Barbara, 1997 ISBN 0-87436-885-5 , pp. 66f.

Web links

Commons : Bandeirantes  - collection of images, videos and audio files