Guajara

Guajara lies near the Mearim River in Maranhão. The Guajajara, or Tenetehara, inhabited the middle Pindaré to the west before expanding towards the Grajaú and Mearim around the turn of the nineteenth century. On the Pindaré, Portuguese slave raids had given way to Jesuit missions between 1653 and 1755; after the missionaries' expulsion, Tenetehara communities recovered some independence from colonial control.