The purpose of this study is to trace the development of Portuguese Indian policy m America from 1500 to 1755 as reflected in Indian labor legislation. Special attention will be paid to the northern, more tropical part of Portuguese America which was known during a large part of the colonial period as the State of Maranhão.

The State of Maranhão must not be confused with the modern Brazilian state of the same name. Colonial Maranhão included an enormous territory, very largely Amazonian, extending from Ceará on the East to Grão Pará on the West. It was created in 1624 as a separate administrative unit of Portuguese America, and its capital was São Luiz. The other unit of the Portuguese possessions in the New World was the State of Brazil, extending south from Pernambuco, with its capital at Baía. Our interest will lie primarily in Maranhão, although the legislation on Indian labor passed before the establishment of Maranhão will be considered for background purposes.

Early in the fall of 1672 Louis Jolliet, fur trader and explorer, was selected by Intendant Jean Talon to ascertain into which body of water the Mississippi River disembogued. The remote purpose of this assignment was much like that of the one entrusted to Sieur de Saint Lusson in 1671, who in June of that year supervised the annexation ceremonies conducted at Sault Ste. Marie. In fact, the two enterprises were closely allied, that of Jolliet being a further step, on the part of the French Government, toward seizing for its own advancement the reins of political ascendancy and economic control in the new West—the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions—so emphatically expressed in the Lusson demonstration at Sault Ste. Marie.

To Study Separately each of those elements which the Portuguese, with instinctive genius, used for their expansion throughout the world, is a task to which every student of the Portuguese colonization-effort must devote his attention if he is to make any contribution, how small soever, to that history. Convinced that the negro was among the most telling and effective elements which were used for the colonization of Brazil, we propose here to study him in one of his most significant revolts against his masters. That revolt, on the part of some, stemmed from the desire of freeing themselves from slavery and domination; on the part of others, from the wish of civilizing, colonizing and taking part in the march of progress.