Into the Hinterland

Bandeiras
Beginning in 1619, the Bandeirantes intensified attacks against the Jesuit reductions, and Guarani artisans and farmers were enslaved en masse. However, long before the first settlements began in the Prata basin, the Paulistas were already roaming the hinterland, seeking in the preaching of the indigenous the means for their subsistence.

This "interior vocation" was fueled by a series of geographical, economic, and social conditions. Separated from the coast by the wall of the Serra do Mar, São Paulo returned to the sertão (hinterland), whose penetration was facilitated by the presence of the Tietê river and its tributaries that linked the Paulistas with the distant interior. In addition, although it was distant from the main mercantile centres, its population had grown a lot. It is that a good part of the inhabitants of São Vicente had migrated there when the sugar cane plantations planted in the coast by Martim Afonso de Sousa went into decay, already in the second half of the sixteenth century, ruining many farmers. Connected to a subsistence culture based on slave labor of the Indians, the Paulistas began their expeditions of arrest (or preaching) in 1562, when João Ramalho attacked the tribes of the Paraíba river valley.

The reductions organised by the Jesuits in the interior of the continent were for the Paulistas a gift from the heavens: they gathered thousands of Indians trained in agriculture and manual labor, far more valuable than the ferocious Tapuias of "tongue-tied". In the seventeenth century, Dutch control over African markets, during the period of occupation of the Northeast, interrupted the slave trade. The settlers then turned to indigenous labor. This increase in demand caused a rise in the prices of Indian slaves, considered as "blacks of the land", and cost, on average, five times less than the African slaves. The precariousness of the bandeiras thus became a highly profitable activity. For the Paulistas, attacking the Jesuit reductions was the easiest route to enrichment.

In the face of the attacks, the Jesuits began to retreat inland and demanded arms from the Spanish government. The response was a new offensive, this time triggered by the Asunción authorities in Paraguay which had economic ties with the settlers of Brazil. Even after the end of the Iberian Union, in 1640, when the Guarani finally received arms from the Spaniards, the Paulistas were supported by Bishop Bernardino de Cárdenas, enemy of the Jesuits and governor of Paraguay. The Iberian kingdoms could fight each other in Europe; however, the Guarani community "republics" were the common enemy of all those who were interested in the unlimited exploitation of American lands.

São Paulo
By 1623, when the bandeirismo of arrest was intensified, São Paulo de Piratininga was a small town with a hundred houses of taipa, in whose streets the animals grazed freely. The Paulistas then lived on their farms and farms, meeting in the village only on the occasion of feasts, especially those of a religious character. In this context, it was up to women to watch over daily life, while men made war on the Indians or took care of their business.
In the seventeenth century, this female village had only about two hundred "leather" inhabitants, capable of placing themselves at the head of the flags. However, the vast majority were a multitude of mestizo descendants, born of numerous indigenous concubines. It was this connection with the native, initiated by João Ramalho, that allowed the Paulistas to unravel the paths of the jungle.
A Town Uninhabited by Men
In 1623, so many bandeiras went out that São Paulo became almost a village of women and old men. In that year, Henrique da Cunha Gago and Fernão Dias Leme, uncle of Fernão Dias Pais, as well as Sebastião and Manuel Preto, among others, entered the hinterland once again hunting Indians. The following year, the bandeirantes protested, outraged, against a provision of the governor, who assigned to the Crown a fifth of the captured Indians. The arrest had become a major economic activity. They should, therefore, pay taxes, in the same way as whaling and the brazilwood trade.

At that time, the expeditions of arrest and those of prospecting had different forms of organisation. The first ones, structured militarily by D. Francisco de Souza and later by Manuel Preto and António Raposo Tavares, gathered thousands of Indians, led by a few hundred Mamelucos and Portuguese. Companies were divided up with staffs, vanguards, and flankers. The basic weapons were the bow and arrow, but they also had guns. The prospecting bandeiras were much smaller: some dozens of sertanistas who crept through the woods, trying to pass unnoticed by the warlike tribes. Their armament was light, for defense against possible indigenous and of animals attacks .

