**5. The New State, the Westbound March, and the come into being of the Xavante Indian Lands (or reserves)**

As the Brazilian economy entered and deepened itself into the finance and industrial sectors in the second quarter of the XX century, the economic expansion fronts grew through the accumulation and appropriation of large areas in the country's backlands, providing the necessary resources for the economic and urban growth of the large industrial centers. Brazil, in that way, abandoned the structure based solely on the production of primary agricultural products meant for export and started diversifying its economy, urbanizing part of its territory and stimulating new investments (both national and international) in a growing domestic market.

The Midwest and Amazon lands, in that context, gradually start taking part in the national economy, their main function being that of subsisting the emerging urban-industrial economy through the supply of ore and agricultural and livestock products. However, the integration of those regions and their resources in the economy directly depended on policies, from the state or not, that would enable an effective occupation of the unexplored territories and the rationalization of production.

The New State, in that sense, was majorly responsible for taking measures and creating the adequate conditions for the movement of the economic expansion fronts in the backlands. The new-state government was characterized, among other things, by a totalitarian leadership, political centralization, and strong interference in the civil society, carrying out policies of developmental characteristic such as incentives and subsidies for the industrial economic growth and, above all, creating several mechanisms for the accumulation of capital.

In the core of the new-state's developmental policies, the "territorial integration" figured as an imperative and immediate demand due to a need for consolidation of the new urbanindustrial production mode. The main state policy in that direction was the idealization and attainment of the "Westbound March" that consisted of opening paths through the cerrados of Central Brazil for the construction of landing strips and military bases at first and allowing large-scale economic occupations in another moment.

As per the official speech at that time, such a policy would make feasible the supply of staple food, amend regional economic injustices, protect the national frontiers, and determine a unified national identity under the sign of a single mode of production, the capitalist. The lands of the Midwest region and, consequently, the lands of the East Mato Grosso occupied by the Xavante started being trespassed by the state through institutes like the Fundação Brasil Central (FBC) which, in its turn, through initiatives such as the Expedição Roncador-Xingu (ERX), put into practice the Westbound March.

The New State, through its racial integration policy, sought to expand the capitalist mode of production by viewing the territory as a resources space with predefined vocations, ignoring the existence of "places" or "landscapes" with previous sociocultural dynamics. The selective and ideological view of the landscape contributes for a reductive and homogenizing  interpretation of distinct Indian cultures. In that way, the lands the Xavante used for hunting, harvesting, and planting were viewed by the state according to their commercial potential for agriculture and livestock, for instance [5].

**5. The New State, the Westbound March, and the come into being** 

As the Brazilian economy entered and deepened itself into the finance and industrial sectors in the second quarter of the XX century, the economic expansion fronts grew through the accumulation and appropriation of large areas in the country's backlands, providing the necessary resources for the economic and urban growth of the large industrial centers. Brazil, in that way, abandoned the structure based solely on the production of primary agricultural products meant for export and started diversifying its economy, urbanizing part of its territory and stimulating new investments (both national and international) in a growing domes-

The Midwest and Amazon lands, in that context, gradually start taking part in the national economy, their main function being that of subsisting the emerging urban-industrial economy through the supply of ore and agricultural and livestock products. However, the integration of those regions and their resources in the economy directly depended on policies, from the state or not, that would enable an effective occupation of the unexplored territories and

The New State, in that sense, was majorly responsible for taking measures and creating the adequate conditions for the movement of the economic expansion fronts in the backlands. The new-state government was characterized, among other things, by a totalitarian leadership, political centralization, and strong interference in the civil society, carrying out policies of developmental characteristic such as incentives and subsidies for the industrial economic

In the core of the new-state's developmental policies, the "territorial integration" figured as an imperative and immediate demand due to a need for consolidation of the new urbanindustrial production mode. The main state policy in that direction was the idealization and attainment of the "Westbound March" that consisted of opening paths through the cerrados of Central Brazil for the construction of landing strips and military bases at first and allowing

As per the official speech at that time, such a policy would make feasible the supply of staple food, amend regional economic injustices, protect the national frontiers, and determine a unified national identity under the sign of a single mode of production, the capitalist. The lands of the Midwest region and, consequently, the lands of the East Mato Grosso occupied by the Xavante started being trespassed by the state through institutes like the Fundação Brasil Central (FBC) which, in its turn, through initiatives such as the Expedição Roncador-Xingu

The New State, through its racial integration policy, sought to expand the capitalist mode of production by viewing the territory as a resources space with predefined vocations, ignoring the existence of "places" or "landscapes" with previous sociocultural dynamics. The selective and ideological view of the landscape contributes for a reductive and homogenizing

growth and, above all, creating several mechanisms for the accumulation of capital.

