Blumenau (SC): Eurocentric, Nazi, and integralist influences

Nelson Garcia Santos

Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Brazil

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3232-9017

nelgarcia@furb.br

Abstract

This article, based on bibliographic research, seeks to recover the racist ways of thinking, feeling, and acting of the colonizers of

Blumenau and the surrounding region toward the indigenous population that lived there and toward the Black people who were

brought there as slaves or who later came to serve as cheap labor in local/regional development. One hypothesis suggests that

Article details | Open peer review

Edited by:

Michel Goulart da Silva

Reviewed by:

Carlos Eduardo Bartel

Cleonis Viater Figueira

Citation:

Received: 10/02/2026

Revised: 11/02/2026

Accepted: 16/02/2026

Available: 17/02/2026

Scientia International Journal for Human Sciences 2 of 23

When German settlers arrived in the Itajaí Valley (Santa Catarina), they found the indigenous peoples

(Laklãnõ/Xokleng) maintaining their socio-metabolic relationships in their territory and practicing their

cultural traditions with very low environmental impact. In the natural environment, they encountered

jacaranda, cinnamon, mahogany, cedar, peroba, fig, ariroba, carajuba, and various palm trees, as well as

various native animals—tapirs, capybaras, wild pigs—and a sublime array of colorful birds, such as toucans,

an inferior race in relation to the white race, especially in relation to the Germanic culture, but also highly

dangerous. Blacks and mestizos were also seen as inferior beings and even without culture by the

Germans/Europeans. However, they were not considered dangerous.

And where does this racist way of thinking and feeling originate? Our second hypothesis tells us that

the origin of racist ideas lies in the Eurocentric theories developed in Germany and other European countries

from the 18th century onwards; these intensified during the 19th century and were greatly amplified by Nazi

and integralist ideas (in Brazil, specifically) in the 20th century. Such ways of thinking and feeling were well

accepted by many colonizers of Blumenau and the surrounding region.

Another question concerns the influence of these worldviews and human beings on local and regional

development. Is it possible to identify situations in the local and regional development of Blumenau that stem

destruction of culture, how they can build values and customs in a territory and thus produce identities. These

aspects are contained in the study presented here. To this end, a bibliographic research was carried out , with

emphasis on the search in newspapers from the 1930s and in Blumenau magazines in Caderno.

Scientia International Journal for Human Sciences 3 of 23

present below some prejudiced and racist actions against the indigenous peoples who lived in the Blumenau

region when the colonizers arrived here. Next, we offer considerations on Eurocentric theories that underpin

racist practices in the local development of Blumenau and the surrounding region. In the next section, we

present some information about Nazi-integralism in Blumenau and its strong influence on the ways of

thinking, feeling, and acting of many people, including political leaders. To demonstrate the effectiveness of

racist policies against the black population, resulting from Eurocentric, Nazi, and integralist views, we present

the next section entitled The invisibility of black people in Blumenau. Such actions resulted in the

A first manifestation of racism identified in the development process of Blumenau occurred with the

creation - by the Provincial Government - of the "pedestrian company," also known as pedestrian soldiers.

This collective was characterized as a type of protection force for future residents against the "threats" of

local natives (Renaux, 2000). The so-called "pedestrian company" aimed to guarantee white colonizers

protection from possible attacks by the region's native peoples—the Kaingang and Xokleng—and was

established by Law No. 28 of 1836, with the aim of

protect, assist, and defend residents from any assault by Gentios, criminals, and

fugitives, pursuing them to their lodgings, quilombos, or settlements, doing

everything possible to apprehend them, and in extreme cases of resistance, destroy

The name that best represents these human hunters is Martinho Bugreiro, who was paid for pairs of ears

presented to the colonizers. The more ears he presented, the more he received. Through him, indigenous men

and women were murdered and children kidnapped to be "adopted" by wealthy families in the city to perform

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domestic tasks in exchange for education, as shown in a text written by José Ferreira da Silva (a member of

the Integralist movement), entitled "O Natal da bugrinha" (The Bugrinha's Christmas):

According to Wittmann (2007, p. 35), since the beginning of colonization, the Xokleng were seen as

bloodthirsty and irrational, and "these ideas appear constantly in various sources, such as newspapers,

correspondence, government documents, and even academic works." In these media, it was common to find

discourse that treated indigenous peoples as "fierce murderers," whose attacks were marked by strong traces

of cruelty. According to the author, in a letter written by Dr. Blumenau to the Minister of Agriculture, he

says: "Ferocious savages attacked a family of settlers, this time assaulting the last resident of the stream [...],

whom they killed with an arrow to the heart and stole a multitude of objects from the house" (Wittmann,

2007, p. 37).

