A history of Indigenous lawfare in Brazil: Alexandre Pelegrino, ‘Fighting Against Land Dispossession: Indigenous Power, Legal Activism, and Race in Brazil (Maranhão, c. 1750–1830)’, The Journal of the Civil War Era, 16, 2, 2026, pp. 267-293 | settler colonial studies blog

A history of Indigenous lawfare in Brazil: Alexandre Pelegrino, ‘Fighting Against Land Dispossession: Indigenous Power, Legal Activism, and Race in Brazil (Maranhão, c. 1750–1830)’, The Journal of the Civil War Era, 16, 2, 2026, pp. 267-293

13May26

Abstract: This article traces Indigenous land disputes in nineteenth-century Brazil, centering on a claim from a small village in northern Brazil in the 1820s and the 1830s. It analyzes how a local Indigenous community fought in court to annul an aforamento, a practice similar to land leasing, conceded to the settler Mateus Severino de Avelar. The proceedings reveal how Indigenous groups successfully drew on colonial practices and forged alliances with other Luso-Brazilian settlers to defend against the encroachment of their lands. Broadly, the article demonstrates that Indigenous land dispossession was neither a linear nor an inevitable process and that its study sheds insights onto local legal cultures and institutions.

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