Villas-Bôas brothers

Orlando (1914–2002) and his brothers Cláudio (1916–1998) and Leonardo Villas-Bôas (1918–1961) were Brazilian activists regarding indigenous peoples. In 1961 they succeeded in getting the entire upper Xingu legally protected – the first huge indigenous area in all South America, and the prototype for dozens of similar reserves all over the continent.

The explorer John Hemming, wrote that the Villas-Bôas were pioneers in many ways. They were almost the first non-missionaries to live permanently with the natives; and they treated them as their equals and friends. They persuaded tribes to end internecine feuds and unite to confront the encroaching settlement frontier. The Villas-Bôas were the first to appreciate the value of politics and the media in furthering the indigenous cause. They also devised a policy of "change, but only at the speed the Indians want".

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, from Survival International, wrote in 1971 that "The Xingu is the only closed park in Brazil, which means that it is the only area in which Indians are safe from deliberate or accidental contact with undesirable representatives of Western civilization. This is due entirely to the Villas-Bôas brothers and the total dedication of their lives to this work over the last 25 years." Since 1971, more indigenous parks and reserves have been created, such as the Tumucumaque National Park (38,800 km²) in northern Pará state, but the Xingu park (26,400 km²) remains the most important of them.

The anthropologist Shelton Davis wrote that "The Villas-Bôas brothers further argued that it was the responsibility of the federal government to provide a secure protective buffer, in the form of closed Indian parks and reserves, between Indians and the frontiers of national society. In time, the three brothers believed, Indians would integrate into Brazilian national society. This process of integration, however, should be a gradual one and should guarantee the Indians’s survival, ethnic identities and ways of life."

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