Ava Canoeiro

The Avá-Canoeiro are a Tupi-speaking people of the upper Tocantins basin, where the river is also known as the Maranhão. Colonial accounts record their presence among its headwaters in the eighteenth century. They resisted the expansion of mining settlements and attacks by colonists; memories of violence on the river, including a massacre at Ilha do Tropeço, became part of a long history of conflict and displacement.