The Amerindian Studies Center was created in 2011 thanks to the help of the Administration of the Provost of the Sao Paulo University (PRP) to the Research Support Centers (NAPs). CEstA was founded thanks to the concern with the renewal and expansion of the activities carried out by the Center for Indigenous History and Indigenous Peoples (NHII), founded in 1990.
In this sense, it is worth mention that the study of the Amerindian peoples dates back to the founding of the Sao Paulo University, in 1934, when Claude Lévi-Strauss was invited to lecture at the University. Such tradition has been further developed over the years through the establishment of the Department of Anthropology of the School of Philosophy, Languages, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), of Paulista Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in 1989.
However, although this expansion has consolidated substantial production of knowledge about indigenous population, it was marked by fragmented reflection, thereby consolidating a tradition of disciplinary isolation that this new center intends to break.
The Center for Indigenous History and Indigenous Peoples was founded by Profesor Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, PhD, then professor of the Department of Anthropology of USP, who conceived a research program and the production of papers with the support of other University profesors, whose purpose was to renew the knowledge on Indigenous History and with the support of other university teachers, in Brazil.