Learn about the history of the Pantanal in Mato Grosso and its transformation over the centuries, from its occupation by cattle ranches to the rise of ecotourism.
Far from the industrial centres, the Pantanal of Mato Grosso remained almost untouched for centuries, until its spaces were occupied by cattle ranches.
Today, ecotourism in the Pantanal is emerging as a factor in the region’s economic development.
The history of the Pantanal in Mato Grosso begins with the first European adventurers who, in the first half of the 16th century, travelled through the western part of today’s states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, close to Paraguay and Bolivia.
The Pantanal of Mato Grosso bewildered the conquistadors with its labyrinth of rivers and vast floodplains inhabited by various indigenous peoples: Xaraiés, Orejones, Guaxaparatos.
The most numerous, however, were the Guaicurus and the Paiaguás.
The Guaicurus, expert horsemen, dominated the entire southern part of the Pantanal, the area between the Serra da Bodoquena and Porto Murtinho.
The Paiaguás Indians, canoeists, occupied the areas on the banks of the Paraguay, Miranda, Negro and Taquari rivers.
The Guatós Indians, who lived in small scattered groups, were also canoeists.
The first encounter between Europeans and natives took place in 1543, when the expedition led by the Spaniard Álvaro Nunes Cabeza de Vaca passed through the Pantanal.
The Treaty of Tordesillas then guaranteed Spain possession of all the lands along this meridian.
Surprised by the volume of water, Cabeza de Vaca called the region the Sea of the Xaraiés, but the Spaniards were in search of precious metals and moved on.
It was not until two centuries later that the Pantanal attracted the interest of European settlers, when the gold rush drew bandeirantes from São Paulo to the centre-west.
Indigenous resistance was tenacious and violent, but after centuries of confrontation their decimation was almost complete.
The Cadiuéus (Kadiwéus), remnants of the Guaicurus, now live in a reserve near the Serra da Bodoquena; the Terenas have little left of their traditions and have moved to the urban area.
Of the Guatós, a small number remain in the confines of the Amolar mountain range, near the Pantanal National Park.
HISTORY OF THE MATOGROSSENSE PANTANAL
History of the Mato Grosso Pantanal, expeditions, occupation, territorial expansion and economic development.
1. THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD
In 1709, in the region of Minas Gerais, the War of the Emboadas came to an end, fought between bandeirantes from São Paulo – who demanded a monopoly on the exploitation of the gold reserves they had discovered – and explorers from Portugal and other regions who had come to the mines.
Defeated, the Paulistas began to look for other routes, heading towards the centre-west.
In 1718, the bandeirante Pascoal Moreira Cabral found gold in the area of the Prainha stream, a tributary of the Cuiabá river; in 1727, Rodrigo César de Meneses, Captain General of the Captaincy of São Paulo, built a town on the site and baptised it with the same name as the great river.
Although the land officially belonged to Spain, it was occupied by Luso-Brazilian miners, who coexisted peacefully with the population of some Jesuit-run Spanish settlements.
To strengthen its presence in the region, Portugal created the Captaincy of Mato Grosso in 1748, covering an area of around 210,000 square kilometres.
In 1750, the Treaty of Madrid established the borders of the region and formalised the possession of these territories by the Portuguese Crown, which then ordered the construction of military centres to protect the new captaincy.
One of these military centres, Fort Coimbra, built in 1775 near Corumbá, still stands today.
Among the various towns that sprang up during this period were Miranda, Vila Maria do Paraguai and São Pedro Del Rei.
However, the wealth of gold was short-lived – by the beginning of the 19th century, production from the mines had declined. The history of the Pantanal was about to take a new turn.
2. PANTANAL CATTLE RANCHING
Pantanal cattle ranching, an essential part of the history and culture of the Pantanal, was considered a secondary activity during the gold rush in the Baixada Cuiabana, but gained strength when the exploitation of the gold mines began to decline.
The expansion was rapid: the lowland pastures made it easier for the animals to adapt, and the estates soon consolidated and prospered.
Throughout the 19th century, herds grew and tanneries multiplied, where the meat was salted for export.
This was the beginning of intensive beef production, whose main outlet was the Paraguay River, via the navigation of the River Plate basin.
Around these tanneries, several communities sprang up along the main regional waterway.
However, the vast labyrinth of inland waterways remained preserved, distant, inhabited by a few men and many oxen.
3. THE LANGSDORFF EXPEDITION
The difficulty of access and the isolation of the Pantanal from the rest of Brazilian territory meant that the ancient Mar dos Xaraiés maintained its aura of a lost and wild world over time – and as such attracted the interest of scientists, adventurers and chroniclers, especially in the 19th century.
Expedição Langsdorff pelo Mato Grosso
Among the expeditions that passed through the region was the one organised by Baron Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, the Russian consul in Brazil.
The Langsdorff expedition travelled to the Amazon and through the Brazilian interior between 1821 and 1829.
The official draughtsman, Hercule Florence, was responsible for the travellers’ notebooks – published as Viagem fluvial do Tietê ao Amazonas – in which he recorded the society and nature of the Pantanal at the time.
