The Fronteira Sul (Southern Brazilian Frontier) and the wanderings of Cacique Doble between Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina (1852-1864)

Abstract

The present article is part of the field of indigenous history; it takes the 19th century as its time frame and the wide territory named Fronteira Sul (Southern Brazilian Frontier) in the historical sources used in this study. Throughoutthe text we seek to investigate part of the trajectory of a historical figure, the indigenous Kaingang leader named Cacique Doble, whose leadership took place in the above-mentioned period and scenario. Analyzing Doble’s trajectory allows to examine the relationships this leader maintained withnon-indigenous, colonizing agents, and with the indigenous themselves in the struggle to hold their traditional territory. Doble’s movements across the Kaingang territory and  the political and diplomatic relations with indigenous and non-indigenous people, observed through historical sources, suggest a broader understanding of the concept of frontier, which in Doble’s particular case has proved to be a very dynamic frontier: a meeting place for different people, a point of communication and exchange among the various agents.