Qualla: Mossâmedes

Mossâmedes: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laczkowski, CC BY-SA 4.0. Damiana da Cunha was the granddaughter of a Kayapo chief. She was also the instrument by which the Portuguese Crown tried to save Sao Jose de Mossamedes, a 1755 mission village in what is now western Goias, from the failure its first two decades had seemed to guarantee. The village had been built to settle three indigenous peoples - the Naundos, Acroas, and Kayapo - and they had declined to be settled. They died, they left, they refused to farm on Portuguese terms. Between 1770 and 1774 the village went through a complete restructuring to keep it alive. Damiana, baptized Christian but fluent in Kayapo and trusted by both sides, traveled between the Portuguese authorities and her own people trying to broker what the empire called conversion and what her ancestors called survival.

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Image: Laczkowski | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mossâmedes: A Portuguese Villa in the Cerrado

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laczkowski, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mossamedes was named for a village in Portugal, hometown of Dom Jose de Almeida Soveral de Carvalho, Captain-General and Governor of the Capitania of Goias. He established the Goias mission in 1755 as part of a broader Portuguese strategy - concentrating indigenous peoples into s...

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Image: Laczkowski | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mossâmedes: Damiana's Diplomacy

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laczkowski, CC BY-SA 4.0. Damiana da Cunha is one of the more remarkable figures of Brazilian colonial history. Born Kayapo, baptized Catholic, educated in the Portuguese system, she became a negotiator - the go-between who in the 1770s and afterward could convince groups of her own people to try the miss...

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Image: Laczkowski | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mossâmedes: From Freguesia to Municipality

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lincolnneto, Public domain. The village persisted but its status shifted. In 1845 Mossamedes became a district of Itaberai, a larger town to the north. In 1890, after Brazil became a republic, it was re-administered as a district of the old colonial capital, Goias. Not until 1938, almost two centuries after...

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Image: Lincolnneto | Public domain

Mossâmedes: Serra Dourada Above

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laczkowski, CC BY-SA 4.0. The land around Mossamedes rises toward the Serra Dourada - the golden range - a ridge of cerrado and rock formations that now sits inside the 26,626-hectare Serra Dourada State Park, created in 2003. The park protects a landscape that includes rare plant communities, a mix of ce...

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Image: Laczkowski | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mossâmedes: The Slow Drain

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Laczkowski, CC BY-SA 4.0. The modern municipality is a quiet place. In 1980 Mossamedes had 12,208 people; by 2007 the population was less than half that. Most of the decline happened in the countryside - rural people leaving for larger towns and cities rather than moving into Mossamedes itself. The econom...

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Image: Laczkowski | CC BY-SA 4.0