DBM Mamelucos Army

”Their belongings must have become thoroughly worn and torn by the forest, soaked from the rains and the river rapids, and stained from the owner’s sweat, food, and the blood of’ innumerable scratches and insect bites. After a few weeks in the Brazilian forests, everything starts to smell of the mould of dead leaves that thickly carpet the ground. A bandeirante wore a kerchief and an old felt or leather hat, preferably with a brim against the ants, twigs and snakes that tumble out of jungle branches. He was thickly bearded. His shirts and underwear were cotton and his jacket and breeches of baize or coarse cloth. He wore stirrup stockings and tough hide boots.”

John Hemming, Red Gold, 1987

Mamelucos 1560-1700
Tropical Ag 4. WW, Rv, Wd, RGo, M, Rd, BUA
C-in-C - Sh(F) @ 26 AP 1
Mamelucos - Sh(F) @6AP or Sk(S)@ 4AP 9-27
Bloodhounds - Wb(S) @ 5AP 0-1
Canoes - Bts(I) @ 1AP 0-12
Indian allies: Tupi or Tapuya
Pará Mamelucos only
Indian allies: Amazonian
Paulistas only
Upgrade CinC - LH(I) @5AP 0-1
Upgrade Mamelucos to horsemen -LH(I)@5AP Up to 1/2

This DBM list covers the Mamelucos of São Paulo and Pará (Belém do Pará, at the mouth of the Amazon). Mameluco is a Portuguese word, dervied from the Arabic 'mamlûk', used to identify people of mixed European and Native American descent in South America. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Mameluco referred to organized bands of Portuguese slave-hunters based at São Paulo, also known as bandeirantes, who roamed the vast interior of South America from the Atlantic to the slopes of the Andes, and from the Paraguay to the Orinoco Rivers, raiding the Guaraní-inhabited areas for slaves, being responsible for the expansion of Brazil from its original dimensions delineated by the Tordesilhas Treaty to its current form, mostly in originally Spanish areas. The connection of bandeirantes to mamelucos is that initially only men travelled from Portugal to Brazil, and thus they mostly married native Indian women; thus the founders of the Brazilian expansion of the Portuguese empire had mostly Indian blood, sometimes speaking only Tupi instead of their forefather's Portuguese.Armed with the weapons and attitudes of their fathers and possessing the woodcraft and language of the native tribes they began raiding for slaves from their two strongholds about 1560 for the next two centuries. They were encouraged by the sugar plantation owners in Brazil and other colonies in the Americas. The Portuguese government who wished to discourage Spanish settlement in territories they coveted turned a blind eye to their activities despite laws and religious injunctions against their activities. Regular well trained forces of Mamelucos, often numbering in the thousands, equipped with guns and bloodhounds, sometimes on horse back and assisted by wild Indian tribes armed with bows and blowpipes and poisoned projectiles. raided into the unexplored lands up the Amazon and into the Brazilian highlands slaughtering or carrying off the relatively helpless Indians by the thousands year after year . By the beginning of the 17th century the local areas had been tapped out around São Paulo and the Paulistas began raiding the 12 Jesuit Reduções, prosperous and populated by numerous Guarani tribesmen in the Paraná and Uraguay river basins. Between 1629 and 1631, they netted 60,000 Indians. Their favourite tactic was to catch the Indians at Sunday mass in the Mission cathedrals, and hearing mass from the powerless Jesuits after securing their human booty. The remaining Guarani fled into what is now Argentina and began to rebuild but the Mamelucos followed. After several Spanish settlements were also destroyed the Spanish armed he Guarani in 1639. In 1651, after a series of defeats by the well-trained Guarani the Paulistas turned away and moved into the Mato Grosso area and in the 1690’s began raiding the Jesuit Missões in southern Bolivia until the Indians were again armed and drove them away. Jesuit missions in Mianas in the upper Amazon were destroyed by the Pará Mamelucos in raids between 1682 and 1710. Much of Brazil was explored by these Bandeirantes in their search for slaves.