While the Xokleng used bows and arrows, the settlers used rifles, and when the indigenous people

colonization developed, and the severity of the situation was recognized by the rulers of Santa Catarina. To

However, in the official history of Blumenau, told by the victors, the omission of these persecutions,

killings, and kidnappings, carried out at the behest of the colonizers against the indigenous people who lived

here, is common. But when the confrontation/killing is not hidden, it is presented as a necessary evil, and

shows the colonizer as a hero who fulfilled his obligation for the good of the development of the city and its

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people. This way of thinking and feeling is evident in the writings of Eugen Fouquet (1935), who presented

the indigenous population as obstacles to European colonization and said, "the best bugre is a dead bugre"

(Fouquet, apud Frotscher, 2003, p. 95). And as development progressed and, consequently, colonial

settlements increased, the Xokleng population suffered from the reduction of their territory.

In the face of the intensifying conflict, two positions were debated in Blumenau regarding the

indigenous peoples: one advocated extermination, defended by Eugen Fouquet, and the other advocated the

adoption of indigenous children, defended by Hugo Gensch. The consensus, however, was that the Indians

were "the great obstacle to the success of colonization and the realization of the dream of modernity"

(Wittmann, 2007, p. 73). This modernity emerged, fundamentally, from the installation of electric lighting,

the emergence of factories, and the construction of the railroad from Blumenau to Harmonia (now Ibirama).

reading could be extended until later in the evening. It was no longer necessary to

regions further away from rivers, eliminating the need for hydraulic power in

weaving mills, together with the westward colonization front led by the Hanseatic

population of Blumenau.

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It is also not uncommon to hide, in the official history of Blumenau's development, the existence of

Dr. Blumenau could even be considered an abolitionist. However, he had to back down from his

position because many agreements were made with the imperial government to obtain institutional and

financial support for his private colony. This retreat is evident, for example, in the letter written in September

1846 to his friend and abolitionist Sturz:

owners of a relatively large number of slaves was the landowner in Gaspar, Lieutenant Captain Henrique

José Flores” (Petri, 1988, n/p).

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The "blonde Blumenau" colony then developed what Anibal Quijano (2005) called a "Racial Division

of Labor," where on one side there was slave labor (black), which could not be owners, merchants, or farmers,

had to work, but could not receive wages, as the racial inferiority of the colonized implied that they were not

worthy of being paid. There were also landowners, merchants, doctors, shoemakers, industrialists, and

workers who worked and received wages. According to historians Marlon Salomon and André Voigt (2000),

about 800 slaves lived in the Itajaí Valley in the period close to abolition.

Thus, indigenous peoples and black people were present in the development of Blumenau and the

surrounding region. However, the former were murdered or had to flee into the forest and upriver. The latter

were rendered invisible. In order to understand the way of thinking and feeling that underpinned the racist

behavior of some settlers who came to these lands in the Itajaí Valley, we will present aspects of the

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beings, of man in general, of man who belongs to no class and no reality, and who exists only in the misty

sky of philosophical fantasy" (Marx, 2010, p. 63).

Faced with the situation in which capitalism, without a state, was advancing with its kingdoms and

addition to the reserve army, the new class of the lumpenproletariat. As a consequence, hunger and misery

became part of that reality. From then on, new questions arose, such as: how to overcome this reality? One

answer found was to send that army of men, women, and children to the Americas without, however, a class

consciousness of their true needs. But with a consciousness and truths that do not belong to any class, much

less to a reality that is not fantastical.

theories could be presented: social Darwinism, phrenology, anthropometry, craniometry. In Brazil,

meanwhile, the "science of races" had been known since at least 1860. This "science" was based on a

hierarchy of races and defended the superiority of the white race, while disqualifying non-whites on the basis

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of their supposed inability to perform free labor, thus hindering the end of slavery. Enslavement and slave

labor were naturalized, with no consideration given to abolition or the replacement of slave labor with free

labor (Butzke; Theis; Santos, 2022, p. 6).

form the theoretical basis for the ways of thinking, feeling, and acting of many Germans who came to the

lands of the Itajaí Valley. Social Darwinism (a term coined by Herbert Spencer), for example, whose

foundation was racial determinism, understood that races could not be improved and, therefore, racial mixing

was understood as a mistake that would lead to racial and social degeneration. Blacks, Indians, and mestizos

are seen as those who only have labor to offer; they have no culture.

Scientia International Journal for Human Sciences 16 of 23

achieving national unity in a Portuguese-Brazilian configuration. This project also included the formation of

a type of Brazilian citizen-worker that was homogenized at the national level and, to this end, "the

government began to monitor the world of work and the factory space, aiming to adjust it to the new Fordist

universe" (Frotscher, 1998, p. 145). All of this had an impact, in various ways, on the development of the

city and region.

