Eduarda Campopiano (PL-SP), 23, was elected this Sunday as the state representative with the most votes in São Paulo, with 1,956,238 votes—a record for the São Paulo State Legislative Assembly. But her public record includes statements that sparked controversy even before the election.
In May of this year, during an interview on the RedCast podcast, Campopiano claimed that, had it not been for European Christianization, indigenous peoples would be “practicing cannibalism” in Brazil. “Praise God that they colonized us, praise God that they Christianized the indigenous women. Praise God that the far right arrived and told the Indians: ‘Guys, making sacrifices and eating your little brother’s arm isn’t right, burying children alive…’,” she declared.
Campopiano is a digital influencer and describes herself as “the greatest enemy of São Paulo’s feminists.” She was elected city councilor in Praia Grande in 2024 with just over 3,500 votes, and in 2026 she left that position to run for the State Legislature. Her political mentor is Lucas Pavanato (PL), who was elected to the Federal Chamber of Deputies in São Paulo with 3,038,438 votes—the second-highest vote total in the history of the Chamber of Deputies. Both are part of the same cohort of conservative influencers that the Liberal Party propelled into the legislature in these elections.
Archive link -> https://archive.ph/NvtRV
They despise the new explosion of research indicating that the Amazon had “complex” civilizations and that indigenous people were a boon for the condition of rainforest. I had my fair share of clashes with some Brazilians over this.
Really? I thought it was known for a long while that their societies are very complex.
Advances in LiDAR made it into an undeniable fact, also the stigma around taking oral traditions serious lessened. Especially Native North American Archeology is booming.
It’s the reflex of the history taught at schools. Indigenous are treated either as barbarous cannibals and degenerates or as innocent child-like savages. One narrative justifies the genocide and enslavement of the natives, the other encourages the tutelage of Jesuits and Christian missions to indoctrinate people into the European culture and values. Almost no proper historiography is taught in schools to teach the complex relationships between different and same tribes.
Although there’s a lot of racism and prejudice against African descendants, Brazil’s erasure of indigenous culture is far more advanced than in other regions in South America. Even today the prejudice against indigenous communities is simply horrendous.