Through extensive archival research on the histories of enslaved people, Indigenous peoples, and settlers, Yuko Miki challenges the widespread notion that Brazilian Indigenous peoples “disappeared” during the colonial era, paving the way for the emergence of Latin America’s largest Black nation.
Focusing on postcolonial settlements along the Atlantic coast and in Rio de Janeiro, the author argues that the exclusion of Indigenous peoples and people of African descent was embedded in the very construction of the Brazilian nation. Her approach demonstrates how it is possible—drawing on histories of both the African diaspora and Indigenous nations—to develop a deeper understanding of central themes in our history, such as race and national identity, citizenship, popular politics, slavery, and abolition.
The cover features some graphic elements inspired by different peoples of African origin (based on solid, filled shapes) and others that are related to various indigenous peoples of the Brazilian region (linear graphics inspired by ceramics and body paintings).
