ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to discuss the indigenous forced labor in the province of Pará between 1821 and 1831. We highlighted that the province of Pará was fully dependent on this workforce that was very important in the province of Pará, the reason for many conflicts among authorities that fought for the control of these men. At the same time we bring the indigenous protagonism to the main stage of the actions and we highlight that these men were not disconnected from the political debate of this period. In this context, in the first part of this article, we demonstrate that in the period between 1821 and 1825 there is a strong appropriation of liberal debate by indigenous that wanted to refuse forced labor, at the same time that these men were envolved in immense armed conflicts. The second part of this article demonstrates that after 1825 the exploitation of these forced laborers was kept despite being contested in the preceding period. We intend to apprehend both the continuities and the changes of indigenous resistance until 1831, as the main mechanism to recruit this workforce was abolished in this year.
Keywords:
Brazilian Empire; forced labour; indigenous