| Tibira do Maranhão | |
| Caption: | Tibira |
| Death Date: | 1614 |
| Death Place: | Maranhão, Brazil |
| Nationality: | Tupinambá people |
| Known For: | First execution of a homosexual man in Brazil |
Tibira do Maranhão is the modern name of a Tupinambá native of Maranhão, executed in 1614, and recently identified by some as a possible case of execution related to homosexuality.
In 1614, 2 years after the arrival of French colonizers in Northern Brazil, an unnamed indigenous man was sentenced to death. He attempted to escape the charge, and fled into the woods for several days, but was re-captured by French authorities. Before his execution, the indigenous was baptized by Louis de Pézieux, leader of the French colony, in the name of Saint Dismas, strapped to a cannon, which was fired, killing him. His last words were:[1] This indigenous man was "one of the first people in the New World to be so executed," according to Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, contemporary Europeans received the story of his fate as implying that "Indigenous people were immoral and unworthy political subjects" and as justifying "harsh penalties and paternalistic rule" over them.[2]
In 1993, Brazilian gay activist Luiz Mott reinterpreted the episode as a homophobic execution, naming the indigenous "Tibira", after a tupi-guarani term for sodomite. In 2014 he started a campaign to get Tibira canonized as a queer saint and recognized as a martyr.[3]
On December 5, 2016, a monument commemorating "Tibira" was dedicated in Maranhão, Praia Grande, during the State Week of Human Rights.[4]