Antônio Pedroso de Barros

Antônio Pedroso de Barros (died 1652) was a bandeirante, he was the brother of the bandeirante Pedro Vaz de Barros.

He died in 1652 with a will. He was boosted by the number of 600 Indians he had on his farms.

In 1650, there were already many farms in the region known as Caioçara, a name preserved to this day. The Caioçara de Jarinu and Atibaia neighborhoods are confined. The bandeirantes, going around the Cangica hill to the left, would have reached the highland where the Campo Largo station building on the Bragantina Railway was built. Nearby was the prosperous farm of Antônio Pedroso de Barros and from this property the movements leading to the exploration of the region began.

The appearance of the town of Atibaia dates back to 1665. In 1653, in the inventory of Antônio Pedroso de Barros, the boundaries of the region called Caioçara appear, whose lands today belong partly to the municipality of Jarinu and partly to Atibaia.

In the lands located before Juqueri (today Caieiras, Francisco Morato, Franco da Rocha and Mairiporã), for those leaving São Paulo, there were properties of Notable bandeirantes such as Antônio Pedroso de Alvarenga, Brás Cardoso, Paulo Pereira, Pedro Fernandes, Mateus Luís Grou, Francisco Rodrigues Velho and his brothers and other sertanistas.

His life is narrated in March to the West, a book by Cassiano Ricardo, where the author states: "Other pioneers heading west and northwest were the Pedroso (Pedroso Xavier and Pedroso de Barros). Antônio Pedroso de Barros and Luís Pedroso de Barros, two brothers, penetrated the west of Mato Grosso by river, the first carrying a flag with 500 Indians and the second 1,200."

The flags were entire families. And the Mato Grosso flags were among the ones that fought the hardest: the objective was very distant and the indigenous tribes were among the most fierce and fearless. Through the rivers Tietê, Paraná, Pardo, Coxim and Taquari, 520 leagues had to be covered. And the Indians were the paiaguás and the guaicurus, the first were lords of the rivers ("fish Indians") and the second were the famous horse Indians. The "paiaguás were the walls closing the mines of Cuiabá" and "terrible bugs, the more they killed, the more they wanted to kill".

Silva Leme tells about his family in Genealogia Paulistana. As stated in his inventory with will (Notary of Officials of São Paulo), he died in 1652, his will being written by his brother-in-law Francisco Dias Velho, as the testator was in death. In it he declared that he was the son of Luzia Leme, that he was the brother of captains Fernão Pais de Barros and Pedro Vaz de Barros, and that he was the son-in-law of Inês Monteiro de Alvarenga.

Marriage and posterity
In 1639 in São Paulo, he married Maria Pires de Medeiros, daughter of captain Salvador Pires de Medeiros and Inês Monteiro de Alvarenga, nicknamed "the matron". He left four legitimate children and four bastards:

Legitimate children:
 * Pedro Vaz de Barros – born 10 April 1644 in São Paulo
 * Antônio Pedroso de Barros.
 * Inês Pedroso de Barros.
 * Luzia Leme de Barros.

The bastard children:
 * Sebastiana, daughter of little Maria.
 * Paulo, son of little Mary.
 * Pascoal, son of the Indian woman Vitorina.
 * Ventura, son of the Indian woman Iria.