Inhandui

Inhanduí lies in the grassland country south of the Ibicuí River, near the origins of present-day Alegrete. The wider district belonged to a frontier used by Guarani and other Indigenous communities and to the cattle lands associated with the Uruguay missions. Herds and mounted travellers crossed a countryside whose rivers and fords mattered both to livelihoods and to rival territorial claims.

Portuguese troops camped beside the Inhanduí from 1811 to 1816. A settlement grew around the guard post, and in 1814 a chapel dedicated to Nossa Senhora Aparecida was established. Renewed fighting with the forces of Artigas disrupted this small community. In September 1816 the settlement and chapel were burned, and inhabitants fled toward a military camp on the Ibirapuitã. Early in 1817 they requested permission to build another chapel, while military authorities organised new housing. That resettlement became Alegrete. Inhanduí's brief settlement history thus connects military occupation, worship and displacement within the contested grassland frontier.