Early History and Colonization
From “Brief Glance into History” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
From: Unknown To: 1550 C.E.
Location: Brazil
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From “Brief Glance into History” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
Archaeological research in Brazil has not yet succeeded in producing evidence sufficient to settle the question of who the original inhabitants of this country were. The point on which most investigators seem to agree is that the aborigines found there are descended from a Mongol stock. It is conjectured that their ancestors made their way from Asia through North America, down the isthmus, or by Florida to South America. Whether these ancient invaders found a people in Brazil or not cannot so far be determined. Fossil relics and articles discovered in excavation throw little light on the problem. Many European savants have devoted considerable time to a study of the matter, with unsatisfying results.
The art specimens found are attributed to a race that got their ideas in Central America or farther away. The funeral urns found in burial-places, such as the caverns of Maraca, vary in design from Egyptian to Japanese types. The stone and bone weapons convey no more idea of their makers than those made by primitive peoples of other lands. When Brazil was discovered by men who left us records of what they saw, it was peopled by a race of light-complexioned Indians, armed with bows and arrows, who showed a lot of courage in their attacks on the discoverers.
It is remarkable that the discovery of Brazil followed immediately on the finding of the New World by Christopher Columbus; and that the possibility of there being a great land in this quarter of the globe seemed to have occurred to two such renowned navigators as Columbus and Vasco da Gama about the same time. It is true that neither was directly responsible for it, but Pinzon, who first sighted it in January 1500, was evidently acting under Columbus' advice; and Cabral, who landed on it three months later was admittedly acting under instructions from Vasco da Gama.
The discovery of Brazil came about in this way. Vincent Yanez Pinzon, a young Spaniard who had been associated with Columbus, fitted out four vessels late in 1499, and started out to see what lay in that portion of the world assigned to his country by the Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494.
With his little squadron, Pinzon pushed west until on Jan. 28, 1500 a coast-line fringed with palms appeared in view. Approaching it he found a forest-clad promontory, which he called Cabo de Santa Maria de la Consolacao, which was probably Cape St Augustine, a point near Pernambuco. After unsuccessful attempts to hold friendly intercourse with armed natives, who resisted the party's landing, the squadron examined the many islands and the coast north- westward. Here Pinzon found friendly natives, who resorted to the ships "as if they had been well acquainted with them." After penetrating the estuary of the Amazon a little beyond the present site of Para, Pinzon returned to Spain by way of the north coast.
Having arrived back in Lisbon after his famous voyage round the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, Vasco da Gama at once prepared an expedition to search out the great land he believed to be away to the south-west, and then to continue the same voyage to the East Indies.
Leaving Lisbon on March 9 1500, the small squadron under command of Pedro Alvares Cabral, came to anchor on April 25 in a little bay on the coast of Bahia, which he called Porto Seguro. Cabral took possession of the land in the name of the King of Portugal and called it Terra da Santa Cruz, the Land of the Holy Cross.
The act was accompanied by elaborate religious ceremony conducted by certain Franciscan friars who were going out with the ships to the Indies. The natives met on landing proved extremely friendly, and two members of the ships' company were left with them. A ship under Caspar de Lemos, was sent to survey the coast northward, and then return to Lisbon with the news. Cabral went on to the Indies, and Lemos arrived safely back in Lisbon.
In May of the following year the King of Portugal had another fleet fitted out to go and further explore the new land. The fleet was placed under the command of a Venetian, named Amerigo Vespucci, an astronomer and scientist of note, who had been with Hojeda, the discoverer of Venezuela and Trinidad in 1499, and had returned with Pinzon in 1500. This expedition met Cabral's on its return from the Indies, off Cape Verde, and together they surveyed the coast of the new land, naming capes, bays, and rivers as far south as Santos, which they called Sao Vicente.
Amerigo returned to Lisbon by way of Africa, and took another expedition out in 1502. This squadron of six vessels, with the command of which Admiral Duarte Coelho was associated, got scattered by storms. The admiral's ship was wrecked on an island supposed to be one of the Fernando Noronha group, and Amerigo with some of the other ships, reached a bay which they called All Saints, now Bahia Bay. They landed there, built a fort, and left a garrison. Some months were spent in further exploration of the coast north and south. Friendly intercourse with the natives was maintained. In this the survivor of the two men left behind by Cabral on his first visit assisted by interpreting.
Amerigo's remaining ships were loaded with wood, with which they returned to Europe. The story of Amerigo's voyages was published at Freiburg, Baden, and the books commanded a good sale. A suggestion that the newly-found continent should be called "Amerika" in his honour found favour, and the name seems soon to have come into general use even by the Portuguese. The wood coming from Terra da Santa Cruz became known in Europe as "bresil"-wood, and the country as the country of "bresil."