Among the points common to both types of expedition were the absence of pack animals and the avoidance of waterways. The regions covered were rocky or covered by woods, more easily crossed by men who were on the march. As for the rivers, it was with them that the majority of the tribes were located: the river route would have nullified any surprise effect essential to the success of the capture. it was only in the eighteenth century, when the Cuiabá mines were discovered, that the monsoons began to follow the Tietê River - or Anhembi, as it was then called - towards the mining centres of Mato Grosso. 
The Mamlelucos
The close contact with the forestry was also reflected in the material culture. The houses, furnished with little furniture, were allied with European and Indian elements: wooden furniture, cots, tables, and coffers to store the small clothing - so scarce that it passed from father to son, consisting of inventories - animal skins scattered on the floor and where the discoverers of mines and diamonds slept. Clay pots, troughs, and rough utensils served the kitchens, and the feeding consisted of beans, meat from hunted animals, or fish, as well as fruit. Among the cereals stood the corn, which soon supplanted the cassava. In addition to these products of native origin, honey was another indigenous legacy, a source of energy widely used in the incursions into the hinterland.
The Price of Prosperity
In the eighteenth century, enriched by the discovery of another, São Paulo won tile roofed houses. The house number then reached four hundred; the first African slaves and the finest porcelain came from the Kingdom or the Indies. The price of this enrichment, however, was the end of the tolerant paternalism with which the Crown treated the Paulistas, loyal subjects, but at times somewhat rebellious. The enslavement of the Indians was formally forbidden, but the Metropolis looked to the gorssa and even pardoned certain slips, even giving honours to the poor people who would "seek their life, their way of profit" amid the dangers of the hinterland.
With the discovery of gold, however, things have changed. From then on, the Crown proceeded to exercise a strict watch on the captaincy. For to pay his commitments to England, Portugal needed every yellow nugget that sparkled in the lands of São Paulo and Minas do Ouro.
The Paulistas in The Northeast
Arriving in Brazil, at the head of a powerful navy, in January 1639, the Count of Torre had the mission of expelling the Dutch from the Northeast. After passing through Bahia, he reached Rio de Janeiro, where he asked Governor Salvador Correia de Sá and Benevides to gather reinforcements in the captaincy of São Vicente. The governor, on the other hand, transferred the task to D. Francisco Rendon de Quebedo, son-in-law of Amador Bueno. After much effort, Quebedo was able to join only 22 infantry and 54 Indians, a somewhat ridiculous amount for those who wanted to expel the Dutch from Brazil. In fact, the Paulistas were more interested in hunting Indians out of the Jesuitical reductions than in fighting the fierce enemies in the distant Northeast. Faced with this, the authorities decided to grant pardon to all "criminals" who presented themselves. Now, bandeirismo was formally considered a crime. But it was also the main activity of the Paulistas. Then the adhesions rained at Quebedo's appeal. João Sutil de Oliveira, "enlisted for the end of his father, Francisco Sutil de Oliveira, to obtain pardon for the many flags in which he took part", and Alberto de Oliveira, "son of Rafael de Oliveira , the Old Man, who made all the expenses of the arming, to be pardoned of the entrances that he made to the hinterland." But the most famous Bandeirante that decided to participate in the expedition was António Raposo Tavares. Reinforced, thus, by the sertanistas, the São Paulo body joined the Count of the Tower in Rio de Janeiro, at the end of 1639. But it was defeated at sea, along with the Portuguese-Spanish fleet, off the coast of Paraíba the following year . The Bandeirantes then disembarked in Rio Grande do Norte, retiring to Bahia, under the orders of Raposo Tavares and Luís Barbalho. Next, Raposo Tavares, after crossing the hinterland, returned to São Paulo to obtain reinforcements, while a group of Bandeirantes continued in the fight against the Dutch. According to some reports, part of the expedition made a much more extensive voyage: when the fleet dispersed on the coast of Paraíba, fleeing before the Dutch, some ships with Bandeirantes continued sailing until arriving at Cartagena de las Indias (Colombia).
Departing From São Paulo
The Paulistas would not have been able to attack the missions for years in a row if they did not have the extensive and veiled support of the colonial authorities. Although it is not known which expeditions were promoted by the Crown and those of private initiative, and the designation of entrances and flags was equally imprecise, the common trait to all of them was the presence, direct or indirect, of the public power. Often it was this that financed the expedition; others only closed their eyes to the enslavement of the Indians (illegal since 1595), accepting the pretext of "just war".
The "Defensive" Wars
Public interest and private interest were interconnected from the "defensive" expeditions of the sixteenth century, directed against the tribes of the Paraíba valley, Anhembi (Tietê), Mogi-Guaçu and other rivers of São Paulo headed by the captains-mores and authorities, these attacks preserved the settlement nucleus on the plateau - and revealed the economic potentials of "Indian hunting" (preaching). During the government of Jerónimo Leitão, who was chief captain of São Paulo from 1579 to 1592, the officers of the Chamber decided, "in the name of the people," that the war be carried to the Carijos, Tupino and Tupiniquins. The front of forces composed of Mamelucos, Jerónimo Leitão ravaged the villages of Anhembi for six years, enslaving many Indians.
In Search of Gold
The offensive bandeirismo, of arrest, coincided with the arrival in São Paulo, in 1599, of D. Francisco de Sousa, seventh governor-general of Brazil (1591-1602). Certain of the existence of precious metals in the interior, D. Francisco organised several entrances, that left of diverse points of the Colony. In addition, it assigned official structures to the expeditions, which received military divisions, field ombudsmen, clerks and chaplains, in addition to pre-determined scripts.
Sponsored by D. Francisco were the flags of André de Leon (1601) and Nicolau Barreto (1602). The former sought silver mines and crossed the hinterland for nine months, following the valleys of the Tietê and Paraíba rivers, passing Mantiqueira and reaching the springs of the São Francisco river. The second extended for two years. He would have arrived in the region of Guairá, returning with a considerable number of Indians, which some sources estimate in 3000.
From then on coexisted the exploration expeditions (search of precious metals) and of capture ("hunting to the Indian"), and defined the general lines of the bandeirante expansion. Taking their flags to the south, the Paulistas reached the reductions of the Tape and of the river Uruguay to the southwest, those of the Guairá; and to the west, those of Itatim. But there were also expeditions that toured the lands of Minas Gerais; others, crossing the Goiás and Matogrosso hinterland, ascended the tributaries of the Amazon and reached the great river, while others were confronted in the São Francisco basin with the northeastern cattle breeders' march inland. Brazilian territory defined its contours, gained internal cohesion - and the bandeirantes, already famous for knowing the dangers of the sertão were called by the authorities to fight distant enemies: the Dutch, the "brave Indians" of the sugar northeastern and the blacks who rebelled against the regime of slavery.
Into the Hinterland
Even before Martim Afonso's arrival in São Vicente in 1532, Indian hunting was practice in the region. The Portuguese who had settled there dedicated themselves to the rescue of slaves and prisoners of war of the tribes with which they had friendly contacts. Two centres of traffic were distinguished: Tumiam, in the old village that preceded the town of São Vicente, and the one of Cananéia, with Antônio Rodrigues ahead and the famous Bachelor, being that it belonged to João Ramalho and his mamelucos established in the plateau supply the first of those warehouses.

