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144-706: English forces also assisted the Dutch at certain points in the war (though in later decades, the English and Dutch would become fierce rivals). Because of the commodity at the center of the conflict, this war would be nicknamed the Spice War. Portugal repelled Dutch attempts to secure Brazil , Mozambique , and Angola , but the Dutch disrupted the Portuguese trading networks in Asia, where they captured Malacca , Ceylon ,

288-675: A Spanish fleet to sack a Dutch ship near the Siamese shoreline. This enraged King Songtham of Siam , who held the Dutch in great preference and ordered attacks on the Spaniards. War between Philip's possessions and other countries led to a deterioration of the Portuguese Empire, as the loss of Hormuz to Persia, aided by England, but the Dutch Republic was the main beneficiary. In 1640, the Portuguese took advantage of

432-595: A naval battle off Hormuz in 1625, Persia vied for a cease-fire with the Portuguese to be able to reestablish trade and provided Portugal with a trading post in Kong . Together with the reestablished Basra route, this temporarily made up for the loss of Hormuz. The pioneers of the destruction of the Portuguese and Spanish mare clausum doctrine were the Dutch in portions of the East Indies . In 1624, Fernándo de Silva led

576-655: A century. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Tordesillas system , Portugal had managed to retain Diu but not Hormuz. Goa and Macau had also survived but not Malacca. Nevertheless, the downfall of the Portuguese Indian empire was not territorial but economic: the competition of other European powers whose demographics were more numerous, access to capital easier, and access to markets more direct than Portugal's. Lisbon's distributive monopoly had been stolen from

720-555: A distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, and shells, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period. Merchants during the sugar age were crucial to the economic development of the colony, the link between the sugar production areas, coastal Portuguese cities, and Europe. Merchants in the early came from many nations, including Germans, Flemings, and Italians, but Portuguese merchants came to dominate

864-513: A few months before Cabral landed, Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón came to the northeastern coast of Brazil and deployed many armed men ashore with no means of communicating with the indigenous people. One of his ships and captains was captured by indigenous people and eight of his men were killed. Cabral no doubt learned from this to treat communication with the utmost priority. Cabral left two degredados (criminal exiles) in Brazil to learn

1008-568: A journey through the navigations of the Portuguese in the East"). The published report included vast directions on how to navigate ships between Portugal and the East Indies and to Japan. Dutch and British interest fed by new information led to a movement of commercial expansion, and the foundation of the English East India Company in 1600, and Dutch East India Company ( Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) in 1602, allowing

1152-523: A kind of parasitic economy where proximity to settled areas were usually prerequisites for their long-term success. Unlike the palenque in Spanish America or maroon settlements in the West Indies , Portuguese officials rebuked any kind of agreements to standardize the quilombos out of the fear of drawing even more fugitive slaves to their communities. The largest of the quilombos was

1296-547: A large black slave population working on sugar plantations and mines. The boom and bust of the economic cycles were linked to export products. Brazil's sugar age, with the development of plantation slavery, merchants serving as middle men between production sites, Brazilian ports, and Europe was undermined by the growth of the sugar industry in the Caribbean on islands that European powers seized from Spain. Gold and diamonds were discovered and mined in southern Brazil through

1440-412: A large fleet led by Tomé de Sousa set sail to Brazil to establish a central government in the colony. Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil, brought detailed instructions, prepared by the king's aides, about how to administer and foster the development of the colony. His first act was the foundation of the capital city, Salvador , in northeastern Brazil, in today's state of Bahia . The city

1584-662: A large investment in capital, drawing on the enthusiasm of the best financiers and capitalists of the Republic. However, the GWC would not be as successful as its eastern counterpart. The Dutch invasion began in 1624 with the conquest of the then capital of the Governorate General of Brazil , the city of São Salvador da Bahia , but the Dutch conquest was short lived. In 1625, a joint Spanish–Portuguese fleet of 52 ships and 12,000 men rapidly recaptured Salvador . In 1630,

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1728-419: A larger set of defenses against slave uprisings that had been orchestrated by cities and towns. At the same time, some Amerindians resisted the colonizers’ efforts to prevent uprisings by surreptitiously incorporating into their villages those who had escaped slavery. Many of the details surrounding the inner political and social structure of the quilombos remain a mystery, and the information available today

1872-600: A nzumbi "was the priest responsible for the spiritual defense of the community." The Dutch and later the Portuguese attempted several times to conquer Palmares, until an army led by famed São Paulo-born Domingos Jorge Velho managed to destroy the great quilombo and kill Zumbi in 1695. Brazilian feature film director Carlos Diegues made a film about Palmares called simply Quilombo . Of the many quilombos that once existed in Brazil, some have survived to this day as isolated rural communities. Portuguese colonists sought to destroy these fugitive communities because they threatened

2016-530: A role in colonial Brazil. Their "importance in the colonial may be one explanation why the Inquisition was not permanently established in Brazil during the Iberian Union ." New Christians were well integrated into institutional life, serving in civil as well as ecclesiastical offices. The relative lack of persecution and abundance of opportunity allowed them to have a significant place in society. With

2160-717: A sedentary farming lifestyle. The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives, but also with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself. Following the creation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of São Salvador da Bahia by the Pope, Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha arrived in Bahia in 1552 and took issue with the Jesuit mission led by Manoel da Nóbrega. Sardinha opposed

2304-768: A single ethnic group . The region is mostly populated by the Austronesians , who first expanded from the island of Taiwan , and later on during the early modern period , when East Asians such as the Han Chinese started to migrate south and became known as the Peranakans or Straits Chinese. Buddhism , Christianity , Islam and Hinduism are the most popular religions throughout the region, while Sikhism , Jainism , Chinese folk religion and various other traditional beliefs and practices are also prominent in some areas. The major languages in this area draw from

2448-630: A wide variety of language families such as the Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan languages , and should not be confused with the term Indo-Aryan , a group of languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent . Regions of the East Indies are sometimes known by the colonial empire they once belonged to, hence, Spanish East Indies means the Philippines , Dutch East Indies means Indonesia , and British East Indies refers to Malaysia . Historically,

2592-404: Is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. The place where Álvares Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro , in northeastern Brazil . Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1,000 men following Vasco da Gama 's way to India, around Africa. Cabral

