The Xavante live on six reserves in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Colonial records place them farther east; as missionaries, settlers, slave hunters, and mineral prospectors intruded the territories the Xavante roamed in their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the Xavante moved westward. They settled along the Rio das Mortes and its tributaries.
In the late 1930s and 1940s, Xavante experienced renewed conflicts with peoples of European descent, as settlers and colonists began to move into the Rio das Mortes region.
