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The Omagua people (also known as the Umana, Cambeba, and Kambeba) are an
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
in
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
's Amazon Basin. Their territory, when first in contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century, was on the Amazon River upstream from the present-day city of Manaus extending into
Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
. They speak the Omagua language. The Omagua exist today in small numbers, but they were a populous, organized society in the late
Pre-Columbian era In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...
. Their population suffered steep decline, mostly from infectious diseases, in the early years of the Columbian Exchange. During the 18th century, the Omagua largely abandoned their indigenous identity in response to prejudice and racism that marginalized aboriginal peoples in Brazil and Peru. More tolerant attitudes led to a renewed tribal identity starting in the 1980s. The name ''Cambeba'' seems to have been applied by other neighboring tribes and refers to the Omagua custom of flattening their children's heads by binding a piece of wood to the forehead soon after birth. Omagua women would jeer at the women from other tribes, saying that their heads were "round like those of forest savages." In the 18th century, the Omaguas would point out to travelers that their flattened foreheads were a sign of cultural superiority over their neighbors, and for a long time they resisted abandoning this custom, even under missionary pressure.David Graham Sweet, "Samuel Fritz, S. J. and the Founding of the Portuguese Carmelite Mission to the Solimões," chapter 6 of ''A Rich Realm of Nature Destroyed: The Middle Amazon Valley, 1640-1750.'' Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974.
/ref>


Pre-Columbian era

Recent archaeological work has revealed evidence of semi-domesticated orchards, as well as vast areas of land enriched with
terra preta ''Terra preta'' (, locally , literally "black soil" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil ( anthrosol) found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth". In Portuguese its f ...
. Both of these discoveries, along with Cambeba ceramics discovered within the same archaeological levels, suggest that a large and organized civilization existed in the area prior to European contact. There is also evidence for complex large-scale, pre-Columbian social formations, including
chiefdoms A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...
, in many areas of Amazonia (particularly the inter-fluvial regions) and even large towns and cities.Mann, C. C., ed. ''1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,'' University of Texas, 2005
Amazonians may have used ''terra preta'' to make the land suitable for the large-scale agriculture needed to support dense populations and complex social formations such as chiefdoms.


