The Indian Protective Service Accused: The Logic of Defamation in the Dispute for the Control of Indigenous Territories in the State of Amazonas, 1931

Abstract

The present article analyzes the Inquiry into the Indian Inspectorate in Amazonas and Acre, established in 1931 by order of the Federal Intervenor of the Amazonas. Taking as our approach an analysis of regional contexts, we link the inquiry to land conflicts that occurred in the previous decade, which gravitated around the imposition of a commercial monopoly on a resource historically configured as a “remedy for poverty” – Brazil nut trees. We demonstrate how narratives regarding these conflicts were triggered in the inquiry according to a logic that aimed to criminalize indigenous peoples and Indian Protective Service representatives as a way of accumulating legitimacy for the extralegal exercise of power. Finally, we illuminate the symbolic character of these disputes, which sought to restrict the legal meanings of “Indian” in order to question the legitimacy of the Indian Service in its administration of the so-called “semi-civilized peoples” and to restrict indigenous peoples’ access to State resources.