2736-812: Is limited by the fact that it usually comes from colonial accounts of their destruction. More is known about the Quilombo dos Palmares because it was "the longest-lived and largest fugitive community" in Colonial Brazil. Like any polity, Palmares and other quilombos changed over time. Quilombos drew on both African and European influences, often emulating the realities of colonial society in Brazil. In Palmares, slavery, which also existed in Africa, continued. Quilombos , like plantations, were most likely composed of people from different African groups. Religious syncretism, combining African and Christian elements,

2880-866: The Basra - Suez trade; southwards from Goa, the Cape Comorin fleet would escort the Goa merchants to Calicut and Cochin on the Malabar Coast and to Ceylon and the connection to the Bay of Bengal ; in the Bay of Bengal, the most lucrative trade was on the Coromandel Coast where such settlements as São Tomé of Mylapore and Pulicat served as hubs; it was in the Coromandel and Ceylon settlements where

3024-602: The British East India Company and Dutch East India Company , among others, in the 17th century. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus , who had grossly underestimated the westerly distance from Europe to Asia. Later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the "West Indies", while the original Indies came to be called

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3168-721: The Catalan Revolt and themselves revolted from the Spanish-dominated Iberian Union. From this point onward, the English decided instead to re-establish their alliance with Portugal. Despite the Portuguese proclaiming themselves as hostile to the Spanish crown, the VOC nevertheless took the opportunity to wrench away the string of coastal fortresses that comprised the Portuguese Empire. Malacca finally succumbed in 1641. Important battles also took place in

3312-560: The Dutch East Indies until Indonesian independence . The East Indies may also include the former French Indochina , former British territories Brunei , Hong Kong and Singapore and former Portuguese Macau and Timor . It does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea , which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia . The inhabitants of the East Indies are never called East Indians , as they are not linguistically related to South Asia, most specifically

3456-564: The Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence of the count John Maurice of Nassau as governor (1637–1644) in Recife (renamed Mauritstaad ). Nassau invited scientific commissions to research the local flora and fauna, resulting in added knowledge of the territory. Moreover, he set up a city project for Recife and Olinda, which was partially accomplished. Remnants survive into

3600-545: The Indies . Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies : The East Indies, which was also called "Old Indies" or "Great Indies", consisting of India , and the West Indies, also called "New Indies" or "Little Indies", consisting of the Americas . These regions were important sources of trading goods, particularly cotton , indigo and spices after the establishment of European trading companies:

3744-565: The Indo-Aryan languages . It distinguishes them both from inhabitants of the Caribbean (which is also called the West Indies ) and from the indigenous peoples of the Americas who are often called American Indians . However, in colonial times, the non-Indian Southeast Asians were also called "Indians". Peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to

3888-511: The Kingdom of Kandy against Portugal. The Dutch conquered Batticaloa in 1639 and Galle in 1640 before the alliance broke down. After a period of triangular warfare between the Dutch, Portuguese, and Kandyans, the alliance was remade in 1649. After exploiting and then double-crossing their Kandyan allies, the Dutch were able to capture Colombo in 1656 and drove the last Portuguese from Ceylon in 1658. Sporadic warfare with Kandy continued for over

4032-682: The Low Countries as a base for the sale of their spices in Northern Europe . After the Spaniards gained control of the Portuguese Empire though, they declared an embargo on all trade with the rebellious provinces (see Union of Utrecht ). In his efforts to subdue the rebelling provinces, Philip II cut off the Netherlands from the spice markets of Lisbon, making it necessary for the Dutch to send their own expeditions to

4176-620: The Malabar Coast , and the Moluccas . In Africa, the Dutch conquered the Portuguese Gold Coast . Portuguese resentment at Spain, which was perceived as having prioritized its own colonies and neglected the defense of the Portuguese, the weaker member of the union, was a major contributing factor to Portugal shaking off Spanish rule in the Portuguese Restoration War . Moreover, the Portuguese claimed that

4320-557: The Philippines , and commercial interests in Japan, Africa ( Mina ), and South America. In 1592, during the war with Spain , an English fleet had captured a large Portuguese galleon off the Azores, the Madre de Deus , loaded with 900 tons of merchandise from India and China, worth an estimated half a million pounds (nearly half the size of English treasury at the time). This foretaste of

4464-458: The Quilombo dos Palmares , located in today's Alagoas state, which grew to many thousands during the disruption of Portuguese rule with the Dutch incursion. Palmares was governed by leaders Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi . The terminology for the settlements and leaders come directly from Angola, with quilombo, an Angolan word for military villages of diverse settlers, and the nganga

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4608-546: The Tupi language was compiled by Joseph of Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines into communities of resettlement called aldeias , similar in intent to the reductions implemented by Francisco de Toledo in southern Peru during the 1560s. where the natives worked for the community and were evangelized. Founded in the aftermath of the campaign undertaken by Mem de Sá from 1557 to force

4752-519: The West Asian markets from being taxed by Portugal, which would deny Lisbon the revenue from the southernmost course of the silk route. It was a lucrative trade but not as essential to the Indian Ocean spice trade network at large. However, the VOC suffered from the same weakness as Portugal: lack of manpower. Thus, a Spanish-style colonization effort was never feasible and only dominion of

4896-463: The aldeias by colonists eager to steal laborers for themselves thus causing natives to flee the settlements. The aldeia model would again be used, though also unsuccessfully, by the Governor of the captaincy of São Paulo, Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão  [ pt ] , in 1765, in order to encourage mestizos , natives, and mulattoes to abandon slash-and-burn agriculture and adopt

5040-712: The islands and mainlands found in and around the Indian Ocean by Portuguese explorers , soon after the Cape Route was discovered. In a narrow sense, the term was used to refer to the Malay Archipelago , which today comprises the Philippine Archipelago , Indonesian Archipelago , Borneo , and New Guinea . Historically, the term was used in the Age of Discovery to refer to the coasts of

5184-739: The landmasses comprising the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese Peninsula along with the Malay Archipelago . During the era of European colonization , territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia were known as the Spanish East Indies for 333 years before the American conquest and later the independence of the Philippines . Dutch occupied colonies in the area were known for about 300 years as

