This article analyzes the policy of agreements and wars between the Portuguese Crown and the indians in Sertão nordestino in the colonial ages. To facilitate the study, the feuds were split in three great regions: Sertão do Recôncavo Baiano and Bahia’s shore of São Francisco river, including the south of Piauí; Sertão of Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande and Ceará; and Sertão of Piauí and Maranhão. This division corresponded to the timeline in which the conflicts become more present in the researched documents and allowed a better view on peoples’ displacements since the contact and evaluate the consequences for them. Furthermore, it discusses the time marks and the reach of the historical process called Guerra dos Bárbaros.