However, the Nazi-Integralist legacy remained ingrained in some of the citizens of Blumenau, and in

view of the growth of Nazi and Integralist ranks in Blumenau and the surrounding region, journalists from

other locations came to the city to seek information about this phenomenon. One example was the special

correspondent for the newspaper Diário da Noite, Edmar Morel, from Rio de Janeiro, who published the

contemplation on the days of celebrations commemorating German dates, "sad spectacles, in the face of the

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characterized by racism, we can infer that many people involved in the development of Blumenau and the

surrounding region had racist ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and thus contributed to persecuting,

killing, kidnapping, and preventing indigenous people from participating in local/regional development, and

rendered the black population invisible. This invisibility occurred, for example, through the expulsion of 150

black families, about 600 residents, who lived in the Farroupilha slum.

This situation began on March 17, 1948, when then-councilman Herbert Georg began discussing the

situation of the Farroupilha slum in the City Council and requested an immediate solution to the problem he

called a "social cancer." He suggested that the Council establish an internal commission to study the issue

(City of Blumenau, 1948, p. 1). This slum was located on the left bank of the Itajaí-Açu River and was

1907 by the Berlin-based company Bachstein & Koppel, in which about 1,500 workers participated (Schmidt-

Gerlach; Kadletz; Marchetti, 2019).

upper areas and flash floods and flooding in the lower areas (Moser, 2015). As a result, black families began

to occupy the places with the highest environmental risk. Far from the gaze of the wealthier classes and

people, because in the eyes of the city's elite, the slum detracted from the natural beauty and exposed the

intruders, the unlucky, the poor, and the black people of the city. And so they remain to this day.

brought with them from their motherland, [...] (Silva, 1950, p. 3).

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enlarged Blumenau. This is evident in Blumenau's centennial anthem, which says: "A hundred years ago, in

these parts—fertile, immense, ownerless lands—a brave tribe of rough savages saw the first settler arrive

[....] Blumenau! Blumenau! Your sources tell legends of European heroes [...]". At other points in the

historical narrative, as told by white men, indigenous people appear as beings who attack the city and kill its

citizens.

In the city of Blumenau, black people have always been a minority and invisible, and racist

manifestations have continued and continue to occur in "blonde Blumenau," not only with poor, black, or

indigenous children, but also with workers, lawyers, university students, etc. In 2012, for example, the

company Santa Rita - Autopeças Ltda. was ordered to pay a fine due to the racial humiliation and

bosses taking any measures to prevent the embarrassment. According to the Ministry of Labor and

Employment, after a complaint was filed, there were racist slurs on the doors of the company's bathrooms

(Rede Brasil Atual, 2012).

was fired. According to the labor justice portal (TRT of the 12th Region SC), both FURB and Brasil Sul (an

outsourced company) had to pay R$ 30,000 for moral damages due to the embarrassment suffered by the

employee (Labor Justice, 2014). Racist practices also occur with black professionals, as was the case with

lawyer M. A. A., an activist in the black movement " " (Black People, No More) and a practitioner of African-

based religions, who suffered threats through posters placed on his front door and on lampposts on the street

where he lives (UNEafro, 2017). Or, as happened to 23-year-old musician Raphael Guilherme, who was

assaulted while waiting for the bus at a bus stop in the city (ND+, Balanço Geral 02/20/2021).

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It is noteworthy that when other white, heterosexual councilors and other "normal" people assume

has always defended through Eurocentric, Nazi, and integralist positions, passed down from parents to

children. From grandparents to grandchildren. From friends to friends.

Several racist cases could be presented to illustrate the situation experienced by black men and women

in Blumenau, as well as indigenous people in the region, resulting from the Eurocentric, Nazi, and integralist

theories that were widespread here. If racist practices still exist today within companies, universities, on the

streets, in schools, etc. in Blumenau, it is because there was a time and a place where ways of thinking,

feeling, and acting were legitimized, common to a social group made up of white and racist people who

consider themselves superior to non-white people.

civilized beings, while other peoples were barbarians, savages who should be domesticated and, because they

were inferior, could be kidnapped, murdered, and enslaved.

When Nazism began to be defended by "villagers" in Blumenau, another significant leap was taken

to expand racist practices. Integralism also contributed to internalizing in many Blumenau residents the view

of white supremacy over other races and the values of tradition and good customs through the slogan "God,

Party, and Family." However, when the New State began to prohibit the speaking of German here, the naming

of streets after German figures, when it began to close traditional German clubs and arrest people who

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claimed to be more German than Brazilian, all of this contributed to German culture and identity becoming

even stronger in the cultural memory of German-Brazilians, to the point of expelling black people from the

city center to places where the eyes of the white elite could not see them.

ancestors told to them. They did not have black teachers, let alone indigenous ones. They were subjected to

the principles and values of European churches and education, and experienced various forms of racism

within schools without any reprisals for the aggressors. Indigenous children, kidnapped by bugreiros, were

educated under the Eurocentric logic that detested the original peoples. Black children, in turn, were and are

"the little black boy" or "the little black girl" who serves to do this or that service for white people. They were

the children with "bad hair," the "burnt cookies." But they were also the invisible ones, who went to live

We conclude, then, that our three hypotheses have been corroborated: there were colonizers who