Bresil, or Brazil, as it is designated by the English, was visited by the French navigator de Gonneville in 1504, and from that time onwards was frequently touched at by Portuguese vessels trading to the Indies. In 1519 Magellan spent some weeks in Rio Bay.
From 1503 the French actively endeavoured to get a footing in the country. In 1526 they succeeded in establishing themselves on certain parts of the coast, and during that year a Portuguese fleet, sent to guard the coasts, met and defeated a French fleet in Bahia Bay.
A Portuguese post at Pernambuco, which had been captured by the French, was retaken in 1530 by a Portuguese fleet under Martin Affonso de Sousa, who was sent out in that year from Lisbon with 400 colonists. Most of these colonists were left at Pernambuco, which he called Olinda. The rest were distributed down the coast at Bahia, Sao Vicente, and other points. Pernambuco was first visited by Pinzon, but Cabral's lieutenant Caspar de Lemos, the Portuguese, was the first European to effect a landing there. There is a legend that Pernambuco was visited by a native of Nuremburg named Martino Behaim in the year 1484. It is said this mariner, then in the service of Portugal, was driven out of his course on a voyage to the Congo. "Pera Nambuco" are the Indian words for perforated rock. There are gaps in the reefs in front of the place, and the name Pernambuco seems easily accounted for.
It was in 1530 that an English trader, William Hawkins of Plymouth, visited Pernambuco and inaugurated the trade between England and Brazil that has grown now to such large dimensions. Hawkins made the voyage in a little vessel of 250 tons called the " Pole." In this ship he brought to England an Indian chief who was presented to King Henry VIII at Whitehall. From this year 1530 onwards British vessels traded at irregular intervals with Brazil.
The Portuguese colony at Bahia was founded by Diogo Alvares Correia, subsequently known as "Caramuru," one of the men left behind by Cabral in 1500. Caramuru rose to become a man of considerable wealth and influence with the Indians. He built the first church erected in Brazil on the site occupied to-day by the Chapel of Our Lady of Victory, Bahia. Martin Affonso de Sousa, as he had been instructed by the Portuguese Government, divided the country into "capitaneas," which he allotted to nobles willing to undertake the expense and labour of colonisation.
These capitaneas were fifteen in number, each with a coast-line of fifty leagues, and a hinterland stretching west indefinitely between lines drawn from the points on the coasts. This system of colonisation proved a failure, and one after another the capitaneas reverted to the Crown, with the exception of that of Pernambuco, which seems to have been ably managed by Duarte Coelho its captain.
By 1549 such a state of disorder had arisen that Dom John III of Portugal sent out an expedition of over four thousand men, with judges and ecclesiastics, to restore order and establish a royal captaincy at Bahia. This expedition, under Thome de Souza, was well received and supported by Caramuru and other influential colonists. A capital surrounded by a pallisade and defended by a fort was created at Bahia.
The leader of the ecclesiastical party, Manoel da Nobrega, a distinguished Jesuit and friend of Loyola, began to erect a cathedral, and opened missions and schools throughout the country. Under Thome de Souza a legislative system was evolved, and order arose out of the chaos he found. As Captain-General he took over the powers formerly vested in the captains or chiefs of the capitaneas, and shared them with a council he established. A militia was raised to protect the colonies from native raids; cattle was imported from the Azores and plantations of various kinds, already started, were developed.
Large numbers of boys and girls from the orphanages of Portugal were brought out; possibly to offset the evil influence of hundreds of convicts that were also transported to the new colonies.
Thome de Souza returned to Portugal in 1553, leaving as his successor Duarte da Costa, who was eaten by the Indians, and succeeded by Mem de Sá, who very ably extended the good work begun by de Souza.
Meanwhile, in the year 1540, Francisco Pizarro the discoverer and conqueror of Peru, hearing of territory of fabulous wealth away to the eastward of that country, sent his brother Gonzalo with three hundred Spaniards and four thousand Indians to explore it. Leaving Quito the expedition reached the River Napo, on which a brigantine was built. Gonzalo Pizarro sent this vessel ahead with baggage, instructing Francisco de Orellana its captain to return with what provisions he could get for the remainder of the party. Orellana never returned, but proceeded on down the great river to the ocean.
When Pizarro, despairing of Orellana's return, made his way to the great river, he learnt from a Spaniard left behind there by Orellana of that officer's treachery. Pizarro returned to Peru, where the tales he told of hardship and encounters with female warriors on this great river, as a reason for the failure of the expedition, were not generally accepted. Orellana who was thus the first navigator to cross northern Brazil by water reached Spain. The story of his voyage induced others to enter Brazil from the north-west at different later periods, and their tales of ferocious female warriors confirming earlier stories, gained for the waterway the title "Amazon's River."
Bruce, George James. Brazil and the Brazilians. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1914.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