The Vincentians knew how to take advantage of the Tupiniquins' fights with Carijós and Tupinambás to increase the traffic with the prisoners made in these wars, which "descended to S. Vicente, then known as the mouth of the Sertão and the port of the slaves." They pushed the settlers to the regions of San Francisco do Sul and Laguna, depopulating them from Indians. Still others sought the Paraguayans by bartering them with the Spaniards for iron and other merchandise. As São Paulo de Piratininga was replacing Santo André as an advanced point of colonisation of the sertão, the indigenous resistance to the occupation of its lands became active. The reaction of Carijós and Tamoios caused that expeditions against them were organised, from São Paulo. These were the so-called "defensive struggles" or "just wars", which eventually "cleared" the indigenous lands while justifying their enslavement. Numerous rush against them were made in this period through the valleys of Paraíba, Tietê, Moji Guaçu and Alto do Paranapanema. Jerónimo Leitão, captain-general of the Captaincy of São Vicente (1571-1592), stood out in the fight against the Tamoios in Rio de Janeiro and against the Tupiniquins and Carijós in the Tietê valley. In 1581, heading southwest, crossed the Paranapanema and reached the region of Guayrá, where he would make new incursions in the following years, from there bringing the first waves of Indians.

This sixteenth-century bandeirismo - mistakenly called a defensive one, for if one had something to defend were the natives, of whom the Portuguese threatened not only the lands and the freedom, as the life itself - was directed by captains-mores, governors or prepositions officers of these leaders and represented a preparatory phase of what would occur in the seventeenth century, since it enabled the Vincentians to capture the man of the land and the penetration of the hinterland.

