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Potiguara

The 'shrimp-eaters' — the largest and most united of the coastal Tupi, who held the dune coast and mangroves of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte and traded brazilwood with French and English ships to keep the Portuguese at bay.

Resisted longer than any coastal nation (the Paraíba War, 1574–99) and fought on both sides of the Dutch war — the Portuguese-allied faction under Felipe Camarão; reduced by epidemics and aldeias, the Potiguara endure today on the Baía da Traição lands of Paraíba, ~20,000 strong.

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Borders over time

The atlas holds 5 border frames for Potiguara — the shape you scrub through changes in 1410 · 1500 · 1574 · 1600 · 1655.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1599 The Potiguara peace and the fall of Paraíba After a generation of war (the conquest of Paraíba / Potiguara War, 1574–99) in which the Tupi-speaking Potiguara, supplied by French dyewood traders, resisted the Portuguese longer than any coastal nation, the 1599 peace finally subdues them; many later fight on both sides of the Dutch–Portuguese war of 1645–54, the Portuguese-allied faction led by Felipe Camarão.

Further reading

• 1491 Charles C. Mann · 1978

  An accessible account of the pre-Columbian Americas and the conquest that gutted Amazonian and coastal Brazilian river peoples like the Cocama, Potiguara and Tamoio.

• The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas Frank Salomon · 1996

  Surveys the Tupi nations of the Brazilian coast (broad regional context).

Sources

• Potiguara — Wikipedia