Colonial Brazil

Colonial Brazil is the name for Portuguese rule over Brazil, from the arrival of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 to 1815, when Brazil was raised to the status of a kingdom equal with Portugal. In three centuries, the colony grew from a few coastal trading posts into a territory covering about half of South America.

Cabral's fleet, sailing for India, reached the coast of Bahia in April 1500 and claimed the land for Portugal, which already had rights there under the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. The coast was home to Tupi-speaking peoples, who farmed manioc and lived in villages. The Portuguese at first traded with them for brazilwood, a tree that produced a red dye, which gave the colony its name.

To defend the coast against French traders, King John III divided it in the 1530s into hereditary captaincies, granted to Portuguese nobles. Most failed, but Pernambuco and São Vicente prospered. In 1549 the crown sent a governor-general, Tomé de Sousa, who founded Salvador, in Bahia, as the capital. Jesuit missionaries, led by Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, arrived with him, founded settlements and São Paulo in 1554, and tried to protect Indigenous people from enslavement, while converting them.

From the mid-sixteenth century, sugar plantations, engenhos, spread in Pernambuco and Bahia, making Brazil the world's largest sugar producer. Planters at first enslaved Indigenous people, many of whom died from disease and overwork, and then turned to enslaved Africans, mostly from Angola, the Congo and West Africa. Brazil received more enslaved Africans than any other country, about 4 to 5 million over the whole period of the trade. African cultures shaped Brazil's religion, music, food and language.

From 1630 to 1654 the Dutch West India Company occupied Pernambuco and much of the north-east. Under Count John Maurice of Nassau, governor from 1637 to 1644, the Dutch built the city of Mauritsstad at Recife and brought scientists and artists, such as Frans Post. Portuguese settlers rebelled and drove the Dutch out in 1654.

Enslaved people escaped and formed communities, quilombos. The largest, Palmares, in the hills of today's Alagoas, had thousands of inhabitants for most of the seventeenth century and resisted many expeditions. Its last leader, Zumbi, was killed in 1695; his death date, 20 November, is now Black Consciousness Day in Brazil.

Expeditions from São Paulo, the bandeiras, travelled into the interior to capture Indigenous slaves and search for gold, extending Portuguese claims far beyond the Tordesillas line. In the 1690s they found gold in Minas Gerais, and later diamonds. A gold rush brought hundreds of thousands of settlers and enslaved Africans. Towns such as Ouro Preto grew rich, with Baroque churches decorated by the sculptor Aleijadinho. The Treaty of Madrid with Spain in 1750 recognised Portuguese control of most of the interior.

The Marquis of Pombal, Portugal's chief minister, expelled the Jesuits in 1759 and moved the capital to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. In 1789 a conspiracy in Minas Gerais, the Inconfidência Mineira, planned independence; its leader, Tiradentes, was hanged in 1792 and is now a national hero.

In 1808, fleeing Napoleon, the Portuguese royal family moved to Rio de Janeiro, which became the capital of the Portuguese empire. Prince Regent John opened Brazil's ports to foreign trade, and founded a bank, a library and a botanical garden. In 1815 Brazil was made a kingdom equal to Portugal, ending its colonial status.

Our maps label Colonial Brazil from 1715 to 1815. Its largest outline, about 8.1 million square kilometres on the 1783 map, is almost exactly modern Brazil. Rio de Janeiro and Salvador lie inside it throughout. On the 1878 map it has become the Empire of Brazil.