5328-482: The Americas. For example, the Brazilian colony was at first thought of as a commercial asset that would facilitate trade between the Portuguese and India and not a place to be settled to develop a society. The social model of conquest in Brazil was one geared toward commerce and entrepreneurial ideals rather than conquest as was the case in the Spanish realm. As time progressed, the Portuguese crown found that having

5472-527: The Crown not having a strong administrative hold due to Brazil's reliance on its exportation economy. Pernambuco, the most successful captaincy, belonged to Duarte Coelho , who founded the city of Olinda in 1536. His captaincy prospered with engenhos , sugarcane mills, installed after 1542 producing sugar. Sugar was a very valuable good in Europe, and its production became the main Brazilian colonial product for

5616-527: The Dutch controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe ( Dutch Brazil ), without, however, penetrating the interior. The large Dutch ships were unable to moor in the coastal inlets where lighter Portuguese shipping came and went. Ironically, the result of the Dutch capture of the sugar coast was a higher price of sugar in Amsterdam . During the Nieuw Holland episode, the colonists of

5760-514: The Dutch garrison that since the Dutch would not respect the terms of the truce, the Portuguese felt no obligation to do so either. Although the Portuguese were outnumbered, a swift display of force achieved on 15 August the surrender of Luanda and all Dutch forces in Angola. Upon hearing of the fall of Luanda, Queen Nzinga retreated to Matamba , while the Dutch in São Tomé abandoned the island, which

5904-402: The Dutch returned and captured Olinda and then Recife , renamed Mauritsstadt , thus establishing the colony of New Holland . The Portuguese commander Matias de Albuquerque retreated his forces inland, to establish a camp dubbed Arraial do Bom Jesus . Until 1635, the Dutch were unable to harvest sugar due to Portuguese guerrilla attacks, and were virtually confined to the walled perimeter of

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6048-502: The Dutch were unable in four attempts to capture Macau from where Portugal monopolised the lucrative China–Japan trade . The Dutch established a colony at Tayouan in 1624, present-day Anping in the south of Taiwan, known to the Portuguese as Formosa and in 1642 the Dutch took northern Formosa from the Spanish by force. The Dutch intervened in the Sinhalese–Portuguese War on Ceylon from 1638 onward, initially as allies of

6192-509: The Dutch would even attempt to conquer Goa itself, but Portuguese diplomacy defeated this plan. In fact, Goa had been under intermittent blockade since 1603. Most of the fighting took place in west India, where the Dutch campaign in Malabar sought to replace the Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade. Dutch and Portuguese fleets faced off for control of the sea lanes as was the case with the action of 30 September 1639 , while on mainland India

6336-550: The English the Dutch fleet was worn and weary, and not able yet to undertake major operations so the Dutch instead authorized privateering assaults upon the Portuguese. In 1657, the Dutch fleet was again fit for large operations and the war resumed. Between 1657 and 1661, Dutch fleets, besides operating in the Second Northern War , regularly cruised before the Portuguese coast. Portuguese privateers also did considerable harm to Dutch West African and American shipping, but

6480-468: The French were again expelled from São Luís by the Portuguese. Since the initial attempts to find gold and silver failed, the Portuguese colonists adopted an economy based on the production of agricultural goods that were to be exported to Europe. Tobacco and cotton and some other agricultural goods were produced, but sugar became by far the most important Brazilian colonial product until the early 18th century. The first sugarcane farms were established in

6624-507: The Iberian Union (1580–1640), many migrated to Spanish America. In 1580, a succession crisis led to the union of Portugal and Spain being ruled by the Habsburg king Philip II . The unification of the crowns of the two Iberian kingdoms, known as the Iberian Union, lasted until 1640 when the Portuguese revolted. During the union the institutions of both kingdoms remained separate. For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were Christian converts from Judaism ("New Christians") or their descendants,

6768-455: The Iberian Union was a reason for the attacks on their colonies by the Dutch. The war lasted from 1598 to 1663, and the main participants were the Kingdom of Portugal and the Dutch Republic . Following the 1580 Iberian Union , Portugal was throughout most of the period under Habsburg rule, and the Habsburg Philip II of Spain was battling the Dutch Revolt . Prior to the union of the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns, Portuguese merchants used

6912-427: The Islamic world and soon invited more direct competition; it crumbled quickly. In all, and also because the Dutch were kept busy with their expansion in Indonesia, the conquests made at the expense of the Portuguese were modest: some Indonesian possessions and a few cities and fortresses in South India . The most important blow to the Portuguese eastern empire would be the conquest of Malacca in 1641 (depriving them of

7056-418: The Jesuit mission at São Vicente in late 1552 to return only at the conclusion of the Sardinha's tenure. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from slavery , but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defenses. Slave labour and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and

7200-464: The Jesuits taking part in indigenous dances and playing indigenous instruments since he viewed these activities had little effect on conversion. The use of interpreters at confession by the Jesuits was also railed against by Sardinha who opposed the appropriation of indigenous culture for evangelization. Sardinha also challenged the Jesuit prohibition on waging war against and enslaving the indigenous population, eventually forcing Nóbrega to leave Bahia for

7344-529: The Jesuits usually did not object to the enslavement of African people. The potential riches of tropical Brazil led the French, who did not recognize the Tordesillas Treaty that divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, to attempt to colonize parts of Brazil. In 1555, the Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon founded a settlement within Guanabara Bay , in an island in front of today's Rio de Janeiro. The colony, named France Antarctique , led to conflict with Governor General Mem de Sá, who waged war against

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7488-420: The North and Adventurers Fleets all the way to Daman and Diu which oversaw the northern trade and the Gulf of Cambay ; while the Fleet of the North escorted merchant ships the Adventurers Fleet would also seek to disrupt the Mecca trade between northern India's Muslims and the Arabian Peninsula ; the Diu fleet would then connect the trade to Hormuz which controlled the Persian Gulf routes and interrupted

7632-415: The Portuguese Crown's point of view, its realm was expanded with relatively little cost to itself. On the Atlantic islands of the Azores , Madeira , and São Tomé , the Portuguese began plantation production of sugarcane using forced labor, a precedent for Brazil's sugar production in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Portuguese discovery of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between

7776-418: The Portuguese Empire through the Treaty of The Hague. 15th century 16th century 15th century 16th century Colonial Brazil Colonial Brazil ( Portuguese : Brasil Colonial ) comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese , until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal . During the 300 years of Brazilian colonial history,