The entourage stayed at the Fazenda Jacobina, near the city of Cáceres, close to the Bolivian border – a typical 19th-century large estate with complete autonomy, ploughing, lots of cattle and even its own militia to enforce the law in the domains of the cattle colonels.
Langsdorff was accompanied by Ludwig Riedel (botanist), Nestor Rubtsov (astronomer), the doctor and zoologist Cristian Hasse, as well as slaves, guides and oarsmen, making a total of 39 people on the expedition.
As well as the scientists, the German artist Johan Mauritz Rugendas (João Mauricio Rugendas) and the Frenchmen Aimé-Adrien Taunay (Aimé Adriano Taunay) and Hercule Florence (Hércules Florence) were also part of the expedition.
Hercule Florence’s records, together with those of the German artist Rugendas (1802 – 1858) and the French draughtsman Adrien Taunay (1803 – 1828), form the only complete documentation of this voyage.
4. THE PARAGUAYAN WAR
From the early years of the 19th century, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina fought border conflicts.
História da Guerra do Paraguai
The Paraguayan president, Francisco Solano López, supported the Uruguayan president, Atanásio Aguirre, when the latter resisted intervention by Brazil, which was demanding compensation for gaucho farmers allegedly harmed by the Uruguayans.
Brazilian troops invaded Montevideo and overthrew Aguirre; Francisco Solano López, the Paraguayan president, retaliated by invading the cities of Corumbá and Cáceres, causing the peasants to move to Cuiabá.
In 1864, the bloodiest conflict in Latin America began: the Paraguayan War, which wiped out around two-thirds of the Paraguayan population.
Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay joined forces in the Triple Alliance, financed by England.
Five years of fighting ensued, on land and on the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, with Paraguay being devastated by the naval superiority of the allies, especially Brazil.
Among the most famous battles were the naval battle of Riachuelo, the retreat from Laguna and the capture of Fort Coimbra.
In 1870, Solano López was captured and killed.
With the victory in the Paraguayan War, Brazil expanded its territory, incorporating 47,000 kilometres of Paraguayan land, much of which is part of the Pantanal in Mato Grosso – among other consequences, the incorporation of this area deepened and expanded the influence of the Platine culture on the Pantanal.
The Pantanal’s ranches and towns suffered as a result of the clash: some were destroyed and the remaining cattle scattered across the plains, becoming wild and skittish.
At the end of the conflict, the land was redistributed and the navigation of the Paraguay River to the mouth of the River Plata was reopened.
5. CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
In the 19th century, Mato Grosso emerged as a prosperous economy based on cattle ranching, and since then it has slowly broken its isolation from the rest of Brazil and the world.
In 1905, construction began on the Noroeste do Brasil railway between the city of Bauru in São Paulo and Corumbá.
This landmark link between Mato Grosso and the industrial centres of the south-east was privatised in 1996 and renamed Ferrovia Novoeste SA.
Another key moment in the integration of the Pantanal came in 1913, when the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition, supported by the American Museum of Natural History, made a zoogeographical exploration of the lands of the Brazilian Far West.
After crossing the borders of Cáceres, the Rondon Commission travelled along the Paraguay River.
As well as continuing the centuries-old tradition of scientific expeditions, its aim was to extend the national telegraph network and explore a vast, hitherto unknown territory.
In the 1930s, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss focused on the ethnographic diversity of the Pantanal world: from his stay in the villages of the Bororos and Cadiuéus, he wrote the foundations of 20th-century anthropology.
Despite these attempts at integration, the Pantanal remained almost intact until the 1960s and 1970s, when the effects of the invasion of leather traders – in search of the coveted alligator skin – and predatory fishing became apparent.
In the late 1970s, the federal government began to intervene in environmental issues.
In 1977, the state of Mato Grosso was divided into two to facilitate its administration: Mato Grosso (MT), with its capital in Cuiabá, and Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), with its capital in Campo Grande. As the century progressed, there was an increasing influx of migrants into the region, mainly from the south and south-east, in search of land for cattle raising and soya cultivation.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the construction of the Brazil-Bolivia gas pipeline promises to provide energy for the installation of heavy industries around the Pantanal plain – a process that is already underway and whose intensification is causing concern among environmentalists.
The Pantanal universe, though fragile, remains a vast expanse of uncertain frontiers, still full of mysteries and discoveries. Increasingly valued for its natural resource potential, it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2000, making it one of the most sought-after destinations for ecotourists from all over the world.
Now the floodplain is preparing for a new challenge: opening up to organised tourism, which is increasingly establishing itself as an axis of conservation and economic sustainability.
History of the Pantanal in Mato Grosso, expeditions, occupation, territorial expansion and economic development.
See the following publications about the Pantanal
- Observing mammals and reptiles in the Pantanal
- Fishing in the Pantanal – Best places, lures, methods and seasons
- Most common fish species in the Pantanal
- Birdwatching in the Pantanal of Mato Grosso
- Most common bird species in the Mato Grosso Pantanal
- Flora of the Mato Grosso Pantanal
- Fauna of the Mato Grosso Pantanal
- Pantanal of Mato Grosso – Geography, climate, soil and rivers
- History of the Mato Grosso Pantanal – Discovery and economic development
- Southern Pantanal Region
- Northern Pantanal Region
- Why visit the Pantanal in Mato Grosso?
