When in 1555 the French captain Nicolas D. Villegagnon arrived to the Portuguese part of America, he had the clear intention to establish a fortress and to occupy the territory. His actions at the Guanabara – also known as Rio de Janeiro – were feasible thanks to the alliances made between Indians, known as the tupinambás and tamoios, and the French. The Portuguese at that moment were concentrated in the northeast of the continent, in Bahia, and they had also made alliances with other Indian groups throughout the coast, which groups were enemies of the tupinambás. This is how the conflict known as Tamoios War begins. In 1560 Mem de Sá was sent by the Portuguese Crown to expel the French and to take actions regarding the Indians that were allied with them, and by doing that the tamoios frustrated at once the catechetical plans of the Jesuits and jeopardizing the success of the mission. This thesis intends to ascertain how the American experience has unfold a fear in the Europeans settlers connected most of all to the Indian experience of war, and everything it involved, such as the anthropophagical practices. The work also investigates how this fear was the motor that guided extreme actions of extirpation of certain groups of Indians, enemies of the Portuguese. This war is currently associated with the European plan of expansion, however this work reads this event by its singularities and sees it as a response to certain experiences that the alliances and wars between tribes have presented to the settlers and to the Portuguese monarchy.