They played a major role in expanding the colony to the modern-day borders of independent Brazil, beyond the boundaries demarcated by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.

[2] Though they originally aimed to subjugate and enslave indigenous peoples, the bandeirantes later began to focus their expeditions on finding gold, silver and diamond deposits and establishing mines.

[3][verification needed] The term comes from Portuguese bandeira or flag, and by extension, a group of soldiers, a detached military unit or a raiding party.

When the Portuguese crossed the mountains to the São Paulo plateau they were cut off from the sea and faced a great wilderness to the north and west where they might find their fortunes or die trying.

The bandeirantes usually relied on surprise attacks, simply raiding villages or collections of natives, killing any who resisted, and kidnapping the survivors.

If luring the natives with promises did not work, the bandeirantes would surround the settlements and set them alight, forcing inhabitants out into the open.

A bandeira that took place in 1628 and was organized by Antônio Raposo Tavares raided 21 Jesuit villages in the upper Paraná Valley, ultimately capturing about 2,500 natives.

Between 1648 and 1652, Tavares also led one of the longest known expeditions from São Paulo to the mouth of the Amazon river, investigating many of its tributaries, including the Rio Negro, ultimately covering a distance of more than 10,000 kilometers.

[7] With the death of Diego Alfaro by the hands of Bandeirantes a conflict was sure to come between the two groups and it all came to head when Jerónimo Pedroso de Barros and Manuel Pires attacked a Jesuit camp.

[8] Despite early failures due to guerrilla tactics the Spanish and Portuguese would attack and José Joaquín de Viana would defeat Guarani leader Sepé Tiaraju and would go on to destroy the Jesuit mission camps.

The bandeirante Fernão Dias was born in São Paulo in 1608 to a well-off family and spent much of his early life as a farmer in Pinheiros before becoming an income inspector in 1626.

In an expedition in 1661, in an attempt to find more natives to enslave, Dias explored south of the Anumarana mountain range into the Kingdom of Guaianás.

In addition to capturing natives as slaves, bandeiras also helped to extend the power of Portugal by expanding its control over the Brazilian interior.

So the bandeirantes, driven by profit, ventured into the depths of Brazil not only to enslave natives, but also to find mines and receive government rewards.

With only a few outlying Spanish settlements surviving and the majority of Jesuit missions overrun, the de facto control by Portugal over most of what is now the Southeast, Southern, and Central West territory of Brazil was recognized by the Treaties of Madrid in 1750 and San Ildefonso in 1777.

In spite of their ignorance of geography, a science unknown to the Paulistas of olden times, and with only the help of the sun, they penetrated the interior of the Americas, conquering tribes.

(Pedro Taques de Almeida Paes Leme)[12]However, a new breed of men was growing, wild, yes, and ungovernable, but one in whom the infusion of native American blood would soon result in a relentless increase in action and achievement.

So while the Spaniards in Paraguay stayed where Irala had placed them, mostly treating with indifference the discoveries which the first Conquistadores had made, the Brazilians continued for two centuries to explore the country.

[citation needed] On July 24, 2021, protesters, in response to Brazilians president Jair Bolsonaro's nationalist rhetoric, set fire to a statue of Borba Gato in São Paulo.