Source of food, transport route, power generation, irrigation, and so on. Responsible for the
circulation of the "liquid of life", the rivers have always played an essential role in the
development of civilizations and the Araguaia river is no exception to that rule. With its
springs located in central Brazil, its flow runs in the south / north direction up to flowing
together with the Tocantins river to form the biggest totally Brazilian hydrological basin. Its
remoteness added to the exploratory model of the colonial period contributed to its isolation,
getting government attention only in the late eighteenth century. From this time, several
initiatives were taken with the goal of occupying its edges and establish interprovincial trade
through the navigation. In order to understand how the natural obstacles limited the process of
settlement and exploration of interprovincial navigation, this work seeks to dialogue with the
sources produced by travelers who recorded their journeys on the Araguaia river throughout
the nineteenth century. These reports are the main source of this research, listing relevant
information on the socioeconomic status of the riverbank populations, navigation conditions,
contact with native peoples and the challenges in winning the inhospitable “araguaiano”
hinterland.
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