The Sertão Made Belém
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2025
The Conclusion considers the implications of the revisionist framework that seeks to hold the histories of Eastern Amazon together, even if there is much tension and conflict between its constituent parts. Specifically, the study forces a reconsideration of three aspects: the making of Indigenous territories in the sertão; how the concept of the sertão can be reworked in Brazilian historiography; and a reconsideration of the ways in which historical periods are conventionally broken up. Regardless of the changing meanings and varying human interactions with the Amazon environment, the enduring character that shapes human societies and the spaces they inhabit lies in its flowing waters. Understanding the Amazon through the aforementioned spatial history involves seeing it as a geographical place shaped by the interactions between the peoples who have lived there. To understand the Amazon today, these histories must be woven together, as the region was shaped by conflict and dispossession – legacies that persist to this day.
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