Tambaqui Alliance

**Highest Placing Member**: Julia (4/20)

The Tambaqui Alliance was an alliance from Survivor: The Amazon.

This alliance was created by the women on one of the weakest tribes in *Survivor* history. After reducing the men to two of their own allies, they were forced to turn on each other before the merge phase. They entered the merge down in numbers, but used their social capital to force their rivals to turn on each other.

## History

### The First Split

The blue Tambaqui tribe was formed on Day 1 of *Survivor: The Amazon*. For the first few days of the game, Tambaqui acted as a large family and no alliances were asserting themselves as the majority. After losing the second immunity challenge, the tribe unanimously eliminated Zana for being one of the weaker members of the tribe. Tambaqui lost any sense of unity following this vote because they divided themselves into male and female factions. After losing again, the men voted for Anastasia whilst the men voted for Caleb. However, Caleb was voted out when Skyler flipped on the men in order to work with the women.

### Losing Streak

With the tribe now evenly split along gender lines, Susanne decided to mimic Skyler's move and flip to the men in order to blindside her target Anastasia. Unfortunately for Susanne, she couldn't trust the men and they relayed her plans to the alliance in order to keep the target off their backs. At their third loss, the alliance blindsided Susanne. The dwindling Tambaqui tribe included four men who held a close friendship with each other because they were the physical strength of the tribe. Despite having a 4-3 majority over the women, Skyler was not aligned with the men. On Day 14, Tambaqui lost their fourth immunity challenge in a row. The Tambaqui Alliance agreed to vote out Gianni, but the women were secretly concerned with Skyler's connection to the men. They told Skyler to work with Gianni and throw their votes to Jai under the guise of a split vote plan. Gianni's elimination was further proof that the women were in control of the tribe and that Skyler was a close ally of theirs.

### The Second Split

By Day 15, the six Tambaqui castaways were severely outnumbered over the nine members of their rival Jaburu tribe. The tribe miraculously won the following immunity challenge, their first win in almost two weeks. Since the women had control over the tribe, it was agreed that Julia would be sent to Exile Island. She found the Hidden Immunity Idol and decided to keep this information secret in the event the women turn on each other. This was exactly what happened because Anastasia and Faye turned on each other whilst Julia was exiled.

The new tension on Tambaqui led to the tribe losing the next immunity challenge. Julia managed to bring Anastasia and Faye back into the alliance with Skyler. At tribal council, Mike voted with the alliance in order to unanimously eliminate Jai. Julia was desperate for her three women to remain together considering there were only five castaways left on Tambaqui. This wasn't the case because Anastasia and Faye were rallying the troops against each other. When Tambaqui lost their sixth immunity challenge as a tribe, Anastasia and Julia voted for Faye but Faye worked with the men in order to eliminate Anastasia.

### The Merge

The surviving four members of the Tambaqui tribe were finally given a saving grace when the two tribes merged, though they were half the size of Jaburu. The Tambaqui Alliance voted for Chrissy at the first merged tribal council and expected to lose one of their own. However, they were given a lucky break when Jaburu turned on each other and voted Cheryl out. On Day 25, the remaining eleven castaways competed in a reward challenge in order to obtain an advantage in the game. Mike from the Tambaqui Alliance won the challenge and was awarded a voting advantage which gave him the opportunity to steal one castaways vote and then vote twice himself at any tribal council until the Final Five. The Tambaqui Alliance knew that in order to overthrow the Jaburu Alliance, they needed to form strong relationships with Jaburu. With tribal council coming up, the alliance managed to bring in Carly and Stephanie. Julia told Tambaqui that she had the idol and would play it on Faye, who the Jaburu Alliance was targeting. The Tambaqui Alliance split the votes between James and Jason. Julia feared they were being played by Jaburu and decided to not play her idol on Faye, so she was made the second member of the jury.

Julia was left as the only woman left on the Tambaqui Alliance, but was still aligned with Skyler and Mike out of necessity. Julia was perceived as the strongest Tambaqui member and was targeted at the next tribal. After keeping it to herself, Julia played her idol and James was voted out with only three votes from Tambaqui. After pulling off this big move, the Tambaqui Alliance to assert their dominance once more. At the next tribal council. Mike used his advantage to steal Carly's vote because they weren't sure if they could fully trust her. The alliance now had the numbers with three remaining Tambaqui members, Mike's extra vote and Elisabeth from Jaburu working with them. These five votes eliminated Stephanie because of her relationships with the Jaburu women and Jason.

### Three Become One

Tambaqui was quietly confident they had overcome their numbers disadvantage, but the Jaburu Alliance still had a 5-3 numbers advantage over them by the Final Eight. The alliance tried to get Jaburu to turn on Elisabeth because she had worked with them at the previous tribal council, but this caused Elisabeth to mistrust Tambaqui and flipped back to her original allies. With no agency left in the game, Mike and Skyler were eliminated at the following two tribal councils. This left final Tambaqui Alliance member Julia as a sitting duck. After failing to win individual immunity, Julia thought she would be gone next. However, the Jaburu women approached Julia and they voted together in order to eliminate Brock. The original plan was to vote out Jason next, but he won individual immunity. Julia tried to get the target off her back by throwing Chrissy under the bus and she was eliminated. Julia's luck as the final Tambaqui alliance member finally ran out and she was eliminated on Day 38 after failing to win the final individual immunity challenge.