Le statut de l’Indien dans le Brésil du xvi^e siècle Entre pragmatique missionnaire et droit colonial

This article analyses the role of the Jesuits in the conflict which saw them oppose the colonies and administrative authorities on the subject of the status of Indians in Brazil, which had become a sugar-farming colony in 1530. The structure of colonial society was dependent on this status. The author examines the evolution of the legal action of the Jesuits, who found a space for negotiation in the gap between the legal theory formed in the Iberian Peninsula and the pragmatism enforced by the colonial terrain.