Case file · Folklore / legend
Ajuricaba leaps into the river
Ajuricaba, a Manaó leader from the middle Rio Negro, led resistance to Portuguese slaving expeditions. Captured around 1728, he is said to have thrown himself, still in chains, into the river rather than face trial in Belém.
1728 CE · -1.20, -61.00 · status: legend
The account
Portuguese chroniclers recorded the leap as suicide; in later Amazonian memory Ajuricaba became a symbol of resistance whose body was never found, and the city of Manaus takes its name from his people. He came from Mariuá, today Barcelos; the point used here is on the Rio Negro near Barcelos and is approximate.
The sceptical view
Only the colonial account survives; the place and manner of his death cannot be checked.