Through the analysis of supply in villages and Indian settlements from Pará in the colonial period, this article provides evidence of the autonomy and the productivity of the populations placed in the geographic area consisting of the northern region of Amazonia. São José do Macapá and the outskirts villages are considered pioneer areas of the development of the Pombal period politics of colonization, these populations, different from what has been previously interpreted, searched in the local environment for the solution to the problems originated by metropolitan politics. The demands of Indian labour, the seduction by the profits in the goods which composed the role of “drogas do sertão” and the construction of the Fort of São José do Macapá, directed the comsumption of all the efforts and goods in the metropolitan politic to the detriment of the objective presented as motivation for the dislocation of the Portuguese colonists.
