Monkox

The Monkox, better known to the Spanish as the Chiquitos, are an agricultural people of the Chiquitania, the tropical savanna east of the Andes in Bolivia's Santa Cruz region. The Spanish label Chiquitos, meaning “little ones”, is said to come from the low doorways of their huts. They spoke Chiquitano, a language of uncertain, possibly Macro-Jê lineage, with grammatical differences between men's and women's speech.

After the founding of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1559 they resisted colonial incursion for nearly two centuries. From 1692 Jesuits gathered them and neighbouring tribes into ten mission towns.

There, shared Chiquitano speech fused almost fifty groups, numbering some 50,000 people, into one people. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, many Monkox were reduced to unfree labour on ranches, while others withdrew into the backcountry.