2. Banditry in Old Brazil
A traditional patron-client relationship was at the root of historic Brazilian bandit groups formed by hitherto respectable figures like Garcia Leal. Leal and landowners of his ilk were close to the cowboys who tended their cattle. Loyal cowboys were expected to defend, weapons in hand, the interests of their boss. Due to rivalries between powerful families, wealthy land barons often surrounded themselves with armed supporters: de facto private militias. Eventually, some of those armed bands slipped from their patrons’ control, and became bandits. In some regions, the powerful magnates, commonly known as colonels, retained control. Elsewhere, the bandits ran amok. Some captured the popular imagination and were likened to Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Others were seen as pre-revolutionary figures, who challenged and subverted their era’s oppressive social order.
Such banditry could not have occurred or lasted for long without significant support from some locals. Known as coiteiros, they helped the criminal bands with food and shelter. They often did so because they were relatives, friends, former neighbors of the bandits, out of self-interest, or from fear. Pitted against the bandits were small units of soldiers, usually twenty to sixty men, known volantes. They were armed and trained as paramilitaries, and sent out to seek out and destroy the criminal bands. The bandits referred to them as monkeys, because of their brown uniforms and their willingness to obey orders. Some volantes were armed with the then-modern Hotchkiss machine guns, which the bandits grew to fear, and often stole or bought from corrupt volantes for their own use.
