Based in large part on new documentation, recently uncovered in archives and libraries in Portugal, the text focuses on a topic in the history of colonial Amazon that has received very little attention to date: the presence of a large number of banished Portuguese, sent to the region from Portugal itself, from different parts of Brazil, and from other Portuguese colonies. In many ways, these banished individuals had an important effect in the Amazon through 1822. The article points up Portugal’s complex policy of banishment and the diversity of these individuals’ experiences and their social roles in the Amazon.
history of the Amazon; banishment; banished; colonial Amazon