Paper short abstract:

The wide-ranging network of missions, situated on the banks of the Amazon river and its main tributaries, but also along the sea shore, not only concentrated the main labour force, the Indians, but also stabilized the Portuguese dominion over the this frontier region by controlling the waterways.

Paper long abstract:

The wide-ranging network of missions under the control of diverse religious orders, especially the Jesuits, stabilized throughout the 17th and the first half of the 18th century the Portuguese dominion in the still unsecured Amazon Region. The integration of the numerous indigenous peoples into the colonial project in this frontier area was absolutely vital for the authorities and the orders, both as labour force (gathering and/or cultivation of rainforest products, such as cacao, clove bark, sarsaparilla or copaiba oil) and guides of the canoes. The embarkations were indispensable for the transportation of the harvested products, but also of soldiers or missionaries heading upstream into the backlands. Within the labyrinthic system of waterways, which were constantly submitted to modification due to the effects of strong water flow and annual flooding, the contact between the rather isolated colonial establishments - missions, forts and farms - depended on reliable rowers and pilots, known as "jacumaúbas". The paper will discuss the importance of these colonial agents within the region's "fluviality" - rather than territoriality - and, as well, Indian self-assertion, highlighting their relation with the mission system, to which most of them were closely attached. For that reason, chronicles and reports of Jesuit missionaries, mainly João Felipe Bettendorff, José de Morais and João Daniel, are being analyzed to understand more profoundly the rather large scope of activity and the differentiated - and, to a certain extent, ambiguous - status that the indigenous navigators enjoyed within the colonial society, still in way of consolidation during the 17th and 18th century.