1598-1659

Portuguese slave trader who reputedly made one of the first trips across South America. Raposo Tavares led bandeiras, or slaving raids in which soldiers of mixed Portuguese, African, and Native American extraction attacked villages, often doing battle with Jesuit priests as well as Indian defenders. His first bandeira took place in 1629, the second in 1636-1638. On the third bandeira, which began in 1648, Raposo Tavaraes supposedly travelled north from what is now the border between Brazil and Paraguay all the way to the city of Quito in present-day Ecuador, and thence along the Amazon River to Belém at is mouth. If this account is true, then he traversed some 8,000 miles (12,875 km) before returning to Sao Paolo in 1652.