**1. Introduction**

The history of the colonizer is not the same as that of the colonized. The history of the native Americans throughout the centuries has been told under the "foreigner" point of view, under the point of view of one who needed to justify and legitimate his presence and his possession. The colonized history version, however, has been attenuated whenever possible to the point where fair voices have become small whispers and then silenced.

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To tell the history through the colonized is to echo voices that were trimmed or forgotten, means to renovate the knowledge about a history that has been well grounded throughout time, but could not crystallize all the possibilities or the circumstances of every historical fact. Giving voice to the Indians means reviving their ancestors, renewing the hope in the present time, and stimulating their future blossom.

This article tries to echo those voices and values the tenacity of native American people who, even in front of cultural spoliation and territorial expropriation, lived on with ability and courage. Even though each contact and indigenous integration process has been unequal, multifaced, and full of specificities in time and space, such voices will be here spread through the dissemination of the Xavante people's history, who even in face of wars, diseases, and genocides, was able to elaborate political strategies which allowed, among other things, the maintenance of their social cohesion and relative cultural autonomy.

The Xavante Indians name themselves *A'uwe*, which means "authentic people"; they are genuine inhabitants of the Cerrado biome, which comprises a huge territorial extension in the Central Brazil Plateau. Among the Xavante, the group that will lead this research is concentrated in the São Marcos Indigenous Land, a reserve fully located in the city of Barra do Garças, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Through historiography and analysis of the adapting mechanisms developed by that group throughout their contact with the national Brazilian society, the nature of native Americans' resistance to advancements of the national states and the capitalist system itself will be shown.

This article, however, aims to investigate which sociocultural and spatial changes (voluntary or not) contributed to the adaptation, and at the same time, resistance of the Xavante before the national society and the economic advancements over their cultural territory and resources.
