The War of the Emboabas (Guerra dos Emboabas, lit. “war of the newcomers”) was an internal conflict in colonial Brazil fought between 1707 and 1709 over control of newly discovered gold fields in the interior of the Captaincy of São Vicente. It opposed, on one side, paulista bandeirantes—who had pioneered the exploration of the region and claimed priority or even exclusivity in exploiting the deposits—and, on the other, a heterogeneous group of outsiders from other Brazilian captaincies and from Portugal, pejoratively called emboabas.Adriana Romeiro, "Revisitando a Guerra dos Emboabas: práticas políticas e imaginário nas Minas setecentistas", in Maria Fernanda Bicalho & Vera Lúcia do Amaral Ferlini (eds.), Modos de governar – Ideias e práticas políticas no Império Português, séculos XVI a XIX (São Paulo: Alameda, 2005), pp. 392–401.
The war unfolded in several mining districts of what would later become Minas Gerais, such as Sabará, Cachoeira do Campo and the Arraial Novo do Rio das Mortes. Among the paulistas, one of the main leaders was the former bandeirante Manuel de Borba Gato. The emboabas coalesced around figures such as the baiano landowner and miner Manuel Nunes Viana.Adriana Romeiro, Paulistas e emboabas no coração das Minas: ideias, práticas e imaginário político no século XVIII (Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2008). The conflict ended with the victory of the newcomers and a decisive intervention by the Portuguese Crown, which reorganised the administration of the mining region and curtailed paulista predominance.
Traditionally interpreted as a regional civil war between “old settlers” and “newcomers”, the War of the Emboabas has attracted renewed historiographical interest as an episode that illuminates the formation of colonial elites, disputes over royal authority and the emergence of distinct regional identities in Portuguese America.João Pinto Furtado, O manto de Penélope: história, mito e memória da mineração colonial (Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2002), pp. 73–85.Adélson de Oliveira Carmo Júnior, Renan Rodrigues de Sousa & Dárlinton Barbosa Feres Carvalho, "A Guerra dos Emboabas segundo os Grandes Modelos de Linguagem (LLM)", Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de São João del-Rei, vol. XVII (2025).
Etymology The word emboaba is widely understood to have originated in the old paulista língua geral and to have carried, from an early date, a pejorative sense of “outsider” or “invader”. Etymologists, however, disagree on its precise derivation.
A long-standing explanation—often attributed to the French traveller Auguste de Saint-Hilaire—links the term to a Tupi expression for birds with feathered legs (mbóab). According to this interpretation, paulistas likened the high boots and gaiters worn by newcomers to the plumage of such birds, in contrast with the custom of many pioneers of walking barefoot or in simple footwear.Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, Viagem à Província de São Paulo (São Paulo: Livraria Martins, 1940). Modern linguistic studies note that this explanation is largely conjectural and rests more on the traveller’s imagination than on solid knowledge of indigenous languages.E. A. Navarro, Dicionário de tupi antigo: a língua indígena clássica do Brasil (São Paulo: Global, 2013), p. 560.
Alternative derivations propose that the word may be a corruption of forms such as amôabá, amô-abá or aba-ambôaé-abá, with meanings along the lines of “different man”, “foreigner” or “man with different hair”, referring to perceived physical differences among Indigenous, European and African populations.Adriana Romeiro, "Relatos de pesquisa – Etimologia de 'emboaba'", Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
Another hypothesis, considered more consistent by some scholars, traces the term to o-mboábae, associated with the idea of “one who ambushes or betrays”. In this reading, emboaba would have been used by paulistas to designate people from other captaincies and from Portugal whom they perceived as deceitfully usurping the newly discovered gold fields in the interior—hence the possible sense of “traitors” or “invaders”.Romeiro, Paulistas e emboabas no coração das Minas, pp. 45–51.
Despite the disagreements, all major interpretations agree that the name had a strong negative connotation and was associated with tensions over access to mineral wealth.
Background
Discovery of gold and transformation of the colony Gold discoveries in Brazil at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th triggered profound social, economic and political changes. For decades, paulista bandeirantes based in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga had pushed deep into the interior, raiding Indigenous communities for slaves, hunting runaway captives and searching for precious metals.Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Caminhos e fronteiras (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006), pp. 145–166. Their expeditions, departing both from the Captaincy of São Vicente and the neighbouring Itanhaém, opened routes across what are now the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul.
By the 1690s, alluvial gold was being extracted from streams and riverbeds in the region that contemporaries called Minas dos Matos Gerais, later Minas Gerais. News of the richness of these deposits spread quickly. Within less than two decades, tens of thousands of people—from Portugal, from the captaincies of Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and from other parts of Portuguese America—migrated towards the interior, together with large contingents of enslaved Indigenous and African workers.Romeiro, Paulistas e emboabas no coração das Minas, pp. 65–80.Pinto Furtado, O manto de Penélope, pp. 73–85.
The sudden demographic explosion gave rise to precarious mining camps and new settlements along the valleys of the Rio das Velhas, Carmo and Das Mortes rivers. Observers such as the Jesuit chronicler André João Antonil described an atmosphere of disorder, greed and social upheaval in which food, tools and basic goods reached exorbitant prices owing to shortages and the difficulty of supplying the interior.André João Antonil, Cultura e opulência do Brasil (Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 2007), p. 119.
