Diretório dos Índios

Diretório dos Índios (Indian directorate), a legislative code (1757–1798) that secularized the administration of Indian mission villages in Portuguese America. As part of the Pombaline Reforms, the Diretório initially sought to weaken Jesuit economic influence in the Amazon, but in 1758 the code was extended to all of Brazil. To replace the missionaries, local governors appointed lay directors who were to stimulate settled agriculture, encourage mixed marriages, and facilitate the adoption of the Portuguese language and customs. The code was strengthened by other decrees, such as the elevation of missions to the status of vilas (towns) in 1758 and the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759. In practice, the directors frequently disregarded Diretório guidelines and, entitled to one-sixth of the villages' output, organized forced-labor drafts and abusive collecting expeditions for personal gain.

As a "civilizing" project, the Diretório failed miserably. It was, in effect, more interested in the exploitation of native labor than in the development of a social program. As a result, the Diretório period proved disastrous for the Indians, as village populations declined, communal lands were usurped, and ethnic identity became eroded. Repeated complaints of corruption and abuses led to the abolition of the Diretório in 1798.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Colin Mac Lachlan, "The Indian Directorate. Forced Acculturation in Portuguese America," in The Americas 28 (1972): 357-387, provides a detailed treatment, with particular emphasis on the Amazon. A more general discussion may be found in John Hemming, Amazon Frontier (1987).

Additional Bibliography

Anderson, Robin L. Colonization As Exploitation in the Amazon Rain Forest, 1758–1911. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.

Queiroz, Jonas Marçal de, and Mauro Cezar Coelho. Amazônia: modernização e conflito, séculos XVIII e XIX. Belém: Universidade Federal do Pará, 2001.

                                    John M. Monteiro