7920-434: The Portuguese crown from the high costs of colonization. The captaincies granted control over large areas of land and all that resided upon it. Furthermore, the splitting of land highlights the economic importance a large amount of land would have for red-dye producing trees and sugar plantations. Thus, between 1534 and 1536 king John III divided the land into 15 captaincy colonies, which were given to those who wanted and had

8064-423: The Portuguese expel the French from a colony they had established at present-day Rio de Janeiro . The first attempt to colonize Brazil followed the system of hereditary captaincies ( Capitanias Hereditárias ), which had previously been used successfully in the colonization of Madeira. These captaincies were granted by royal decree to private owners, namely to merchants, soldiers, sailors, and petty nobility, saving

8208-490: The Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Europeans who lived together with the indigenous people and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were João Ramalho , who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo , and Diogo Álvares Correia, who acquired the name Caramuru , who lived among the Tupinambá natives near today's Salvador. Over time, the Portuguese realized that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to

8352-424: The Portuguese from retreating inland into strongholds like Massangano , Ambaca , and Muxima . With a steady source of slaves now secure, the Dutch abstained from further action, presuming that their allies would suffice against the Portuguese. Nonetheless, lacking firearms and artillery, Queen Nzinga and the Kongo proved unable to decisively defeat the Portuguese and their cannibalistic Imbangala allies. In 1648,

8496-401: The Portuguese governor of the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador Correia de Sá , organized a military expedition to retake Luanda from the Dutch , directly from Brazil. This is because the Portuguese were unable to send sufficient reinforcements to their colonies due to the ongoing Restoration War in mainland Portugal. In early August, the fleet reached Luanda, where de Sá communicated to

8640-502: The Portuguese monarchy beginning to move from a crusading and looting-centric attitude, to a trade-centric attitude when approaching new lands. The latter attitude required communication and cooperation with indigenous people, thus, interpreters. This informed Cabral's actions in Brazil. As Cabral realized that no one in his convoy spoke the language of the indigenous people in Brazil, he took every effort to avoid violence and conflict and used music and humor as forms of communication. Just

8784-447: The Portuguese, from Nagasaki, also doomed the economic viability of Macau. The siege of Malacca of 1641, after many attempts, delivered the city to the Dutch and their regional allies (including the Sultanate of Johor ), crucially breaking the spinal cord between Goa and the Orient. Portuguese establishments were isolated and prone to being picked off one by one, but nevertheless the Dutch only enjoyed mixed success in doing so. Amboina

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8928-409: The Portuguese. The Dutch found what they were looking for in Batavia , conquered by Jan Pieterszoon Coen in 1619. The city would become the capital of the Dutch East Indies . For the next forty-four years, the two cities of Goa and Batavia would fight relentlessly, since they stood as the capital of Portuguese India and the VOC's base of operations. With the assistance of the Sultanate of Bijapur

9072-419: The Portuguese. By 1580, as many as 40,000 natives could have been taken from the interior to toil as slaves on Brazil's interior, and this enslavement of indigenous people continued right throughout the colonial period. The period of sugar-based economy (1530 – c. 1700) is known as the sugar cycle in Brazil. The development of the sugar complex occurred over time, with a variety of models. The dependencies of

9216-437: The South China Sea, initially with combined fleets of Dutch and English vessels, and subsequently exclusively Dutch ships assaulting Macau. Dutch attempts to capture Macau , to force China to replace the Portuguese or to settle the Pescadores failed, in part because of the long-standing diplomacy between the Portuguese and the Ming, but the Dutch were ultimately successful in acquiring the monopoly of trade with Japan. Meanwhile,

9360-460: The VOC arose because, with the war with Spain and Portugal being united to Spain, the trade would now be directed through the southern Low Countries (roughly present-day Belgium), which according to the Union of Arras (or Union of Atrecht) were pledged to the Spanish monarch and were Catholic, as opposed to the Dutch Protestant north. This also meant that the Dutch had lost their most profitable trade partner and their most important source of financing

9504-468: The VOC seized the Santa Catarina , a Portuguese galleon. It was such a rich prize that its sale proceeds doubled the capital of the VOC. The legality of keeping the prize was questionable under Dutch statute and the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo. The scandal led to a public judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public (and international) opinion. As a result, Hugo Grotius in The Free Sea ( Mare Liberum , published 1609) formulated

9648-411: The beginning of the end of Dutch occupation of Portuguese Brazil, until their final expulsion from Recife in 1654. At the same time, the Dutch organized incursions against the Portuguese possessions in Africa in order to take control of the Atlantic slave trade and complete the triangular trade that would ensure the economic prosperity of New Netherland. In 1626, a Dutch expedition to take Elmina

9792-417: The blockades of the Portuguese coast crippled Portuguese maritime trade, while the VOC finished its conquest of Ceylon and the Malabar Coast in India at the same time. In 1661, Portugal agreed to compensate the Dutch with eight million guilders and ceded the colonies of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and the Maluku Islands (part of present-day Indonesia). On August 6, 1661, the Dutch Republic formally ceded Brazil to

9936-693: The capital of the State of Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. In 1775 all Brazilian States (Brasil, Maranhão and Grão-Pará) were unified into the Viceroyalty of Brazil , with Rio de Janeiro as capital, and the title of the king's representative was officially changed to that of Viceroy of Brazil. As in Portugal, each colonial village and city had a city council ( câmara municipal ), whose members were prominent figures of colonial society (land owners, merchants, slave traders). Colonial city councils were responsible for regulating commerce, public infrastructure, professional artisans, prisons etc. Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought

10080-451: The cities. Eventually, the Dutch evicted the Portuguese with the assistance of a local landlord named Domingos Fernandes Calabar , but on his retreat to Bahia, Matias de Albuquerque captured Calabar at Porto Calvo , and had him hanged for treason. The Portuguese fought back two Dutch attacks on Bahia in 1638. Nonetheless, by 1641, the Dutch captured São Luís , leaving them in control of northwestern Brazil between Maranhão and Sergipe in