Earliest European contact

Fabulous stories about the wealth of the Cambeba and the search for El Dorado led to several early expeditions into their country, including those of
Georg von Speyer Georg von Speyer (1500, Speyer, Holy Roman Empire – 11 June 1540, Coro, Klein-Venedig) was a German conquistador in New Granada and Venezuela. His birth name was Georg Hohermuth but he chose to call himself after his place of birth. He ...
in 1536, of
Philipp von Hutten Philipp von Hutten (18 December 1505 – 17 May 1546) was a German adventurer and an early European explorer and conquistador of Venezuela. He is a significant figure in the history of Klein-Venedig (1528 - 1546), the concession of Venezuela Prov ...
in 1541 and of
Pedro de Ursúa Pedro de Ursúa (1526 – 1561) was a Spanish conquistador from Baztan in Navarre. He is best known for his final trip with Lope de Aguirre in search for El Dorado, where he found death in a plot. He was born in Arizkun, Baztan, to a Beaumon ...
in 1560.John Hemming, ''Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500–1760'', Harvard University Press, 1978.
In 1541 Hutten led an exploring party of about 150 men, mostly horsemen, from Coro on the coast of
Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
into the Llanos, where they engaged in battle with a large number of Cambebas and Hutten was severely wounded. In 1560 Pedro de Ursúa even took the title of ''Governador del Dorado y de Omagua''.
Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, ...
referred to the supposed location of the mythical golden city, "El Dorado de las Omaguas", as being "between the sources of the Rio Negro, of the Uaupes (Guape), and of the Jupura or Caqueta."Humboldt, Alexander von, ''Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804,'' (chapter 25). Henry G. Bohn, London, 1853.
/ref> The
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
explorer
Francisco de Orellana Francisco de Orellana Bejarano Pizarro y Torres de Altamirano (; 1511 – November 1546) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. In one of the most improbably successful voyages in known history, Orellana managed to sail the length of the Amaz ...
, who was the first European to navigate the full length of the Amazon River (1541–42), reported densely populated regions running hundreds of kilometers along the river, although the people there left no lasting monuments, possibly because they used local wood as their construction material. While it is possible Orellana may have exaggerated the level of development among the Amazonians, their
semi-nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the p ...
descendants are distinguished by having a hereditary yet landless aristocracy, a historical anomaly for a society without a
sedentary Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like soci ...
, agrarian culture. This suggests they once were more settled and agrarian but became
nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...
after the demographic collapse of the 16th and 17th century, due to European-introduced diseases such as
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
and influenza, while still maintaining certain traditions. Moreover, many
indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
adapted to a more mobile lifestyle in order to escape
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
. This might have made the benefits of
terra preta ''Terra preta'' (, locally , literally "black soil" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil ( anthrosol) found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth". In Portuguese its f ...
, such as its self-renewing capacity, less attractive—farmers would not have been able to employ the renewed soil as they migrated for safety.
Gaspar de Carvajal Gaspar de Carvajal ( 1500–1584) was a Spanish Dominican missionary to the New World, known for chronicling some of the explorations of the Amazon. Biography Arrival in the New World and the Amazonian Expedition De Carvajal was born in Truji ...
, who accompanied Orellana, included a description of the Omaguas in his 1542 work ''Relación del nuevo descubrimiento del famoso río Grande que descubrió por muy gran ventura el capitán Francisco de Orellana'' ("Account of the recent discovery of the famous Grand river which was discovered by great good fortune by Captain Francisco de Orellana"), discussing their culture, diet, housing, settlement patterns and political structure. Cristóbal de Acuña, who accompanied
Pedro Teixeira Pedro Teixeira (b.1570-1585 - d.4 July 1641), occasionally referred to as the Conqueror of the Amazon, was a Portuguese explorer and military officer, who became, in 1637, the first European to travel up and down the entire length of the Amazon ...
's 1637-38 expedition along the length of the Amazon, commented extensively on the colorful woven clothing used by the Omaguas, writing that
...all of them go about decently dressed, both the men and women, who weave...not only the clothes they need but also other items traded with their neighbors...they make very beautiful cloth, either woven in different colours or painted so perfectly that it is almost impossible to distinguish between them... Acuña, Christobal de. 1641
Nuevo descubrimiento del gran Rio de las Amazonas
Madrid: Imprenta del Reyno.
Most early chroniclers remarked on the Omagua practice of flattening the head, a practice common among indigenous South American tribes. Acuña described it in his ''Nuevo descubrimiento del gran Rio de las Amazonas'':
All of them have flat heads, which makes the men ugly-looking, though the women disguise the fact more since their heads are covered with abundant hair. The natives are so accustomed to having their heads flattened that as soon as children are born, there are put in a press where the forehead is compressed with a small board and the skull by a much larger board, which, acting as a cot, supports the entire body of the newborn...they end up with the forehead and skull flattened like the palm of the hand...looking more like a deformed bishop’s
mitre The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in ...
than the head of a person.
The practice of head-flattening evidently died out towards the end of the eighteenth century. Later visitors to the region, including Ouvidor Sampaio and Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira were told that the practice was intended to distinguish the Cambeba from other tribes that continued to eat human flesh long after the Cambeba had abandoned this practice. Pedro Teixeira remarked in 1639 that "they are very savage people and though all those living along the river are savage and eat each other, the Kambeba are unsurpassed since they eat nothing other than human meat and use the skulls of those they kill as trophies."


