In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral set sail from Lisbon with 13 ships and 1200 crew, ostensibly for India, and arrived on the Brazilian coast near present-day Porto Seguro by ‘accident’. Some historians say it was his intended destination all along, and it is true that his ‘discovery’ was reported to the king in such matter-of-fact terms that it seems that the existence of Brazil was already well-known to mariners. In 1531 King João III of Portugal sent the first settlers to Brazil and, in 1534, fearing the ambitions of other European countries, he divided the coast into 15 hereditary captaincies, which were given to friends of the Crown. The colonists soon discovered that the land and climate were ideal for growing sugar cane, and solved the prodigious labor requirements by enslaving the Indian population. The capture and sale of slaves soon became one of Brazil’s most lucrative trades. Their brutal exploits, more than any treaty, secured the huge interior of South America for Portuguese Brazil. From the mid-16th century, African slaves were compelled to replace Indians on the plantations. They were less vulnerable to European diseases, but their lives were short nevertheless. Quilombos, communities of runaway slaves, were common throughout the colonial era. They ranged from mocambos, small groups hidden in the forests, to the great republic of Palmares that survived for much of the 17th century. In the 1690s, gold was discovered in Minas Gerais and the rush was on.
posted by Hills @ 3:16 PM
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