The government made efforts to convert them to a "colony" system in exchange for health, education and economic benefits starting in the 1980s.

The reason given by the Tariana is that once they settled along the Uaupés the men of most families married Wanano and Tucano women, and their children grew up speaking their mothers' tongues.

There are also unknown numbers of Tariana living in other communities or urban centers of the Rio Negro such as the towns of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Santa Isabel and Barcelos.

[1] The ethnic groups of the Uaupés River accept the Tariana's view of themselves as "bipó diroá masí" (children of the blood of the thunder).

[1] In the mid-19th century the governor of the newly formed Province of Amazonas initiated a program of "civilization and catechization" of the Indians in the upper Rio Negro valley.

[1] Helped by five Tucano and Tariana chiefs the Capuchins established ten settlements on the riverside, and used force and the promise of tools to induce the Indians to move to them and work for the government.

[1] Three Franciscan missionaries were expelled by the Tariana in 1883 after they exhibited a mask of Jurupari on the church pulpit, which women were not allowed to see since it was used in male initiation rites.

Work began on construction of housing for boys and girls, the church, hospital, lodgings, a sawmill and a pottery, using local labor.

[5] The missionaries demanded that to receive sacrament and participate in trade the Indians give up their ceremonial objects and move from their traditional malocas into individual houses grouped around a chapel.

Starting from the early 1970s the town of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, two weeks by canoe downriver, began to expand due to investments under the National Integration Plan (PIN).

Some of the Tariana drifted there to find work in construction, or in building the new road linking the town to the military post of Cucuí on the Venezuelan border, which was abandoned a few years later.

[5] With the growth of the populations of the Papuri and Upper Uaupés rivers on the border between Brazil and Colombia, the region began to be seen as important in terms of national security.

Moves were made to colonize the northern Amazon border under the Military Security Council's Calha Norte Project, and discussion began about creation of an "Indigenous Colony" in Iauaretê.

The missionaries, long in favor of "civilizing" the Indians, now began to shift to support for indigenous rights in opposing the Calha Norte Project.

[5] At a meeting in Taracuá in June 1988 the Uaupés and Tiquié Indians were told that if they agreed they were "acculturated" their territory would become a colony and they would receive health, education and economic benefits.