Indigenous political performance in the city council of Monte-mor Novo Indian village in Ceará

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the indigenous political performance through the Monte-mor Novo city council in the context of intense changes between the Ancien Régime crisis and the formation of the Brazilian national state. It is also intended to highlight how the Indians of the smallest indigenous population among the indigenous village in Ceará put themselves in these events and how their spaces and prerogatives were affected in the construction of the new country. The analysis of the records made it possible to perceive the administrative skills of the indigenous people in the space that was guaranteed by law, although at a numerical disadvantage, living with non-Indians in situations of political equity. It was also possible to assess the gradual loss of its guarantees from the 1820s and the performance of the indigenous people in the nascent nation-state, until the end of the condition of an Indian village in 1830.