Indigenous villages in the european cartography of Maranhão’s state

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on the ancestral presence of indigenous people in the cartography of Maranhão state, a territory occupied by numerous indigenous villages before the context of colonization, that still has a significant indigenous population in contemporary times, which were made invisible by history. European cartography only documented its presence as a way to emphasize the location of the settlements and cities of colonial Brazil. Today, in a decolonial effort to bring light to the contribution, presence and permanence of the indigenous groups, critically analyzing the cartography and the context of it’s production, we revisit the archives of the Rio de Janeiro’s National Library, with emphasis on the digital library where we search in XVII century’s european cartography for forms of representation that gives us clues to the ways they inhabited Maranhão’s territory in the colonial times.