10224-408: The city of Batavia (modern-day Jakarta ). This put them safely distant from Goa but opportunistically close to Malacca and the sea lanes connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Many battles were fought but the most decisive ones fatally injured the Portuguese Indian empire. The Dutch blockade of Goa between 1604 and 1645 deprived Portuguese India from a safe connection to Lisbon – and Europe – for

10368-492: The coast of Africa on the way. They sought sources of gold, ivory, and African slaves, high value goods in the African trade. The Portuguese set up fortified trading feitorias (factories), whereby permanent, fairly small commercial settlements anchored trade in a region. The initial costs of setting up these commercial posts was borne by private investors, who in turn received hereditary titles and commercial advantages. From

10512-472: The coast: they sacked Salvador in 1604, from which they removed large amounts of gold and silver before a joint Spanish-Portuguese fleet recaptured the town. The city was captured again by the Dutch in May 1624 before being surrendered to a Luso-Spanish armada 11 months later. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in commercial Recife and aristocratic Olinda. With the capture of Paraíba in 1635,

10656-455: The coastal native population and the declaration of king Sebastian I 's 1570 law which proclaimed the liberty of Brazilian natives, the enslavement of indigenous people increased after 1570. A new slave trade emerged where indigenous people were brought from the sertões or "inland wilderness frontiers" by mixed-race mameluco under the loophole in the 1570 law that they were captured in just wars against native groups who "customarily" attacked

10800-527: The colony in 1560. Estácio de Sá, nephew of the Governor, founded Rio de Janeiro in 1565 and managed to expel the last French settlers in 1567. Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and Joseph of Anchieta were instrumental in the Portuguese victory by pacifying the natives who supported the French. Another French colony, France Équinoxiale , was founded in 1612 in present-day São Luís , in the North of Brazil. In 1614

10944-423: The colony serve as a trading post was not ideal for regulating land claims in the Americas, so it decided that the best way to keep control of their land was to settle it. Thus, the land was divided into fifteen private, hereditary captaincies , the most successful of which being Pernambuco and São Vicente . Pernambuco succeeded by growing sugarcane. São Vicente prospered by enslaving indigenous native people from

11088-470: The colony, but Johan de Witt , the Grand Pensionary of Holland , preferred a monetary compensation. He did not want to reoccupy the colony and prioritized stronger trading ties with the Portuguese. To compensate Zeeland and save face he demanded eight million guilders from Portugal. The Portuguese, however, refused to return the colony or to pay the indemnity. In the aftermath of the war against

11232-650: The control over these straits), Ceylon in 1658, and the Malabar Coast in 1663, even after the signing of the Treaty of The Hague in 1661. Surprised by such easy gains in the East, the Republic quickly decided to exploit Portugal's weakness in the Americas. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company ( Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie or GWC) was created to take control of the sugar trade and colonize America (the New Netherland project). The GWC benefited from

11376-527: The course of a few years and replace them with newly imported enslaved people. Areas where manioc , a subsistence crop, was cultivated also utilized high numbers of enslaved peoples. In these areas, 40 to 60 percent of the population was enslaved. These regions were characterized by fewer work demands and better living and working conditions for enslaved peoples as compared to labor conditions for enslaved populations in sugar regions. The Portuguese attempted to severely restrict colonial trade, meaning that Brazil

11520-519: The defeat of the French colonists of France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous people to Catholicism is linked to their capacity to understand the native culture, especially the language. The first grammar of

11664-409: The defense against pirates. Only São Paulo was an important inland city. Unlike the network of towns and cities that developed in most areas of Spanish America, the coastal cities and their hinterlands were oriented toward Portugal directly with little connection otherwise. With sugar as the major export commodity in the early period and the necessity to process cane into exportable refined sugar on-site,

11808-412: The economic and social order of the slave regime in Brazil. There was a constant fear among colonists that enslaved peoples would revolt and resist slavery. Two settler objectives were to discourage enslaved peoples from trying to escape and to close down their options for escape. Strategies used by Portuguese colonists to prevent enslaved people from fleeing included apprehending escapees before they had

11952-460: The end of the colonial era. Brazilian cities were largely port cities and the colonial administrative capital was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in response to the rise and fall of export products' importance. Unlike Spanish America, which fragmented into many republics upon independence , Brazil remained a single administrative unit under a monarch as the Empire of Brazil , giving rise to

12096-737: The enslavement of indigenous people continued. The Portuguese had established several commercial facilities in West Africa , where West African slaves were bought from African slave traders. The enslaved West Africans were then sent via slave ships to Brazil, chained and in crowded conditions. Enslaved West Africans were more desirable and practical because many came from sedentary, agriculture-based societies and did not require as much training in how to farm as did members of Amerindian societies, which tended to not be primarily agricultural. Africans were also less vulnerable to disease than Amerindians were. The importation of enslaved Africans into Brazil

12240-473: The entry of chartered companies in the so-called East Indies. In 1602, the VOC was founded, with the goal of sharing the costs of the exploration of the East Indies and ultimately re-establishing the spice trade, which generated high profits in the new Dutch Republic and other European countries if the spices were bought at source and their supply could be controlled by a monopoly. The need of founding

12384-536: The farm included a casa-grande (big house) where the owner of the farm lived with his family, and the senzala , where the slaves were kept. A notable early study of this complex is by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre . This arrangement was depicted in engravings and paintings by Frans Post as a feature of an apparently harmonious society. Initially, the Portuguese relied on enslaved Amerindians to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing enslaved Africans from West Africa, though

12528-421: The first and only channels of interaction between all of the world's continents, thus beginning the process of globalization . In addition to the imperial and economic undertaking of discovery and colonization of lands distant from Europe, these years were filled with pronounced advancements in cartography , shipbuilding and navigational instruments , of which the Portuguese explorers took advantage. In 1494,

12672-470: The first group of Jesuits to the colony. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits represented the spiritual side of the enterprise and were destined to play a central role in the colonial history of Brazil. The spreading of the Catholic faith was an important justification for the Portuguese conquests, and the Jesuits were officially supported by the king, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all

12816-481: The indigenous people and severe disputes with other colonizers and the bishop. Wars against the natives around Salvador consumed much of his government. The fact that the first bishop of Brazil, Pero Fernandes Sardinha , was killed and eaten by the Caeté natives after a shipwreck in 1556 illustrates how strained the situation was between the Portuguese and many indigenous communities. The third Governor-General of Brazil

