Agrarian Expansion and Indigenous Territorialities in Brazilian Liberal Formation, 1870–1910

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between agrarian expansion and Indigenous territorialities in Brazil during the formation of the liberal agro-export economy between 1870 and 1910. Drawing on the historiography of Indigenous peoples, agrarian history, and territorial change, it adopts a comparative approach to regions associated with major commodities, including coffee, sugar, cotton, cocoa, and rubber. Rather than treating these as isolated regional processes, the article identifies recurring patterns in how agrarian and extractive frontiers, state policies, and legal frameworks reshaped Indigenous territories across the Empire. It argues that the consolidation of a liberal agro-export order depended on incorporating Indigenous territories into expanding regimes of private property, labour, and commodity production. The 1850 Land Law, Indigenous policies, the creation and dismantling of aldeamentos, and the classification of Indigenous-occupied lands as terras devolutas were central to this process, although their effects varied regionally. Infrastructure projects, scientific surveys, colonization initiatives, and changing forms of land administration likewise contributed to the territorial reorganization of Indigenous lands. At the same time, the comparison highlights the diverse ways in which Indigenous peoples negotiated, contested, and adapted to these transformations, including through participation in emerging labour and property regimes, individual landholding, and the collective retention of territories. By bringing regional histories into dialogue, the article extends previous interpretations to a broader national scale, arguing that Brazil’s liberal order was inseparable from the reorganization of Indigenous territories and the contested transformation of land, labour, and property.