Population estimates

The Cambeba (Omagua) were described by Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the largest and most important of the various nations that inhabited the banks of the Amazon River. In addition to their high population density, the Cambeba were noteworthy for their advanced level of sociopolitical organization. They were a sedentary, civic-minded people who wore clothing and had an identifiable political authority; they also were involved in military conflicts with tribes from the interior, whose prisoners of war were incorporated into Cambeba society as domestic servants. In 1639
Pedro Teixeira Pedro Teixeira (b.1570-1585 - d.4 July 1641), occasionally referred to as the Conqueror of the Amazon, was a Portuguese explorer and military officer, who became, in 1637, the first European to travel up and down the entire length of the Amazon ...
observed over 400 Cambeba villages between the
Javary River The Javary River, Javari River or Yavarí River ( es, Río Yavarí, links=no; pt, Rio Javari, links=no) is a tributary of the Amazon that forms the boundary between Brazil and Peru for more than . It is navigable by canoe for from above it ...
and the Jutaí River, but fifty years later
Samuel Fritz Samuel Fritz SJ (9 April 1654 – 20 March 1725, 1728 or 1730) was a Czech Jesuit missionary, noted for his exploration of the Amazon River and its basin. He spent most of his life preaching to Indigenous communities in the western Amazon r ...
found only 38 villages, many of them located on islands as a means of self-defense. A
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
epidemic in 1648 lasted three months and may have killed up to one third of the population. A second epidemic in 1710 came during a period of warfare. Modern estimates of Cambeba population size at contact range from a very conservative 4,000-7,000, to a credible 91,000. Samuel Fritz and other missionaries began concentrating the scattered indigenous communities into
Jesuit reductions , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...
in order to facilitate religious
indoctrination Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies (see doctrine). Humans are a social animal species inescapably shaped by cultural context, and thus some degree ...
and protect them from enslavement by the Portuguese, but smallpox devastated the population, leaving the region of the upper Solimões uninhabited. In 1745
Charles Marie de La Condamine Charles Marie de La Condamine (28 January 1701 – 4 February 1774) was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and pre ...
wrote in his ''Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'intérieur de l'Amérique Méridionale'',Charles Marie de La Condamine, ''Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'intérieur de l'Amérique méridionale: depuis la côte de la mer du Sud, jusqu'aux côtes du Brésil et de la Guyane, en descendant la rivière des Amazones...,'' Jean-Edme Dufour & Philippe Roux, 1778; University of Lausanne
/ref> that of the 30 Omagua villages marked on Fritz's 1707 map, he saw only ruins, adding that "all the inhabitants, frightened by the incursions of a group of bandits from Pará, who came to enslave them in their own lands, dispersed into the forest and the Spanish and Portuguese missions." Throughout the eighteenth century and until slavery was officially outlawed in Brazil in 1888, forced labor programs destroyed indigenous communities, compelling the natives to abandon their ethnic traditions and adopt the identity of '' caboclos'' (settlers of mixed race). By the late 1980s, it was assumed by many ethnographers such as Betty Jane Meggers that the Cambeba were extinct. Modern-day populations are divided between Peru and Brazil. In 1994 there were approximately 3,500 Omaguas living in the area near Lima, Peru. In Brazil, Omaguas live in several villages on the middle and upper Solimões in Amazonas, in lands predominately occupied by the Ticunas, with smaller groups in Manaus. The Brazilian population is estimated to be around 1,500 people, but an official 2002 census identified only 325 individuals, possibly due to poor census techniques and because those Cambebas living on the Ticuna reservation were counted as Ticunas.


Linguistic controversy

Some linguists argue that the Omagua language is derived from Tupi-Guarani and became a distinct language in relatively recent times, however there is evidence that Omagua and the closely related Kokama language already existed in a form similar to their modern forms by the time European missionaries arrived in Maynas in the 17th century.Michael, Lev . 2014. "On the Pre-Columbian Origin of Proto-Omagua-Kokama." ''Journal of Language Contact'' 7(2):309{344.
/ref> The use of the language has declined due to schooling of young people, and Cambeba is spoken fluently only by tribal elders on formal occasions, in meetings and in some school classes.


