Without Arms to Row or Plow: Everyday Forms of Rebellion in the Making of a Depopulated Amazon

The period from the end of the Directorate of Indians to the Cabanagem Rebellion (1798-1840) coincided with the age of Atlantic revolutions and wars of independence in Grão-Pará, present-day Brazil. In this context, I analyze how the use of idleness in disputes over access and management of labor in Grão-Pará intensified political episodes of violent rebellion among different socio-racial groups. These conflicts, I argue, reinforced narratives of a depopulated rainforest. Without the Directorate, militias tried to monopolize Indigenous peoples’ labor through military conscription. Fearing labor-shortage, merchant-planters denounced the militia’s' abuse followed by complaints on the limits of African slavery and the gradual abolition transatlantic slave trade. By treating political events like Brazil's independence as an imperial transition and a colonial continuity, I argue that Brazil transformed itself from a Portuguese colony to an independent empire with its own peripheral territories to be colonized, while reproducing narratives and practices of depopulation to secure Brazilian territorial unity and control over the region.