Iguaçú

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Iguaçú

Formerly a part of the states of Amazonas and Mato Grosso in Brazil, the Federal Territory of Iguaçú was formed at the meeting point of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay as a result of the Constitution of 1946. This constitution allowed the military government to establish new states in the interior in order to improve its position in the Senate and to minimize the influence of larger, more populated states such as São Paulo and Minas Gerais. In the early seventeenth century this area was central to the struggle between the frontier slave raiders and European missionaries. Not until the middle of that century were the Jesuits able to maintain some security against Paulista resistance to Indian protection.

See alsoBrazil, Constitutions .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rollie E. Poppino, Brazil: The Land and People (1968).

Robert Wesson and David V. Fleisher, Fleisher, Brazil in Transition (1983).

Additional Bibliography

Costa, Emilia Viotti da. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

MacLachlan, Colin M. A History of Modern Brazil: The Past against the Future. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003.

Meade, Theresa A. A Brief History of Brazil. New York: Facts on File, 2003.

Vincent, John S. Culture and Customs of Brazil. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003.

                                        Carolyn E. Vieira