Early Jesuit missions

Missionary interactions with the Cambebas began with an expedition led by the
Jesuits , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...
Simón de Rojas and Umberto Coronado to the Upper Napo River in 1620. The expedition spent almost a year with the Cambebas of the Aguarico River area, and by virtue of a bilingual
Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...
-Cambeba translator, produced a number of ecclesiastical texts in Omagua, including a catechism. In 1687,
Samuel Fritz Samuel Fritz SJ (9 April 1654 – 20 March 1725, 1728 or 1730) was a Czech Jesuit missionary, noted for his exploration of the Amazon River and its basin. He spent most of his life preaching to Indigenous communities in the western Amazon r ...
(1654-1725) arrived to begin work converting the Cambeba to Christianity and within a few years had developed his own Cambeba catechism.Lev Michael and Zachary O’Hagan, "A Linguistic Analysis of Old Omagua Ecclesiastical Texts," University of California, Berkeley.
/ref> When Fritz arrived in their territory, the Cambeba inhabited the islands in the middle of the Amazon River, in a region stretching approximately from the confluence of the Amazon and Napo River to the
Juruá River The Juruá River (Portuguese ''Rio Juruá''; Spanish ''Río Yuruá'') is a southern affluent river of the Amazon River west of the Purus River, sharing with this the bottom of the immense inland Amazon depression, and having all the characteristic ...
. Towards the end of his first year among the Omaguas, he began a lengthy journey downriver to visit all thirty-eight existing villages, spending two months at each one. He renamed them using the names of
patron saints A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. I ...
, constructed several rudimentary chapels and baptized mainly children because he found most adults to be insufficiently indoctrinated, as well as "reluctant to give up entirely certain heathen abuses." At the conclusion of this journey, which lasted about three years, he conducted a baptismal ceremony over the entire tribe before returning to San Joaquín de Omaguas. He later concentrated indigenous peoples from forty different localities into so-called "
Jesuit reductions , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...
."Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, Issue 24, 1859; University of Minnesota.
/ref>


Cultural observations of Samuel Fritz

Much of what is known about the Cambeba people was written by Samuel Fritz during the 38 years that he lived in the Amazon. Fritz described Omagua men as unusually "talkative and proud" in comparison with other Amazonian Indians. They were universally acknowledged to be the best canoemen on the river. They wore beautiful multi-colored cotton clothing including "
breeches Breeches ( ) are an article of clothing covering the body from the waist down, with separate coverings for each leg, usually stopping just below the knee, though in some cases reaching to the ankles. Formerly a standard item of Western men's c ...
and shirts of cotton," while women wore "two pieces of the same kind, one of which serves them for a small apron, the other to form an indifferent covering for the breasts." Both men and women painted great portions of their bodies, faces and even their hair with the "juice, darker than mulberry, of a forest fruit called jagua." The Omaguas told Fritz with remarkable candor that before becoming Christians, they had enjoyed a kind of polity and government; many of them living a sociable life, showing a satisfactory subjection and obedience to their principal caciques, and treating everyone, men and women alike, with a certain consideration. According to Fritz, when Omagua girls reached
puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a bo ...
, they would be hung up in hammocks "within an awning fixed to the top of the house," and kept there for a month with nothing but a little water and dry farinha for their sustenance and some cotton to keep themselves busy by spinning. At the end of that ordeal, they were taken down and carried to the river, washed from head to foot, painted from the face down to the middle of the body, and then sent home naked to be adorned with feathers and celebrated in their new womanhood by the entire community with music and dancing. During these ceremonies, the other women would give them small quantities of
manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated ...
beer to drink; finally, the oldest man in the village would come up and strike them on the shoulders with a small stick, giving them at the same time the names they would bear for the rest of their lives. After undergoing this ritual, the men were allowed to ask for them as wives. The Omaguas harvested their crops from the island mud-flats as well as from their swiddens; and they stored manioc underground in ingeniously designed pits, to be protected from the flood and then eaten during the next planting season. They hung up
maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
and other fruits of the soil in the high parts of their houses for preservation. When the floods came, they were ready for it on elevated bark floors in their tall houses, and used their canoes for all movement from one place to another. They fought and hunted only with the lance,
blowgun A blowgun (also called a blowpipe or blow tube) is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created ...
and ''boquetera'', a sling discharging hard clay bullets used to kill the
manatee Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living speci ...
, the river turtle and the enormous pirarucú fish.