**of the Xavante Indian Lands (or reserves)**

tic market.

52 Indigenous People

the rationalization of production.

large-scale economic occupations in another moment.

(ERX), put into practice the Westbound March.

Lands that were considered as historical and cultural references were assigned by military strategists as national safety zones or as solutions for land ownership conflicts. Complex modes of production and kinship nets that structured communities were disregarded or simplified in the attempt to rationalize the production and the social organization of the Indians [5]. The political-economical context where the contacts with national Brazilian society and the Xavante are resumed in the middle of the XX century, produced intense territorial harassments, uncompromising, and, at a certain point, voracious.

The methods and the "characters" utilized to resume the contacts between white men and Indians were since then the most diverse and, although all had the same goal in essence to appropriate the Xavante lands—many were the searched objectives. Starting by a couple of Salesian preaches Fuchs and Sacelotti, who, in the attempt to catechize and convert the Xavante to Christianism, were killed near the Mortes River in 1934.

Many contacts followed that, alternating between state bodies or representatives, like the Indian Protection Service (IPS), and civil organizations, through which deaths and murders kept on happening on both sides. An example of that was the case of an IPS team led by Genésio Pimentel Barbosa that was killed near the Mortes River by a group of Xavante while attempting to attract and condition them.

The situation begins to change only in 1946 when an IPS group of Indian culture supporters and backland specialists led by Francisco Meirelles was able to establish a pacific contact with one of the Xavante group on the west bank of the Mortes River. The group attracted by the IPS was led by the chief warrior Apowe who transferred the Indian village to the East bank of the river and installed it near the Indigenous Post of São Domingos.

In spite of the contact having been accepted by only one Xavante group, the news that the pacification had been finally reached was spread very fast through the official communication media, causing "The Westbound March" enthusiasts to feed their greed for the "new" lands. That greed did not take long to materialize as in the beginning of the 1950 decade the Xavante lands started being occupied, even with the promise of the state government to create reserves.

However, the continuity of those pacific contacts was conditioned to the promise by the state government of Mato Grosso to create those reserves. The state government guaranteed a temporary title of property to the Xavante (1950), due to expire in two years, during which period the SPI should inspect a large area on the left bank of the Mortes River and establish the reserves limits. But before the expiry date, the lands were already being cut up and sold by the state government itself, so after two years the left bank of the Mortes River was almost completely divided into lots.

The emerging of reserves, in that context, symbolizes an important milestone in the Xavante social and economic formation, as they are, at the same time, the mark of the territory expropriation and the most striking feature of the conditioning imposed by the capital needs. To know the historical implementation process of those reserves is, therefore, an important stage to understand the current Xavante landscape.

The São Marcos Indigenous Land, main spatial slice of this research, in spite of its specificities, has its development thoroughly inserted in that paradigmatic change of subjection to the capitalist mode of production, attending to a single spatial restructure mechanism. Even so, taking to pieces the creation process of that reserve in special is an effort necessary to justify the option for that area.

The most striking episodes derived from this conditioning process and expropriation of the Xavante territory happened during the period of appearance of the TIs, and many of them were precisely linked to the appearance of the São Marcos TI. Between 1956 and 1957, populations from the Xavante villages, Parabubu and Wedetede, fleeing from persecutions of settlers and farmers, sought shelter with the Salesian missions of Sangradouro and Meruri, which already sheltered Indians from the Xavante and Bororo ethnics groups. That migration, however, meant death for a large number of that group, mainly through diseases like measles [6].

Later, other cases of persecution exploded, causing more Xavante groups to look for shelter in the missions, which led the Salesians, at a given time, to opt for the creation of a new mission, attached to Meruri, fully devoted to the Xavante. That is how the São Marcos was born [6].

By the end of the 1960s, the tension between Xavantes and farmers increased, leading the Federal Government to compromise to the creation of a series of reserves to guarantee the integrity of those people. The territory created by the capitalism, therefore, is a place of contradiction and tension, behaving like a permanent scenario of power disputes and, inevitably, produces numerous conflicts, either real or ideological. Thus, the reserves creation represents the momentary needs of the capitalism and not of the Indians in the villages.

The permanent characteristic of the disputes, supported by the contradiction and need for renovation of the capitalist activities, makes the reserves ephemeral symbols of cultural maintenance as its limits and resources are permanently subject to questioning and, consequently, reason for conflicts. Thus, the capital will be presented in the form of a physical landscape, created at its own image, created as value for use, accentuating the capital progressive accumulation in an expandable scale. The geographic landscape encompassed by the capital and fixed assets is as much a crowned glory of the development of the past capital, as an inhibiting prison of the additional progress of accumulation [3].
