#1570

#1570

"I LOVE MIKE BACICH

I LOVE MIKE BACICH

I LOVE MIKE BACICH

Armour for Use in the Tilt, with Boot Stirrups, Italain, 1570

Crakler from Dofus

"Why did I try to fight this while I was obviously not experimented enough to do it"

Portuguese Brazil

With a wealth of natural resources, Brazil was by far the most important colony in the Portuguese empire and was, at one time or another, the world’s leading producer of sugar, diamonds, and tobacco. Colonised from the 1530s, most settlements were coastal towns until the interior was exploited bringing further conflict with the Amerindians.

Importing a massive number of slaves from Africa, Brazilian society became multicultural but remained dominated by white Europeans. The colony was repeatedly threatened militarily and commercially by the French, Dutch, and British, but Portugal held on to its jewel in the colonial crown until Brazil achieved independence in 1822.

Europe Discovers Brazil

Vasco da Gama (c. 1469-1524) famously sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and on to India in 1497-1499, giving the Portuguese access to the spice trade of the East. The Portuguese followed this up by creating an empire of trading ports that went from East Africa to Japan. One of the by-products of da Gama’s epic voyage was significant for Brazil on the other side of the world. Da Gama had pioneered a new route to sail down the Atlantic Ocean to gain favourable winds. It was a risky strategy that involved sailing far out into the mid-Atlantic. When Pedro Álvares Cabral set off to repeat da Gama’s feat in March 1500, he sailed too far west and accidentally 'discovered' Brazil (although the visit may have been planned by the ever-secretive Portuguese). Cabral stayed eight days at Baia Cabrália where he met Amerindians. A Spanish sailor, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón had perhaps been the first European to sight the Brazilian coast the year before, but it is not clear where exactly he went. In any case, it was the Portuguese who claimed Brazil for their own because, as had been agreed with Spain in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, it was within their sphere of influence. A second Portuguese expedition, led by Gonçalo Coelho, explored the Brazilian coast in more detail in 1501. Another famous explorer, the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), visited in 1502, and he gives the following description:

This land is very delightful, and covered with an infinite number of green trees and very big ones which never lose their foliage, and through the year yield the sweetest aromatic perfumes and produce an infinite variety of fruit, gratifying to the taste and healthful to the body…and the fields produce herbs and flowers and many sweet and good roots, which are so marvelous…that I fancied myself to be near the terrestrial paradise.

(98)

The name Brazil, which first appears on maps from 1511, may derive from 'Bresel wood' which was a popular hardwood of reddish colour exported from India to Europe in the Middle Ages. A similar type of wood was common in the forests of Brazil. Alternatively, the source may be brasa, the Portuguese name for this dark redwood and its dye which means 'glowing coal'. One of the early successful exports from Brazil was these hardwoods, used in everything from ships to violins. This timber attracted private Portuguese traders to Brazil from 1502 who established the first trading station (feitoria) north of Rio de Janeiro.

In 1511 the Portuguese Crown, wary of interest from Spain, made an official but secretive move on Brazil. João de Lisboa and Estêvão Froes commanded two caravel ships which explored the Brazilian coast. Spain sent a fleet to do the same in 1515. Both nations were looking for a route around the southern tip of the Americas and access to Asia. The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480-1521), in the service of Spain, was the first to achieve that feat on his 1519-22 expedition that circumnavigated the globe. Spain may have gained access to the Pacific Ocean, but it was Portugal that got to work on colonizing Brazil.

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