The Cambeba rebellion of 1701

By the 1690s, Portuguese
slave raids Slave raiding is a military raid for the purpose of capturing people and bringing them from the raid area to serve as slaves. Once seen as a normal part of warfare, it is nowadays widely considered a crime. Slave raiding has occurred since ant ...
launched intermittently from
Pará Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...
(modern-day
Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará) often called Belém of Pará, is a Brazilian city, capital and largest city of the state of Pará in t ...
) became so intense and frequent that the Cambeba from distant communities, as well as neighboring Yurimagua, fled to the comparative safety of the Spanish Jesuit mission settlements near the mouth of the Napo River, including San Joaquin de Omaguas. This influx of refugees contributed to a deterioration of the relationship between the Jesuits and the longer-term Cambeba residents of the mission settlements.Frank Salomon, Stuart B. Schwartz, eds.''Indians of South America, Part 1'' Volume 3 of Cambridge history of the native peoples of the Americas, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
In 1701, Cambebas in several settlements rose up against the Jesuit missionary presence, under the leadership of the Cambeba cacique Payoreva. At Fritz's request, a small military force quelled the revolt, and Fritz subsequently instituted annual visits by secular military forces to intimidate the Cambeba and stave off potential uprisings. Payoreva was arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish, however he escaped and returned to San Joaquin de Omaguas to persuade the Omagua people to leave the influence of the missionaries and establish new settlements along the
Juruá River The Juruá River (Portuguese ''Rio Juruá''; Spanish ''Río Yuruá'') is a southern affluent river of the Amazon River west of the Purus River, sharing with this the bottom of the immense inland Amazon depression, and having all the characteristic ...
. Fritz attempted to persuade the Cambebas to return to the mission and even promised a pardon for Chief Payoreva. Many of those who followed Payoreva were eventually enslaved by the Portuguese, as was Payoreva himself in 1704. That same year Fritz was appointed Jesuit Superior and responsibility for the Omagua missions was handed over to the Sardinian Juan Baptista Sanna, who had begun working among the Omagua in 1701.


Destruction of indigenous communities

In February 1709, the new king of Portugal,
João V Dom John V ( pt, João Francisco António José Bento Bernardo; 22 October 1689 – 31 July 1750), known as the Magnanimous (''o Magnânimo'') and the Portuguese Sun King (''o Rei-Sol Português''), was King of Portugal from 9 December 17 ...
, sent a large contingent of Portuguese soldiers to raid the Upper Solimões and to demand the withdrawal of all Spanish missionaries from the region. Fritz wrote to the Portuguese commander begging him to desist, but the Portuguese destroyed several Yurimagua and Cambeba communities. Finally, in July, Spanish authorities sent a military force to drive the Portuguese out, burning several Carmelite missions in the process. In 1710 the Portuguese sent more troops into the region, leading Sanna to attempt to relocate the populations of San Joaquin de Omaguas and the neighboring San Pablo to the safer location of Yarapa, on the lower Ucayali River. However, the Portuguese arrived in the midst of this relocation, killing many Omaguas, and capturing others, as well as taking Sanna prisoner. He was held in Portugal for a short time and eventually sent on a mission to Japan. The fighting dispersed nearly all the communities of the Yurimaguas and the Cambebas, and the survivors were devastated by an epidemic which began in April 1710 and left the formerly populous region of the Upper Solimões uninhabited. Jesuit activity among the Cambeba ceased until July 1723, when Bernard Zurmühlen and Johannes Baptist Julian arrived to found a new mission. Zurmühlen remained with the Cambebas until 1726, and San Joaquin de Omaguas became the principal center for missionary activity in the lowland regions of Maynas until the Portuguese expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767.


The Cabanagem Revolt

Infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...
, slavery and forced labor took their toll on Cambeba population and culture throughout the 18th century. The Cabanagem Revolt (1835–40), in which slave-hunters were killed and plantations burned, led to a resurgence of
ethnic identity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
among indigenous peoples in Brazil,Mark Harris, ''Rebellion on the Amazon: The Cabanagem, Race, and Popular Culture in the North of Brazil, 1798-1840,'' Volume 95 of Cambridge Latin American Studies; Cambridge University Press, 2010.
however by the 1850s new controls under the Indian Directorate system, plus new
forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
programs set up to further the extraction of
rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
, discouraged Cambeba traditions and culture.


See also

*
Marajoara culture The Marajoara or Marajó culture was an ancient pre-Columbian era civilization that flourished on Marajó island at the mouth of the Amazon River in northern Brazil. In a survey, Charles C. Mann suggests the culture appeared to flourish between ...
* Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas *
Samuel Fritz Samuel Fritz SJ (9 April 1654 – 20 March 1725, 1728 or 1730) was a Czech Jesuit missionary, noted for his exploration of the Amazon River and its basin. He spent most of his life preaching to Indigenous communities in the western Amazon r ...


References

* {{authority control Ethnic groups in Brazil Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples of the Amazon Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of the Amazon