Editing Indigenous peoples in Brazil (section)

====First contacts====
[[File:Os Filhos de Pindorama. Cannibalism in Brazil in 1557.jpg|thumb|16th century depiction of [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] in the Brazilian Tupinambá tribe, as described by [[Hans Staden]] ]]
[[File:Dança dos Tapuias.jpg|thumb|A painting by [[Albert Eckhout]] (Dutch), [[#Native people after the European colonization|Tapuias]] (Brazil) dancing, 17th c.]]

When the [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]] explorers first arrived in Brazil in April 1500, they found, to their astonishment, a wide coastline rich in resources and teeming with hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people living in a "paradise" of natural abundance. [[Pero Vaz de Caminha]], the official scribe of [[Pedro Álvares Cabral]], the commander of the discovery fleet that landed in the present state of [[Bahia]], wrote a letter to the King of Portugal describing in glowing terms the beauty of the land.

In "Histoire des découvertes et conquêtes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde,"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Histoire des découvertes et conquestes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde {{!}} Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) |url=http://eada.lib.umd.edu/text-entries/histoire-des-decouvertes-et-conquestes-des-portugais-dans-le-nouveau-monde/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=eada.lib.umd.edu}}</ref> Lafitau described the natives as people who wore no clothing but painted their entire bodies red. Their ears, noses, lips, and cheeks were pierced. The men would shave the front, top of the head, and over the ears, while women typically wore their hair loose or in braids. Both men and women accessorized with noisy porcelain collars and bracelets, feathers, and dried fruits. Lafitau also described the ritualistic nature of their cannibalism practices and highlighted the important role of women in the household.

Before the arrival of Europeans, the territory of present-day Brazil had an estimated population of between 1 and 11.25 million inhabitants.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Estimated Indigenous populations of the Americas at the time of European contact, beginning in 1492|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171896/pre-colonization-population-americas/|access-date=2023-04-20}}</ref> During the first 100 years of contact, the Amerindian population was reduced by 90%. This drastic decline was primarily due to diseases and illnesses brought by the colonists, compounded by slavery and European violence.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Brazilian Indians|url=https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/brazilian|website=survivalinternational.org/tribes/brazilian|access-date=2021-07-07}}</ref> The Indigenous people were traditionally semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migratory agriculture. For centuries, they lived semi-nomadic lives, managing the forests to meet their needs.

When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the natives primarily inhabited the coast and the banks of major rivers. Initially, Europeans viewed them as [[noble savage]]s, and [[miscegenation]] began almost immediately. Portuguese claims of tribal warfare, [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]], and the pursuit of Amazonian [[brazilwood]] for its prized red dye convinced the colonists that they needed to "civilize" the natives (originally, the Portuguese named Brazil [[Terra de Santa Cruz]], but it later acquired its current name (see [[List of meanings of countries' names]]) from the [[brazilwood]]). However, like the Spanish in North America, the Portuguese brought diseases to which many Amerindians had no immunity. [[Measles]], [[smallpox]], [[tuberculosis]], and [[influenza]] caused the deaths of tens of thousands. The diseases spread rapidly along Indigenous trade routes, likely leading to the annihilation of entire tribes without direct contact with Europeans.

By 1800, the population of [[Colonial Brazil]] had reached approximately 2.33 million, of which only around 174,900 were Indigenous. By 1850, that number had dwindled to an estimated 78,400 out of a total population of 5.8 million.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bucciferro |first=Justin R. |title=A Forced Hand: Natives, Africans, and the Population of Brazil, 1545-1850 |journal=Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History |publisher=Cambridge University Press (CUP) |volume=31 |issue=2 |date=2013-07-03 |issn=0212-6109 |doi=10.1017/s0212610913000104 |pages=285–317 |url=https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/bitstream/handle/10016/27364/RHE-2013-XXXI-Bucciferro.pdf |language=English |access-date=24 September 2021|hdl=10016/27364 |s2cid=154533961 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>