In the early seventeenth century, Holland, claiming itself in the Atlantic domain, disrupted the slave trade into the New World colonies. Given the difficulties posed by the Dutch threat to trade and the African labor squares, the flow of the "commodity" to a series of colony points diminished, which, resenting the shortage of slaves for work, became interested again in the indigenous. It was the Paulistas who were able to take advantage of the new market that was opening up. It compensated them now to make the capture of the Indian a great company, attractive for the investment of the inhabitants of the captaincy, who collaborated in various ways, hoping to profit from the rescue of Indians in great quantity to be sold in the squares of Rio, Espírito Santo and Bahia.
Organisation of the Bandeiras
São Paulo was a small town. The bush grew everywhere. But it was to this village that the tired Bandeirantes like Raposo Tavares returned from the adventures..

In the first decade of the seventeenth century, shortly after Nicolau Barreto's return with innumerable "pieces" (the so-called slaves, Indians or blacks) were captured, the Paulistas threw themselves into the hinterland.
The bandeiras of Diogo de Quadros (1606), Manuel Preto (1606-1607), and Belchior Dias Rodrigues (1607-1609) were thus succeeded. The former warred the Carijós, Manuel Preto returned from the region of Guairá with Indians, used in his farm of Our Lady of the Hope. The other two bandeiras followed to the region of the "bilreiros" Indians, unidentified tribe, probably located between the rivers Paraná, Paraguay and Araguaia. The truth is that the expedition of Martim Rodrigues was totally destroyed.
In 1610 the entries of Clemente Álvares, Cristóvão de Aguiar and Brás Golçalves left, all directed to the backwoods of the Carijós. The next year was Diogo Fernandes and Pêro Vaz de Barros - the latter at the head of a bandeira organised by D. Luís de Souza, son of D. Francisco de Souza, destined to imprison Indians in the Guairá missions to work in the Mines of Araçoiaba. In 1612, Sebastião Preto went to Guairá, returning with many Indians. Three years later, Lázaro da Costa took a south course, while Antônio Pedroso Alvarenga carried his flag to the sertões of Goias, reaching Tocantins and its tributaries.
The organisation of the Bandeiras coincided with the government of D. Francisco de Sousa, arrived in Brazil in 1599, the intensification of the activity of the flags, centred in São Paulo. It dates from the beginning of the great flags, organised and disciplined with military divisions, field ombudsmen, clerks, chaplains and established itineraries. The term flag was initially applied to Portuguese militia companies, which by their regiment should consist of 250 men. This rule was not valid here, however, since it was named after an expedition of fifteen or twenty men to others with hundreds of members. Most, on any flag, consisted of indigenous auxiliaries, slaves or free, used as road pickers, food pickers, guides, porters, and so on, while the white and mestizo Paulistas formed the nucleus. "Over time, the Paulistas became as skilled in the arts of the sertão and the bushland as the Amerindians were, or even, according to some contemporaries," like the beasts themselves. "These flags frequently travelled the interior for months and years. even though they used to plant cassava in forest clearings and camped in the vicinity until the time of harvest, but mostly they depended on hunting, fish they got from rivers, fruit, herbs, roots and wild honey. They used bow and arrow as much as muskets and other firearms, and, except for the weapons they carried, they set out on their journey with remarkably light luggage.

Most of the present-day representations of the seventeenth-century Paulistas, whether in painting or in sculpture, show them as a kind of Pilgrim Father in his dress, and in high riding boots. But, in fact, they seem to have done very little except for the broad-brimmed cape, beard, shirt, and coats. They walked almost always barefoot, in Indian file, along the outback trails and the bush paths, although they often carried a variety of weapons. His garments also included thickly padded cotton gibbons which proved so useful against the Amerindian arrows that in 1683 it was suggested that they be used in the war against the warlike natives of Angola on the other side of the Atlantic. The feminine element was still present in the larger bandeiras, for although the Paulistas did not take legal wives on their expeditions, they were often accompanied by Amerindian women, such as cooks and concubines.

The first bandeiras, however, had in view the search for precious metals and stones, as those of André Leão (1601), who sought silver mines, reaching as far as the sources of the São Francisco; and the bandeira of Nicolau Barreto (1602), which took two years in the Sertão, provoking divergences as to the point reached, whether it was the valley of the San Francisco or the Silver or Peru.

After the departure of Francisco de Sousa to Portugal, the Paulistas continued in their penetrations, although in search of the immediate profit through the capture of natives. Thus were the bandeiras of Diogo de Quadros and that of Manuel Preto in 1606 and that of Belchior Dias Carneiro in 1607. It was, however, the great mass of Indians "domesticated" present in the Spanish Jesuit reductions, who greatly encouraged the the first half of the seventeenth century.