Evuevi

Evueví, commonly known as Payaguá, were canoe-using people of the Paraguay River country, including the upper river and Pantanal. Their name is associated with “people of the water.” Rivers were their routes and a source of power, rather than simply obstacles to movement. Spanish and Portuguese expansion into the Chaco and Mato Grosso challenged their control of these waters.

In the 1720s and 1730s, Payaguá attacks disrupted the river expeditions linking Portuguese settlements with Mato Grosso. The conflict escalated in 1732, when a royal order authorised war against them; later that year warfare was extended to other Indigenous peoples along the Cuiabá route. The struggle over navigation also carried the threat of enslavement, since colonists sought captives under the language of “just war.” River knowledge and mobility were central to Evueví resistance against these expanding colonial networks.