Paulistas and newcomers The paulistas claimed priority over the mines on the grounds that they had discovered and first exploited the deposits and that they had rendered important military services to the Crown in campaigns such as the suppression of the Palmares quilombo and the Cariris uprisings.Romeiro, "Revisitando a Guerra dos Emboabas", p. 396. In 1700, the municipal council of São Paulo petitioned for exclusive control of the mining region, but the request was denied, reinforcing the feeling among paulista elites that their interests were being neglected by Lisbon.Pinto Furtado, O manto de Penélope, pp. 80–85.
The outsiders, or emboabas, formed an extremely diverse group that included Portuguese merchants and officials, cattle drovers and farmers from Bahia and Pernambuco, small miners from Rio de Janeiro and adventurers from elsewhere in the colony. They generally enjoyed closer ties to coastal trade networks and to royal authorities, and many resented what they perceived as paulista monopolies over the best claims and over local offices and contracts.Romeiro, Paulistas e emboabas no coração das Minas, pp. 81–90.
Both sides thus accused each other of abuse and usurpation. For the paulistas, those who had not taken part in the arduous process of exploration should not enjoy the same rights in the distribution of mineral wealth. For the emboabas, the paulistas behaved as a closed, violent oligarchy that tried to exclude newcomers from opportunities in the mining frontier.
Royal interests and rising tensions The Crown had a central stake in the region because of the quinto tax, a royal claim to a fifth of all gold extracted. Officials were instructed to prevent smuggling, regulate the marking of claims and ensure the shipment of the royal share to Lisbon. At the same time, the absence of a stable administrative framework in the mines and the distance from coastal centres hampered effective control.Maxwell, Kenneth, A devassa da devassa: a Inconfidência Mineira — Brasil e Portugal, 1750–1808 (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1977), pp. 37–40.
From 1706 onward, quarrels over plots of land, watercourses and access to supply contracts multiplied. Attempts by local authorities to impose monopolies on butcher shops and cattle routes—often granted to allies—exacerbated popular discontent.Mello, José Soares de, Emboabas (São Paulo: Imprensa Oficial, 1979), p. 48. Violence escalated in several districts, and rumours of conspiracies and impending massacres spread through the camps.
In 1707, two leading paulistas were lynched by emboabas at the Arraial Novo do Rio das Mortes (later São João del-Rei), an episode frequently cited as a turning point. That same year, clashes intensified in Sabará and Cachoeira do Campo. By late 1707, the region was effectively divided into two rival political camps, each demanding that the Crown confirm its preferred order in the mines.Laura de Mello e Souza, Desclassificados do ouro: a pobreza mineira no século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1982), pp. 57–60.
Course of the war
Outbreak and main theatres Open warfare broke out between 1707 and 1708, with successive skirmishes and reprisals in different mining centres. In the Sabará district, conflicts involved groups aligned with Borba Gato and migrants from Bahia and Pernambuco over the control of claims along the Rio das Velhas.Maxwell, A devassa da devassa, pp. 37–40.
In Cachoeira do Campo, disputes over mines and routes to the coast culminated in battles that preceded one of the most famous episodes of the war, the so-called Capão da Traição (“Thicket of Treason”).Diogo de Vasconcelos, História antiga das Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1999), pp. 218–222. In the Rio das Mortes region, the lynching of paulista chiefs in 1707 deepened mistrust and spurred the mobilisation of militias and armed bands on both sides.Souza, Desclassificados do ouro, pp. 57–60.
Reports from the period describe hundreds of armed men moving between camps, the expulsion of rivals from particular districts and the systematic disarming of paulistas by emboaba groups, who claimed to be acting preventively against a supposed paulista conspiracy to annihilate them.Vasconcelos, História antiga das Minas Gerais, pp. 218–226.
Capão da Traição The best-known episode of the War of the Emboabas is the massacre remembered as the Capão da Traição (“Thicket of Treason”). After suffering defeats near Cachoeira do Campo, a group of paulistas retreated to a small patch of dense woodland between what is now Prados and São João del-Rei and took up a defensive position there.Vasconcelos, História antiga das Minas Gerais, pp. 223–226.
According to traditional accounts, emboaba forces led by Bento do Amaral Coutinho surrounded the thicket. After an exchange of fire and a siege lasting roughly two days, the paulistas, short of ammunition and isolated, agreed to lay down their arms in exchange for guarantees of safety. The subsequent killing of many or most of the prisoners—reportedly numbering in the hundreds—was later remembered by paulista chroniclers as an act of treachery that gave the battle its name.Charles R. Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics: The Municipal Councils of Goa, Macao, Bahia, and Luanda, 1510–1800 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), p. 151.
Modern historians have questioned the exact number of victims and some details of the narrative, pointing out that 19th-century authors often exaggerated the scale of the massacre for patriotic or regionalist purposes. Nevertheless, the episode clearly marked the collapse of paulista military resistance in the central mining districts and became a powerful symbol in later memories of the war.Pinto Furtado, O manto de Penélope, pp. 90–96.