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Indigenous peoples in Uruguay orNative Uruguayans, are the peoples who have historically lived in the modern state ofUruguay. Because of genocidal colonial practices, disease and active exclusion, only a very small share of the population is aware of the country's Indigenous history or has known Indigenous ancestry.[3]
Scholars disagree agree about the first settlers in what is now Uruguay, but there is evidence of human presence from 10,000 BCE. Indigenous Uruguayans disappeared in the 1830s and, with the exception of theGuaraní, little is known about these peoples and even less about their genetic characteristics.[4] TheCharrúa peoples were perhaps the best-knownIndigenous people of theSouthern Cone in what was called theBanda Oriental.[5] Other significant tribes were theMinuane,Yaro,Güenoa,Chaná,Bohán andGuaraní, and theArachán. Languages once spoken in the area includeCharrúa,Chaná,Güenoa, andGuaraní.
A 2005 genetic study showed 38% of Uruguayans had some Indigenous ancestry.[6][7] In the 2023 Census, 6.4% of the population reported having some degree of indigenous ancestry.[8] A 2004 DNA study in theAmerican Journal of Human Biology suggested that the Native American contribution to Uruguay's genetic composition may be far higher than is commonly assumed.[9]
Thousands of years ago, a local culture developed in nowadays northern Uruguay, known asHombre del Catalanense. Afterwards, in pre-colonial times, Uruguayan territory was inhabited by small tribes of nomadic Charrúa, Chana, Arachan and Guarani peoples. They were semi-nomadic people who survived by hunting, fishing and gathering and probably never numbered more than 10,000 – 20,000 people.[10]
The genocide of the Charrúa culminated on April 11, 1831 with the Massacre of Salsipuedes, where most of the Charrúa men were killed by the Uruguayan army on the orders of PresidentFructuoso Rivera. The remaining 300 Charrua women and children were divided as household slaves and servants among Europeans. By 1840 there were only 18 surviving Charrua in Uruguay.[11] According to the history professor and journalist Lincoln Maiztegui Casas, “the disappearance of the Charrúa people was a gradual process that took more than 200 years, and the root cause was territorial occupation by Europeans”.[12]
TheCharrúa are anIndigenous people or Indigenous Nation of theSouthern Cone in present-dayUruguay[13] and the adjacent areas inArgentina (Entre Ríos) andBrazil (Rio Grande do Sul).[14][15] They were a semi-nomadic people who sustained themselves mainly through hunting and gathering. Since resources were not permanent in every region, they would constantly be on the move.[16] Rain, drought, and other environmental factors determined their movement. For this reason they are often classified as seasonal nomads.[16]
The Charrúa people were massacred in a campaign in 1831 by the Uruguayan Army known as theMassacre of Salsipuedes. Though largely erased from modern histories, some communities of the Charrúa survived outside of Uruguay in Argentina and Brazil. It is believed that there are approximately between 160,000 and 300,000 individuals in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil today who are descendants of surviving Charrúa.[17] Contemporary descendants of the Charrúa have created organizations and advocate for the memory of the Indigenous people.
TheGuarani are a group of culturally-relatedIndigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the relatedTupi by their use of theGuarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between theParaná River and lowerParaguay River, theMisiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.[18]
Although their demographic dominance of the region has been reduced byEuropean colonisation and the commensurate rise ofmestizos, there are contemporary Guarani populations in Paraguay and parts of Argentina and Bolivia. Most notably, the Guarani language, still widely spoken across traditional Guarani homelands, is one of the two official languages in Paraguay, the other one being Spanish.[19] The Paraguayan population learns Guarani both informally from social interaction and formally in public schools. In modern Spanish,Guaraní also refers to any Paraguayan national in the same way that the French are sometimes calledGauls.
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