appointed by his monarch to follow the course of Vasco de Gama in the East, was driven by adverse winds so far from his track, that he reached the Brazilian coast, April 24, and anchored in Porto Seguro (16 S. lat.) on Good Friday. On Easter day an altar was erected, mass cele brated in presence of the natives, the country declared an apanage of Portugal, and a stone cross erected in com memoration of the event. Cabral despatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery, and, without forming any settlement, proceeded to India on the 3d of May. On the arrival of the news in Portugal, Emanuel invited Amerigo Vespucci to enter his service, and despatched him with three vessels to explore the country. This navigator s first voyage was unsuccessful ; but in a second he discovered a safe port, the site of which is not accurately known, to which he gave the name of All-Saints. He remained there five months, and maintained a friendly intercourse with the natives. Some of the party travelled forty leagues into the interior. Vespucci erected a small fort, and leaving twelve men, with guns and provisions, to garrison it, embarked for Portugal, having loaded his two ships with
Brazil-wood, monkeys, and parrots.The poor and barbarous tribes of Brazil, and their country, the mineral riches of which were not immediately discovered, offered but few attractions to a Government into the coffers of which the wealth of India and Africa was flowing. Vespucci s settlement was neglected. For nearly thirty years the kings of Portugal paid no further attention to their newly-acquired territory than what consisted in combating the attempts of the Spaniards to occupy it, and dispersing the private adventurers from France who sought its shores for the purposes of commerce. The colonization of Brazil was prosecuted, however, by subjects of the Portuguese monarchy, who traded thither chiefly for Brazil wood. The Government also sought to make criminals of some use to the state, by placing them in a situation where they could do little harm to society, and might help to uphold the dominion of their nation.
The first attempt on the part of a Portuguese monarch to introduce an organized government into his dominions was made by Joao III. He adopted a plan which had been found to succeed well in Madeira and the Azores, dividing the country into hereditary captaincies, and granting them to such persons as were willing to undertake their settlement, with unlimited powers of jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. Each captaincy extended along fifty leagues of coast. The boundaries in the interior were undefined. The first settlement made under this new system was that of S. Vincente Piratininga, in the present province of S. Paulo. Martim Affonso de Sousa, having obtained a grant, fitted out a considerable armament, and proceeded to explore the country in person. He began to survey the coast about Rio de Janeiro, to which he gave that name, because he discovered it on the first of January 1531. He proceeded south as far as La Plata, naming the places he surveyed on the way from the days on which the respective discoveries were made. He fixed upon an island, in 24? S. lat., called by the natives Guaibe, for his settlement. The Goagnazes, or prevailing tribe of Indians in that neighbourhood, as soon as they discovered the intentions of the new comers to fix themselves permanently there, collected for tha purpose of expelling them. Fortunately, however, a shipwrecked Portuguese, who had lived many years under the protection of the principal chief, was successful in concluding a treaty of perpetual alliance between his countrymen and the natives. Finding the spot chosen for the new town inconvenient, ths colonists removed to the adjoining island of S. Vincente, from which the captaincy derived its name. Cattle and the sugar cane were at an early period introduced from Madeira, and here the other captaincies supplied themselves with both.
Pero Lopes de Sousa received the grant of a captaincy, and set sail from Portugal at the same time as his brother, the founder of S. Viucente. He chose to have his fifty leagues in two allotments. That to which he gave the name of S. Amaro adjoined S. Vincente, the two towns being only three leagues asunder. The other division lay much nearer to the line between Paraiba and Pernambuco. He experienced considerable difficulty in founding this second colony, from the strenuous opposition of a neigh bouring tribe, the Petiguares ; but at length he succeeded in clearing his lands of them ; and not long afterwards he perished by shipwreck.
Rio de Janeiro was not settled till a later period ; and for a considerable time the nearest captaincy to S. Amaro, sailing along the coast northwards, was that of Espiritu Santo. It was founded by Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, who having acquired a large fortune in India, sunk it in this scheme of colonization. He carried with him no less than sixty fidalgos. They named their town by anticipation, Our Lady of the Victory; but it cost them some hard fighting with the Goagnazes to justify the title.
Pedro de Campo Tourinho, a nobleman and excellent navigator, received a grant of the adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro. This, it will be remembered, is the spot where Cabral first took possession of Brazil. The Tupino- quins at first offered some opposition ; but having made peace, they observed it faithfully, notwithstanding that the oppression of the Portuguese obliged them to forsake the country. Sugar-works were established, and considerable quantities of the produce exported to the mother country. Jorge de Figueiredo, Escrivam da Fazenda, was the first donatory of the captaincy of Ilheos, 140 miles S. of Bahia. His office preventing him from taking possession in person, he deputed the task to Francisco Romeiro, a Castilian. The Tupinoquins, the most tractable of the Brazilian tribes, made peace with the settlers, and the colony was founded without a struggle.
The coast from the Rio S. Francisco to Bahia was granted to Francisco Pereira Coutinho ; the bay itself, with all its creeks, was afterwards added to the grant. When Coutinho formed his establishment, where Villa Velha now stands, he found a noble Portuguese living in the neighbourhood who, having been shipwrecked, had, by means of his fire-arms, raised himself to the rank of chief among the natives. He was surrounded by a patriarchal establishment of wives and children ; and to him most of the distinguished families of Bahia still trace their lineage. The regard entertained by the natives for Caramaru (signi fying man of fire) induced them to extend a hospitable welcome to his countrymen, and for a time everything went on well. Coutinho had, however, learned in India to be an oppressor, and the Tupinambas were the fiercest and most powerful of the native tribes. The Portuguese were obliged to abandon their settlement ; but several of them returned at a later period, along with Caramaru, and thus a European community was established in the district.
were established, a factory had been planted at Peruambuco. A ship from Marseilles took it, and left seventy men in it as a garrison; but being captured on her return, and carried into Lisbon, immediate measures were taken for reoccupying the place. The captaincy of Pernambuco was granted to Don Duarte Coelho Pereira as the reward of his services in India. It extended along ths coast from the Rio S. Francisco, north ward to the Rio de Juraza. Duarte sailed with his wife and children, and many of bis kinsmen, to take possession of his new colony, and landed in the port of Pernambuco.
To the town which was there founded he gave the name of