12960-521: The king of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia ) was identified with " Prester John of the Indies", since that part of the world was imagined to be one of "Three Indias". Exploration of the East Indies by European powers began in the last three years of the 15th century and continued into the 16th century, led by the Portuguese explorers . The Portuguese described the entire region they discovered as

13104-611: The kings of Portugal and Castile , following Portuguese sailings down the coast of Africa to India and the voyages to the Caribbean of the Genoese mariner sailing for Castile, Christopher Columbus . The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, which created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between the two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian

13248-412: The land to extract brazilwood. Worried about foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and fight the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived in Brazil to patrol the entire coast, expel the French, and create the first colonial villages like São Vicente on the coast. Because Brazil

13392-452: The land. The other thirteen captaincies failed, leading the king to make colonization a royal effort rather than a private one. In 1549, Tomé de Sousa sailed to Brazil to establish a central government. He brought along Jesuit priests, who set up missions , forbidding natives to express their own cultures, and converting many to Catholicism. The Jesuits' work to dominate the indigenous native’s cultural expression and way of living helped

13536-558: The largest country in Latin America. Just as Spanish and Roman Catholicism were a core source of cohesion among Spain's vast and multi-ethnic territories, Brazilian society was united by the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism. As the only Lusophone polity in the Americas, the Portuguese language was - and remains - particularly important to Brazilian identity. Portugal pioneered the European charting of sea routes that were

13680-531: The leadership of mulatto landowner João Fernandes Vieira, who proclaimed himself loyal to the Portuguese Crown. GWC forces were defeated at the Battle of Tabocas , virtually confining the Dutch to the fortified urban perimeters of coastal cities, defended by contingents of German and Flemish mercenaries. Still in that year, the Dutch abandoned São Luís. The Second Battle of Guararapes , in 1649, marked

13824-541: The longest of any country in the Americas. African slaves had a higher monetary value than indigenous slaves largely because many of them came from agricultural societies and thus were already familiar with the work needed to maintain the profitable sugar plantations of Brazil. Also, African slaves were already immune to several of the Old World diseases that killed many indigenous people and were less likely to flee, as compared to indigenous slaves, since their place of origin

13968-432: The main economic activities of the territory were based first on brazilwood extraction (brazilwood cycle), which gave the territory its name; sugar production ( sugar cycle ); and finally on gold and diamond mining ( gold cycle ). Slaves, especially those brought from Africa , provided most of the workforce of the Brazilian export economy after a brief initial period of Indigenous slavery to cut brazilwood. In contrast to

14112-402: The means to administer and explore them. The captains were granted ample powers to administer and profit from their possessions. From the 15 original captaincies, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. The failure of most captaincies was related to the resistance of the indigenous native people, shipwrecks and internal disputes between the colonizers. . Failure can also be attributed to

14256-411: The mid-16th century and were the key for the success of the captaincies of São Vicente and Pernambuco, leading sugarcane plantations to quickly spread to other coastal areas in colonial Brazil. Initially, the Portuguese attempted to utilize Indian slaves for sugar cultivation, but shifted to the use of black African slave labor. While the availability of Amerindians did decrease due to epidemics afflicting

14400-422: The modern era. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch finally withdrew in 1654; the Portuguese paid off a war debt in payments of salt. Few Dutch cultural and ethnic influences remain, but Albert Eckhout 's paintings of amerindians and slaves, as well as his still lifes are important works of baroque art. Unlike neighboring Spanish America, Brazil was a slave society from its outset. The African slave trade

14544-418: The most common forms of resistance involved engaging in sluggishness and sabotage . Other ways these enslaved peoples resisted was by exacting violence upon themselves and their babies, often to the point of death, and by seeking revenge against their masters. Another type of resistance to slavery was flight and, with the dense vegetation of the tropics, runaway slaves fled in numbers and for slave owners, this

14688-533: The native languages and to serve as interpreters in the future. The practice of leaving degredados in new lands to serve as interpreters came straight from the colonization of the islands off of the West African coast 80 years before Cabral landed in Brazil. After Cabral's voyage, the Portuguese focused their efforts on their possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to

14832-457: The neighboring Spanish possessions , which had several viceroyalties with jurisdiction initially over New Spain (Mexico) and Peru , and in the eighteenth century expanded with the viceroyalties of the Río de la Plata (Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia) and New Granada (Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and Guyana), the colony of Brazil was settled mainly in the coastal area by the Portuguese and

14976-422: The new land to chart the coast and to obtain brazilwood. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable red dye to luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who initially worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes. In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil, and also later,

15120-503: The new principle that the sea was international territory, against the Portuguese mare clausum policy, and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The 'free seas' provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch to break the Portuguese monopoly through its formidable naval power. The Portuguese relied on four strategic bases in the East Indies: Goa , Hormuz , Malacca , and Macau . The first served as

15264-419: The next 150 years. The captaincy of São Vicente, owned by Martim Afonso de Sousa, also produced sugar but its main economic activity was capturing indigenous native people to trade them as slaves. With the failure of most captaincies and the menacing presence of French ships along the Brazilian coast, the government of king John III decided to turn the colonization of Brazil back into a royal enterprise. In 1549,

15408-477: The opportunity to band together. Slave catchers mounted expeditions with the intent to destroy fugitive communities. These expeditions destroyed mocambos and either killed or re-enslaved inhabitants These expeditions were conducted by soldiers and mercenaries, many of whom were supported by local people or by the government's military. As a result, many fugitive communities were heavily fortified. Amerindians were sometimes utilized as ‘slave catchers’ or as part of

15552-535: The remainder of the war. In 1615, a battle off the coast of Malacca destroyed Portuguese naval power in Southeast Asia. The Portuguese lost their naval supremacy to the Dutch in the crucial route between Goa and Macau. The sieges of Qeshm and Hormuz by the combined forces of Persia and England have largely dislodged the Portuguese from West Asia. The 1639 expulsion of the Jesuits ( sakoku ) and subsequently

15696-578: The riches of the East galvanized interest in the region. That same year, Dutch merchants sent Cornelis de Houtman to Lisbon, to gather as much information as he could about the Spice Islands . In 1595, merchant and explorer Jan Huyghen van Linschoten , having traveled widely in the Indian Ocean in the service of the Portuguese, published a travel report in Amsterdam , the "Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten" ("Report of

