Contact Strategies: Histories of Native Autonomy in Brazil

Heather F. Roller's book explores how autonomous Native groups in Brazil maintained their political autonomy and territorial sovereignty hundreds of years after the arrival of Europeans, by actively seeking to appropriate useful knowledge and products from outsiders while controlling contact with dangerous outsiders. This tactical decision-making shaped and limited colonizing enterprises and reveals Native peoples' capacity for cultural persistence through transformation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 27 July 2021
Publisher: Stanford University Press

In the early 1800s, independent Native groups in the Americas still held significant control over a vast portion of the continent. Despite the arrival of European explorers and colonizers hundreds of years earlier, these groups managed to maintain their political autonomy and territorial sovereignty. Heather F. Roller, in her comprehensive study spanning the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, delves into this history of power and persistence from the perspective of autonomous Native peoples in Brazil.

The central thesis of Roller's book is that Indigenous groups took the initiative in their interactions with Brazilian society. Rather than fleeing or evading contact, Native peoples actively sought to appropriate what was useful and potent from outsiders, incorporating new knowledge, products, and even people into their own cultures on their terms. At the same time, autonomous Native groups aimed to control contact with dangerous outsiders, seeking to protect their communities from threats such as sicknesses, vices, forced labor, and land invasions. Their tactical decisions shaped and limited colonizing enterprises in Brazil, while also revealing Native peoples' remarkable capacity for cultural persistence through transformation.

These contact strategies are preserved in the collective memories of Indigenous groups today, informing their ongoing struggles for survival and self-determination. Roller's study provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of power, resistance, and cultural adaptation in the Americas, shedding light on the enduring legacies of Indigenous peoples and their contributions to the broader history of the region.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503628106