In the course of sixty years, a group of Indigenous Guarani people built with Jesuits an autonomous community in a territory which today borders Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Given the impositions set forth in the Treaty of Madrid (1750), which redefined how the Americas would be divided between Portugal and Spain, this population rebelled against the troops of both nations. Known as the Guarani Wars (1753-56), these conflicts sought to defend a way of life that clashed with the decisions of the Crowns.
A few years later, the Bloody Beach Revolt (1790) broke out in the region of what is now Roraima state, in which local inhabitants, such as the Macuxi and the Wapishana, revolted against the violence committed by Portuguese settlers and soldiers. Its outcome was the massacre of hundreds of Indigenous people. This was one of the countless attempts at resistance by these peoples in the face of all the abuse suffered for decades.
Both events – one took place in the far south and another one in the far north – exemplify how the formation of the border of what today is configured as the Brazilian territory did not happen peacefully. They echo in contemporary demands and struggle for land rights, which propose other models of political and administrative articulation.