Tupi Leaders under Colonial Rule: Strategies and Trajectories in Portuguese and Dutch America

Archetype for the savage king in French Renaissance travel literature and iconography, the figure of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tupi chief continues to inspire discussion among ethnologists, historians, and literary critics. Focusing on recent historical research and discussing the evidence from colonial sources, this paper examines the more prosaic existence of Tupi leaders as social actors seeking to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by an encroaching Atlantic world. More specifically, the problems of ethnic soldiering, literacy, and the organization of colonial labor provide a focus for discussing the problems of alliance, ethnogenesis, honor and privilege in both the Portuguese and Dutch Atlantic worlds. The first section will discuss the role of Tupi leaders as allies and fathers-in-law in the consolidation of early colonial settlements; the second will analyze the divergent roles of Potiguar leaders during the establishment of Dutch rule in northeastern Brazil; and the third will approach the quest by Tabajara leaders for special privileges in early eighteenth-century Ceará.