PROVINCE OF ST. PAULO. 



175 



had begun to approximate to the centre of the continent with their establishments. 

 This induced the Paulistas to enter upon a secret expedition in 1631, in order 

 to interrupt their progress. Having traversed, with eight hundred men, the 

 certdms, or interior, the rivers Parannapanema and Tibagy, they fell upon 

 Villa Rica, and Ciudad Real. The town of Xerez, situated near the heads of 

 the river Mondego, experienced the same misfortune ; also thirty-two aldeias 

 that constituted three small provinces. 



The Paulistas, although they did not designate the domestic Indians by the 

 appellation of captives, or slaves, but by that of administrados, disposed of 

 them as such, giving them to their creditors in payment of debts, and by way 

 of dowry on occasions of marriage. 



The Jesuits, who possessed or had the controul over a great number of 

 Indians, and under whose power they received the denomination of adminis- 

 trados, without any consequences of slavery being attached to the term, de- 

 claimed against the abuses practised by the Paulistas, and demonstrated to 

 them the impropriety of usurping a right to dispose of the liberty of the Indian. 



The Paulistas, who were opulent, and owed all their wealth to the arms of 

 their numerous administrados, determined to expel the Jesuits, in order that the 

 truths which they promulgated should not militate against their interest. 



The reciprocal opposition of two families, each wishing to have the entire 

 administration of the government, led them, with their respective partizans, to 

 open warfare, which would have conducted to the most disastrous results, if the 

 prudence of some ecclesiastics had not disarmed them on the field of battle, by 

 persuading the chiefs to a compromise, by which an equal number of the con- 

 tending families, from thence forward, were to enter upon the functions of the 

 government. 



This compact, accomplished in the year 1 654, continued until the middle of 

 the following century, when a cavalheiro, not related to the privileged families, 

 was elected for a judge, which appointment was protested against by them, and 

 finally settled in their favour at Rio de Janeiro, about the time when this indi- 

 vidual had completed the term of his jurisdiction. The ability with which he 

 had discharged the duties of the office, convinced the Paulistas that personal 

 merit ought, in conducting the government, to be preferred to the old system. 



The antipathy that existed for a long period between the Thaubatenos and 

 Piratininganos, and produced so many duels and disasters ; the fatal cam- 

 paign of 1631 ; the revolutions caused by the mutual enmity of the two families 

 alluded to ; the civil war between the said Paulistas and the European Portu- 



