The aim of this paper is to promote a brief historical digression on how the State was related to indigenous communities in Brazil, subjugating the autonomy of these people to the integrationist desideratum with ethnocentric bias. Along an original approach, multidisciplinary, intended to illustrate the evolution of the legal treatment of the aforementioned ethnic minorities, whose gradual political organization induced the improvement of public policies combined to promote the so-called ethno-development, whose theoretical premises will also be exposed. Taking advantage of domestic and foreign literature meeting, the conclusion of reasoning will show that the planning, execution and evaluation of public policies involving indigenous peoples is closely related to the study of human rights, to the extent that is needed to cope with the irreconcilable relationship between respect for diversity and intolerance, along with the dichotomy between the protection of economic, social, cultural and environmental and dilemmas of economic globalization.