15840-520: The seas would allow it to compete. The Portuguese had a century head start in the region and their empire allowed them access to converted and loyal local populations, which shored up inland, what naval power could not ensure at sea. Hence, the Dutch directed their efforts to the periphery of the Portuguese Empire. Avoiding the Indian coasts, they set up their own headquarters in Southeast Asia , in

15984-513: The seat of Portuguese viceroys, head of all Portuguese possessions east of the Cape of Good Hope and connected India with Portugal proper; Hormuz was a Portuguese protectorate, and the keystone of the Persian Gulf trade between Persia , Arabia, Mesopotamia , and rest of Asia and Africa. Malacca connected Goa to the Indian Ocean trade via Cape Comorin and Ceylon ; and Macau was the hub for

16128-734: The ships out of the Malacca route often laid anchor because they connected the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea ; the Malacca fleet patrolled the Singapore Strait and the routes diverted to Celebes and what is now Indonesia at large in the south, and northwards to China and Japan ; China provided silk and china to Macau from where the "Silver Carrack" connected to Japan where several products were exchanged for Japanese silver. At dawn on 25 February 1603, three ships of

16272-693: The sites of institutional life of church and state, as well as urban groups of merchants. Unlike many areas of Spanish America, there was no dense, sedentary indigenous population which had already created settlements, but cities and towns in Brazil were similar to those in Spanish Colonial Venezuela . Port cities allowed Portuguese trade goods to enter, including African slaves, and export goods of sugar and later gold and coffee to be exported to Portugal and beyond. Coastal cities of Olinda (founded 1537), Salvador (1549), Santos (1545), Vitória (1551), and Rio de Janeiro (1565) were also vital in

16416-498: The sources of these commodities and to take control of the Indies spice trade . This followed the capture of Recife in which the Dutch assisted the English in capturing the Portuguese colony. Like the French and English, the Dutch worked to create a global trade network at the expense of the Iberian kingdoms. The Dutch Empire attacked many territories in Asia under the rule of the Portuguese and Spanish including Formosa , Ceylon ,

16560-544: The south John Maurice of Nassau was recalled from the governorship of New Holland in 1644 because of excessive expenditure and under suspicion of corruption. Mutual hostility between the Catholic Portuguese and Protestant Dutch, and harsh measures to collect from indebted land-owners who had their estates ravaged in the war, ensured that Portuguese settlers came to resent the authority of the new Dutch administration. In 1645, most of Dutch Brazil revolted under

16704-576: The states of Brasil , with Salvador as capital, and Maranhão , with its capital in São Luís . The state of Maranhão was still further divided in 1737 into the Maranhão e Piauí and Grão-Pará e Rio Negro , with its capital in Belém do Pará . Each state had its own Governor. After 1640, the governors of Brazil coming from the high nobility started to use the title of Vice-rei ( Viceroy ). In 1763

16848-432: The submission of Salvadoran natives, the aldeias marked the transition of Jesuit policy from conversion by persuasion alone to the acceptance of force as a means of organizing natives with a means to then evangelizing them. Nevertheless, these aldeias were unattractive to the natives due to the introduction of epidemic diseases to the communities, the forced settlement of aldeia natives elsewhere to labor, and raiding of

16992-403: The sugar engenhos had resident artisans and barber-surgeons, and functioned in some ways as small towns. Also unlike most Spanish settlements, Brazilian cities and towns did not have a uniform lay-out of central plaza and a check board pattern of streets, often because the topography defeated such an orderly layout. Converted Jews, so-called New Christians , many of whom were merchants, played

17136-535: The support needed to Christianise the indigenous people. The first Jesuits, guided by Father Manuel da Nóbrega and including prominent figures like Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes and later Joseph of Anchieta , established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga , the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo . Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in

17280-677: The trade in Brazil. During the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns (1580–1640), to be active in Spanish America as well, especially trading African slaves. Even though Brazilian sugar was reputed as being of high quality, the industry faced a crisis during the 17th and 18th centuries when the Dutch and the French started producing sugar in the Antilles , located much closer to Europe, causing sugar prices to fall. Brazil had coastal cities and towns, which have been considered far less important than colonial settlements in Spanish America, but like Spanish America, urban settlements were important as

17424-658: The trade routes stretching from the South China Sea to the Sea of Japan and to the Spice Islands, east of New Guinea in Melanesia . The other locations were important but not crucial: including Diu along with Bombay (until the English acquisition ). These Indian cities controlled the approaches to the smaller Gulf of Cambay and to the larger Arabian Sea as well. If both Diu and Hormuz would fall, that would prevent

17568-716: The trees. Portuguese seafarers in the early fifteenth century, as an extension of the Portuguese Reconquista , began to expand from a small area of the Iberian Peninsula, to seizing the Muslim fortress of Ceuta in North Africa. Its maritime exploration then proceeded down the coast of West Africa and across the Indian Ocean to the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the Atlantic islands off

17712-541: The two kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula divided the New World between them in the Treaty of Tordesillas , and in 1500 navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in what is now Brazil and laid claim to it in the name of king Manuel I of Portugal . The Portuguese identified in Portuguese brazilwood as a valuable red dye source and an exploitable product, and attempted to force indigenous groups in Brazil to cut

17856-503: The union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. The Seventeen Provinces obtained independence from Spain in 1581, leading Philip II to prohibit commerce with Dutch ships, including in Brazil. Since the Dutch had invested large sums in financing sugar production in the Brazilian Northeast and were important as shippers of sugar, a conflict began with Dutch privateers plundering

18000-459: The victims of this raiding were not white sugar planters but blacks who sold produce grown on their own plots. Other accounts document the actions of members of quilombos to successfully prospect gold and diamonds and to engage in trade with white-controlled cities. While the reasons for fugitive settlement are varied, quilombos were rarely wholly self-sufficient and although inhabitants may have engaged in agricultural pursuits, they depended on

