Fighting Against Land Dispossession: Indigenous Power, Legal Activism, and Race in Brazil (Maranhão, c. 1750–1830)

Abstract: This article traces Indigenous land disputes in nineteenth-century Brazil, centering on a claim from a small village in northern Brazil in the 1820s and the 1830s. It analyzes how a local Indigenous community fought in court to annul an aforamento, a practice similar to land leasing, conceded to the settler Mateus Severino de Avelar. The proceedings reveal how Indigenous groups successfully drew on colonial practices and forged alliances with other Luso-Brazilian settlers to defend against the encroachment of their lands. Broadly, the article demonstrates that Indigenous land dispossession was neither a linear nor an inevitable process and that its study sheds insights onto local legal cultures and institutions.