Tibiriçá

Chief Tibiriçá
Died	1562 São Paulo, Brazil (Buried at São Paulo Cathedral)
Occupation	paramount chief of Piratininga (modern São Paulo)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Children	Bartira and others

Chief Tibiriçá (died 1562) baptized as Martim Afonso was an Amerindian leader who converted to Christianity under the auspices of José de Anchieta.^[1] He led the Tupiniquim people of Piratininga and other tribes.^[2] His daughter, Bartira, took the name Isabel and married a Portuguese man named João Ramalho.^[3] After his conversion to Christianity he became a strategic ally and protector of the Jesuits and the Portuguese; his name appears on letters to Saint Ignatius of Loyola and King João III of Portugal. Tibiriçá chose to side with the Jesuits and against his own brother Piquerobi with help of his nephew and his son-in-law João Ramalho. His granddaughters and their descendants married Portuguese noblemen that led the colonization of São Paulo under Martim Afonso de Sousa, including Jorge Ferreira, Domingos Luiz (a knight of the Order of Christ), and Tristão de Oliveira, son of capitão-mor Antonio de Oliveira and Genebra Leitão de Vasconcelos, both of important noble families.

Tibiriçá has left many descendants in Brazil and elsewhere, via his daughters, who had offspring with Portuguese settlers. Amador Bueno and his descendants, for example. Tibiriçá is also the 14th great-grandfather of Queen Silvia of Sweden.^[4]

References

1. Go-betweens and the colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600 by Alida C. Metcalf, pgs 104-114, 138
2. Eve, Mary and Magdalene: Stereotypes of Women in Sixteenth-Century Brazil by Luiz Carlos Villalta
3. Gender, race and religion in the colonization of the Americas by Nora E. Jaffary, pg 21
4. Ancestry of Queen Silvia of Sweden