Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon (1865-1958)

Namesake of: Rondon’s marmoset (Mico rondoni)

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- Brazilian military officer, explorer, engineer, and advocate of indigenous peoples

- Gained renown for planning and supervising over 4500 miles of telegraph lines throughout Amazonia and for his mapping of Western Amazonia and Brazil’s national boundaries

- Initiated peaceful contact with many indigenous groups and became the longtime director of Brazil’s first indigenous protection agency, the Serviço de Proteção ao Índio (SPI).

- Promoted assimilation of indigenous people rather than protection of their cultures, arguing that this should be done by persuasion and example, not by Christian missionization.

“Unlike most non-native explorers before him...Rondon insisted on treating the indigenous peoples with kindness and without paternalism or violence. Knowing that they had previously been met with cruelty by the explorers encroaching on their homes, he refused to attack, even if he himself was met with aggression. His creed was ‘Die if need be, but never kill.’”

"Rondon’s enlightened position toward indigenous people was rooted in positivism, the philosophy that the world can only be known through experienced fact; religion and other belief systems are discarded in favor of reason and concrete knowledge. This led him to believe in the universal brotherhood and the equality of all peoples. Social progress could be achieved for indigenous peoples not through forced “civilizing” missions, but by peaceful relationships and the incremental introduction of mo dern civilization.

Rondon inculcated these beliefs in Brazil’s first government agency for the protection of indigenous peoples, which he helped found. Despite all the physical travails of his life and career, he lived to the age of 92, dying in 1958 in Rio de Janeiro. A Brazilian state which he did much to explore was named after him in 1982 – it’s called Rondônia. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize the year before he died. But his most important legacy is in his advocacy for Brazil’s indigenous peoples."