Qualla: São João das Missões

São João das Missões: Introduction

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Four in ten people here are Xacriabá. That statistic alone separates São João das Missões from almost every other municipality in Minas Gerais, a state whose dominant narrative is gold, cattle, and Portuguese colonization. The Xacriabá are one of the largest indigenous peoples in the state, and most of them live in the 21 hamlets that make up half of São João das Missões by area. Only about 13,000 people occupy the municipality in total. One farm in 2006 had a tractor. The per-capita monthly income, when this was last calculated on a national scale, was R$55.62. This is one of Brazil's poorest places, and it is also, for the Xacriabá, home.

Read more: São João das Missões on Qualla

São João das Missões: Between Two Rivers

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

São João das Missões lies in the far north of Minas Gerais, in the sertão - the dry interior scrubland that Brazilians associate with droughts, cattle drives, and the musical storytelling of repentistas. The municipality sits 21 kilometers southwest of Manga, a port town on the S...

Read more: São João das Missões on Qualla

São João das Missões: The Xacriabá

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Xacriabá have a long and documented history of fighting to keep their land. In the eighteenth century, the Portuguese crown granted them a reserve - one of the few indigenous land grants in colonial Brazil. In the twentieth century, cattle ranchers and loggers encroached anyw...

Read more: São João das Missões on Qualla

São João das Missões: Poverty as a Measurable Thing

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Statistics flatten the texture of a place. Still, a few from São João das Missões land hard: 861 rural producers on 16,154 hectares, with cropland on only 2,000 of them. Fourteen thousand head of cattle in 2006. Eighty-nine automobiles in 2007 - roughly one car for every 121 resi...

Read more: São João das Missões on Qualla