His father, Cândido Mariano da Silva Sr., was of Portuguese, Spanish, and Guaná (an Indigenous group) ancestry, and died of smallpox in 1864, prior to Rondon's birth.

In 1930, he was interrupted by the Revolution of 1930, and he resigned from his position as head of the Serviço de Proteção ao Índio (SPI) or Indian Protection Service.

In the 1950s, he supported the Villas Boas brothers' campaign, which faced strong opposition from the government and the ranchers of Mato Grosso and led to the establishment of the first Brazilian National Park for Indigenous people along the Xingu River in 1961.

[6] Rondon was, by this time, a devout follower of positivist beliefs and he believed his purpose was to unite all peoples of Brazil through his work in the commission.

[6] Rondon showed concern as to how these Indigenous groups were incorporated into modern society and he made it his mission to "guide" them to a more "civilized" life in what he viewed as a peaceful manner.

[7] These critics posit that this mission was mainly a military operation with a state focus on seizing and defining borders for defense purposes along with creating new opportunities for colonization and economic expansion.

[7] They believe this undermines the view that Rondon was a hero of unification and pacification towards previously uncontacted or independent Indigenous tribes.

[8] In 1911, he also visited the ruins of the 18th-century Real Forte Príncipe da Beira, the greatest historical relic of Rondônia, which had been abandoned in 1889, and was promoted as major of the Corps of Military Engineers, responsible for building the Cuiabá telegraph line to Santo Antonio do Madeira, the first to reach the Amazon region.

At the same time, the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad was being built, which together with the Rondon telegraphic exploration and integration helped to occupy the region of the present state of Rondônia.

From 1898 onward, Rondon was an orthodox member of the Igreja Positivista do Brasil (Positivist Church of Brazil), which is a Religion of Humanity based on the thought of Auguste Comte.

[10] Comte postulated that there are three stages of social evolution that humankind passes through, and placed special emphasis on scientific thought, industrialization, modernization, and general reform.

[10] Rondon first encountered positivism in 1885 as a student at the Military Academy in Rio de Janeiro, where it was taught as a form of spreading republicanism.

[11] Positivism ultimately shaped Rondon's outlook on life, his ideas about interracial relations, and his plans for national development.

He once told his men that he wanted to create a "political utopia", and believed that his telegraph line aided in the evolution of humanity due to the large number of tribes he came in first contact with during the project.

Unfortunately, Rondon's positivism ultimately led to fights with officials in the more powerful Catholic Church, limiting the influence and impact of his work in the long term.

[11] Rondon was invited to be the founding leader of the Indian Protection Service by the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Rodolfo Miranda in 1910.

[6] He believed that, rather than allow Christian missionaries to forcibly assimilate the Indigenous peoples, the best method would be to gradually and nonviolently lead them by example into the more civilized world.

[13] However, beginning shortly before Rondon's death in 1958, severe corruption and abuses of Indigenous peoples were revealed to have been committed by those working with SPI.

[14] Marshal Cândido Rondon is considered one of the foremost Brazilian heroes and patriots and has thus been honored by the population and government in many ways.