Shelton Davis was an American anthropologist who was drawn to the issue of the treatment of indigenous peoples in Brazil during a two-year position as a visiting instructor at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Prior to working in Brazil, he received his doctorate at Harvard University and spent two years doing ethnographic fieldwork in Guatemala. Davis was the first to document the Brazilian government’s policies toward indigenous peoples and to disseminate his findings first through the Brazilian Information Bulletin and then in a journal focusing on indigenous issues called Indigena.

Read an interview with Shelton Davis by James Green.