Palmeira

Palmeira lies in the uplands of southern Brazil, in country linked to the Guarani missions and their yerba mate grounds. After the Guarani War, traders, ranchers and drovers increasingly exploited the region’s mate groves. In 1822 Manoel Francisco Xavier arrived with his son, enslaved workers and Indigenous mate gatherers. Paths through the uplands connected the forests and grazing lands with settlements across the southern frontier.