Policy and extermination of indigenous peoples during the military dictatorship: an analysis of the SPI and FUNAI institutions through the figueiredo report

Abstract

Considered lost in a fire of dubious origins for over forty years, the Figueiredo Report was rediscovered by the deputy director of Tortura Nunca Mais in a 2012 description, with more than seven thousand pages, in which one of the most perverse can be found in it. and cruel levels of denunciations against the State during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil and its extermination policies for the indigenous population through the Indian Protection Service (SPI) institutions and later the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Officially, it is speculated that more than 8,000 indigenous people between 1946 and 1988 died due to State negligence, being considered the biggest scandal of that century by the press at the time. The present work aims to analyze which were these policies that scandalized society at a world level, and for this, at first, it will be necessary to contextualize the historical and social environment that this group submitted with the arrival of the Portuguese in the country and why it was necessary to create an institution to protect their rights. Therefore, the history of the SPI institution will be investigated and how it is responsible and/or agreed to an extermination, so that, finally, it is possible to report and identify some of these policies that led to the closure of the SPI and the opening of FUNAI, in order to to silence this scandal so that the State can continue to mute crimes against property and the indigenous person.