18144-893: The war against Spain. Additionally, the Dutch would lose their distribution monopoly with France, the Holy Roman Empire , and Northern Europe. The Portuguese Empire in the Indian Ocean was a traditional thalassocracy that had extended its reach to every major choke point in the ocean. Trade in the area corresponded also to a traditional triangular model whereupon small manufactures would be brought from Europe and traded in Africa for gold and several items, then these would serve to purchase spices in India proper which were then brought back to Europe and traded at immense profit which would be reinvested into ships and troops, to be sent eastwards. The Portuguese State of India , headquartered in Goa ,

18288-465: The war involved more and more Indian kingdoms and principalities as the Dutch capitalized on local resentment of Portuguese conquests in the early 16th century. After the fall of Qeshm and Hormuz to the Persians and English, the Portuguese struck out of their Muscat and Goa bases, which led to a destructive campaign against Persia's coastline and an alliance with Ottoman Basra . Eventually, after

18432-461: Was Mem de Sá (1557–1573). He was an efficient administrator who managed to defeat the indigenous people and, with the help of the Jesuits, expel the French ( Huguenots and some previous Catholic settlers) from their colony of France Antarctique . As part of this process, his nephew, Estácio de Sá , founded the city of Rio de Janeiro there in 1565. The huge size of Brazil led to the colony being divided in two after 1621 when king Philip II created

18576-494: Was almost wiped out in an ambush by the Portuguese , but in 1637, Elmina fell to the Dutch . In 1641, (after a truce between Portugal and the Netherlands had been signed), the Dutch captured the island of São Tomé and before the end of 1642, the rest of Portuguese Gold Coast followed. In August 1641, the Dutch formed a three-way alliance with the Kingdom of Kongo and Queen Nzinga of Ndongo , and with their assistance captured Luanda and Benguela , though without preventing

18720-629: Was a network of key cities which controlled the maritime trade in the Indian Ocean: Sofala was the base for Portuguese operations in East Africa and was supported by Kilwa to better control the Mozambique Channel ; from here, the routes took the trade to Goa which was the hub for the rest of the operations and where the India convoy ships out of Europe arrived; from Goa, going northwards, the trade would be protected by

18864-505: Was a result of the planters' preference for male labor, and men in quilombos not only raided for crops and goods, but for women; the women taken back to the quilombos were often black or mulatto . East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies ) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery . The Indies broadly referred to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere , particularly

19008-414: Was able to safely enter and leave Brazil in ten days, despite having no means of communication with the indigenous people there, due to the experience Portuguese explorers, such as Gama, had been amassing over the past few decades in interacting with foreign peoples. The Portuguese colonization, around 80 years earlier, of islands off West Africa such as São Tomé and Príncipe , were the first examples of

19152-658: Was an "endemic problem." The realities of being on a frontier that was policed in less than optimal ways fostered the successful escapes of enslaved people. Since the early 17th century there are indications of runaway slaves organizing themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos , were usually small and relatively close to sugar fields, and attracted not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. Quilombos were often viewed by Portuguese colonists as "parasitic," relying upon theft of livestock and crops, "extortion, and sporadic raiding" for sustenance. Often,

19296-470: Was an item of dispute for more than two and a half centuries but clearly established the Portuguese in America. It was replaced by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, and both reflect the present extent of Brazil's coastline. On 22 April 1500, during the reign of king Manuel I , a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it

19440-481: Was built on a slope by a bay ( All Saints Bay ) and was divided into an upper administrative area and a lower commercial area with a harbour. Tomé de Sousa also visited the captaincies to repair the villages and reorganise their economies. In 1551, the Diocese of São Salvador da Bahia was established in the colony, with its seat in Salvador. The second Governor General, Duarte da Costa (1553–1557), faced conflicts with

19584-461: Was captured from the Portuguese in 1605, but an attack on Malacca, the Battle of Cape Rachado , the following year narrowly failed in its objective to provide a more strategically located base in the East Indies with favorable monsoon winds. In 1607 and 1608 , the Dutch twice failed to subdue the Portuguese stronghold on the Island of Mozambique , due to the close cooperation between the locals and

19728-416: Was heavily influenced by the rise of sugar and gold industries in the colony; from 1600 until 1650, sugar accounted for 95% of Brazil's exports. Slave labor demands varied based on region and on the type of harvest crop. In the Bahia region, where sugar was the main crop, conditions for enslaved peoples were extremely harsh. It was often cheaper for slaveowners to literally work enslaved peoples to death over

19872-530: Was inherent to the economic and social structure of the colony. Years before the North American slave trade got underway, more slaves had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach the Thirteen Colonies . It can be estimated that around 35% of all Africans captured in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to Brazil. The slave trade in Brazil would continue for nearly two hundred years and last

20016-562: Was not home to larger civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca in Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese could not place themselves on an established social structure. This, coupled with the fact that tangible material wealth was not found until the 18th century, made the relationship between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colony very different from the relationship of the Spanish to their possessions in

20160-419: Was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine , olive oil , textiles and luxury goods – the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian slave traders in Africa frequently exchanged cachaça ,

20304-436: Was prevalent. The Bahian quilombo of Buraco de Tatu is described as a "well-organized" village in which people probably practiced monogamy and lived on rectangular-shaped houses that made up neat rows, emulating a plantation senzala . Quilombos were often well fortified, with swampy dikes and false roads leading to "covered traps" and "sharpened stakes," like those used in Africa. The gender imbalance among African slaves

20448-479: Was reoccupied by the Portuguese later that year. The Dutch, determined to recover Brazil, postponed the end of the conflict. Due to the First Anglo-Dutch War , the Dutch Republic had been unable to properly support the GWC in Brazil. With the end of the conflict with the English, the Dutch demanded the return of the colony in May 1654. The Province of Zeeland had the most to gain from the return of

20592-560: Was so inaccessible. However, many African slaves did in fact flee and created their own communities of runaway slaves called quilombos , which often became established political and economic entities. Work on the sugarcane plantations in Northeast Brazil and other areas relied heavily on slave labor , mostly of west African origin. Tijmen vd P. Had a immense role in slave oppression and torture of escaped africans These enslaved people worked to resist slavery in many ways. Some of

20736-421: Was to be the property of Portugal, and everything to the west of it went to Spain. The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two parts, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Spaniards. The Treaty of Tordesillas has been called the earliest document in Brazilian history, since it determined that part of South America would be settled by Portugal instead of Spain. The Treaty of Tordesillas

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