< 1.2 Feitoras and Engenhos – 1.4 Bandeirantes >
The caravel, a shallow-keeled boat used for the first time by the Portuguese in the 15th century, was a key asset in their exploration of North Africa and used in much of their oceanic exploration. Image courtesy of http://nautarch.tamu.edu/.
Establishment of Brazil’s Colonial Political Structure
From Prince Henry the Navigator’s conquest and exploration down the African coast to Vasco de Gama’s opening of a sea route to India, Portugal from the fourteenth century was one of Europe’s forerunners in overseas exploration. After de Gama’s discovery, which promised an influx of wealth and new trading opportunities, King Manuel sponsored a new voyage led by nobleman Pedro Alvares Cabral, to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and arrive in India through the Indian Ocean. Rather than head south and then east, however, Cabral’s fleet sailed west, eventually arriving on the coast of a vast continent at a place named Porto Seguro (Safe Port) on April 22, 1500.
The Portuguese Crown’s first form of colonization involved treating Brazil as a trading post and a stop on the way to India. Portugal, nevertheless, needed to protect its holding from other European powers, who were always attempting to seize new territories. The Treaty of Tordesilhas in 1494 drew a line around the globe, dividing it between Spain and Portugal:
? for the sake of peace and concord, and for the preservation of the relationship and love of the said King of Portugal for the said King and Queen of Castile, Aragon, etc., it being the pleasure of their Highnesses, they, their said representatives, acting in their name and by virtue of their powers herein described, covenanted and agreed that a boundary or straight line be determined and drawn north and south, from pole to pole, on the said ocean sea, from the Arctic to the Antarctic pole. This boundary or line shall be drawn straight, as aforesaid, at a distance of three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands ?
However, neither this treaty nor any of the others arranged between European powers had much success in regulating land claims in the “New World.” Portuguese authorities soon realized that the only way to hold on to their new territory was to settle it. But the government of the small nation was not equipped with the resources to populate a new territory many times its size, and so Portugal developed a system by which citizens were given the honor, and the responsibility, of settling a portion of the new Portuguese colony, together with the title of captain-general.
These captaincies-general were given to merchants, soldiers, sailors, and petty nobility; the high nobility had better prospects and did not have to risk their lives and wealth in such far-fetched ventures. The captaincies were hereditary. However, they could only be granted or divided by royal decree.
Nobleman Manuel Costa gave the captaincy of Pernambuco to Duarte Coelho, a member of his family, in a charter in 1534:
Dom João, etc. To whom it may concern I make it known that I now grant and reward Duarte Coelho, nobleman of my lineage, for him and all his children, grandchildren, hears and successors, by law and inheritance, forever, the captaincy and territory of sixty leagues of land along my coast of Brazil which begin at the river São Francisco, which is from the cape of São Agostinho toward the south, and end at the river Santa Cruz, which is from the said cape to a line according to a more explicit description in the grant which I have given him for the said land; and because it is very necessary to have here a charter stating the taxes, rents, duties, and things that are to be paid in the said land, the ones that belong to me and the crown of these kingdoms as well as those which belong to the said captain by the authority of the said grant, I, because I enjoy rewarding him, thought it best to draw up and execute the said charter for said land, where he must now go to dwell, populate and exploit. The sooner this is done the better, for the service of God and myself and for the good of the said captain and inhabitants of the said land ?
Costa went on to lay out the terms of the land grant: the taxes to be paid to the Jesuit Order on land, precious stones, brazilwood, and game and fish; shipping regulations; and a restriction against trading with the natives of the region, punishable by a fine to be paid in three parts: to the Crown, to the offender’s accuser, and to the Church.
The thirteen captaincies-general of Brazil were all defined by northern and southern extremes, and stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the imaginary line of the Treaty of Tordesilhas to the west. This sixteenth-century map by Luis Teixeira also includes information about the owners of each captaincy, as well as explaining the line of demarcation determined by the rulers of Spain and Portugal. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Pernambuco, the territory settled mainly on the northeast coast that he named, was one of only two captaincies-general that flourished during colonial conquest. Both it and São Vicente to the south were sugar-producing colonies. Every other territory failed as an economic venture, and all the captaincies-general were eventually purchased back by the Crown in the 1700s, as it began to consolidate its hold on the colony.
Further Reading
- Dauril Alden’s Royal Government in Colonial Brazil talks about the structure of the various Portuguese-sponsored captaincies, paying particular attention to the reign of the Marquis de Lavradio from 1769?1779.
Sources
- Burns, Bradford, ed. A Documentary History of Brazil. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.