This article aims to contribute to the debate on the notions and practices of “development.” It analyses the relationship among development, power, and violence in the process of territorial appropriation triggered by the so-called “major development projects,” in the areas of hydroelectric power generation in Colombia and mining in Brazil. The notion of “development” is problematized and the historical relationship among it, the expansion of extractive capital, and the exercise of multiple forms of violence, in Latin America, are discussed. Based on empirical information gathered in fieldwork of research, which is carried out in both countries, the text gives an account of a set of practices related to the exercise of forms of violence, identified in the relationship of the projects with their territorial environments. Finally, it is concluded that these practices are political strategies that companies deploy, by generating and maintaining power asymmetries, which undermine the possibility of a democratic use and appropriation of territorial resources.