A Tapuya “Equestrian Nation”?
A Tapuya “Equestrian Nation”?

Horses and Native Peoples in the Backlands of Colonial Brazil

Author(s): Felipe Vander Velden
Subject(s): History, Cultural history, Local History / Microhistory
Published by: Trivent Publishing
Keywords: Horse; South America; Tapuya Indians; equestrian culture; colonial Brazil.
Summary/Abstract: This article brings together and analyzes several historical sources to argue that an equestrian culture or horse nation emerged (albeit briefly) among certain indigenous groups known as Tapuya in the sertão badlands of northeastern Brazil. Based on Portuguese and Dutch accounts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I suggest that while the expansion of cattle ranching in this region was certainly marked by violence and brutality, this movement also permitted Amerindian peoples to make various connections and carry out a number of new activities including incorporating the horse and technologies associated with raising and riding horses, and to use these resources in pursuing indigenous social, economic and political goals.

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