Genocide of Indigenous peoples in Brazil: ~800,000 (mar 1, 1900 – jun 1, 1957)

Description:

The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (1900-1950 period) was carried out by the Brazilian Republic, the Indian Protection Service (Serviço de Proteção ao Índio - SPI, established 1910), powerful landowners (fazendeiros), rubber plantation owners, state and federal authorities, and settler militias against the Indigenous peoples of Brazil, including over 80 distinct tribes such as the Cinta Larga, Cinturão Largo, Aikanã, Kanôc, Kwazá, Salamái, Pataxó, Umutima, and numerous other tribes in Maranhão, Mato Grosso, and Amazon regions between 1900 and 1957 (period documented by Figueiredo Report, though major genocidal activities intensified during 1940s-1960s), with an estimated death toll between 800,000 (conservative estimate: decline from over one million to around 200,000 by 1957, representing 80% population loss) and significantly higher (with over 80 Indigenous tribes completely destroyed during this period, and Norman Lewis writing in 1969 that "civilisation has sent six million Indians to extinction" since contact).

The perpetrators also engaged in enslavement on rubber plantations, forced labor, forced relocations and death marches (particularly in the 1940s when Aikanã, Kanôc, Kwazá and Salamái tribes were forcibly relocated to work on rubber plantations with many starving to death during the journey), systematic spread of diseases including deliberate introduction of smallpox into isolated villages and donation of sugar mixed with strychnine as poison, mass executions and massacres (including the Massacre at the 11th Parallel where 30 Cinturão Largo were attacked with only two survivors, and dynamite dropped from aeroplanes on Cinta Larga communities), torture using devices like "the trunk" which slowly crushed ankles and hanging victims by thumbs, rape and sexual violence, burning victims alive, land theft and illegal appropriation of Indigenous territories, village destruction, confiscation of children sold as servants, misuse of funds meant for Indigenous protection, systematic extermination through bacteriological warfare, and complete annihilation of entire tribes (particularly in Maranhão where some tribes were completely wiped out).

It has been labeled as genocide by public prosecutor Jader de Figueiredo Correia (who wrote in his 1967 report "The Indian Protection Service has degenerated to the point of chasing Indians to extinction"), journalist Norman Lewis (whose 1969 Sunday Times article 'Genocide' exposed the atrocities and directly led to the founding of Survival International), anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro (who documented the near-extinction and predicted complete disappearance by 1980), Survival International (founded in 1969 specifically in response to the genocide), the National Truth Commission (which investigated human rights violations 1947-1988 and concluded entire tribes were eradicated), genocide scholars Adam Jones and Wendy Lower, numerous Brazilian and international historians and anthropologists, and human rights organizations worldwide, though Brazil's government initially denied genocide charges at the UN in 1969 and has never officially recognized the genocide, with not a single person jailed despite 134 officials being charged with over 1,000 crimes.

Interesting fact:

The 7,000-page Figueiredo Report was commissioned by the Minister of the Interior in 1967 and caused an international outcry but then disappeared for over 40 years. The report was believed to have been destroyed by a fire at the agriculture ministry soon after it came out, prompting suspicions of a cover-up, but was rediscovered in 2012 in the Museum of the Indian in Rio de Janeiro.

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