A history of the Brazil

by James Henderson

The severe disappointment which Barros sustained, not only in the loss of his property but of his two sons, by this terrible disaster, deterred him from making any further attempt. And the same monarch gave this territory to Luiz de Mello, and furnished him with three ships and two caravels, that he might the more effectually execute his project, which was to penetrate by the river Amazons as far as the eastern mines of Peru. He was not, however, much less unfortunate than Ayres da Cunha, the whole of the armament being lost near the same place, excepting one caravel that escaped, and with which he returned to Lisbon. These misfortunes attending the vessels that entered even the best anchorage place of this province discouraged all those persons who were capable of colonizing its fertile land, but did not prevent its being visited by other nations.

In the year 1594 M. Rifault, a Frenchman, entered the port of Maranham with three sail, where he left Charles Vaux and a small number of his crew. This weak colony was reinforced in the year 1612 by M. Ravardiere. Two years afterwards Jeronimo d’Albuquerque Coelho was despatched from Pernambuco by order of the governor, Gaspar de Souza, to expel those intruders, over whom, after some attacks, he gained very little advantage, by a capitulation which he entered into with them. Alexandre de Moura, who arrived there the following year with a strong force, proposed, instead of the capitulation, the evacuation of the place by the French, to which their commander, from the weak condition of the colony, was under the necessity of acceding. This event, occurring on the 1st of November, induced Moura to give the name of Todos os Santos to the island, which it did not however long retain.

Jeronimo d’Albuquerque was left here by Alexandre de Moura with the post of captao-mor, and was instructed to found a povoaçao and continue the conquest of this new province on account of the government. He preferred the situation which had been selected by the French, where he commenced the capital, in the increase and defence of which he was occupied till the year 1618, when he died, and was succeeded by his son, Antonio d’Albuquerque, as temporary governor for more than a year, when Domingos da Costa Machado was appointed to this situation. In the beginning of his government Jorge de Lemos arrived there with two hundred families from the Azores, in three vessels, at his own cost.

In 1621 there was a very great mortality amongst the domestic Indians, caused by the small pox. Part of this loss was remedied in the same year by the transmission of forty families, also from the islands of the Azores, by the provedor-mor, Antonio Ferraira Bitancourt, in pursuance of an arrangement made with the crown.

Antonio Moniz Barreiros succeeded to this government in 1622, to whom the senate, in the name of the people, presented a requisition that he would not consent to the establishment of the Jesuits there, as it was thought the introduction of their principles among the Indians would not be favourable to the colonists. He established two sugar works, in accomplishment of the obligation his father, of the same name, was under from being appointed provedor-mor of the treasury at Bahia.

Some time before Barreiros began his government the court of Madrid (in 1621) resolved to form the conquests of Maranham into a new state of the same name, and for its governor was nominated D. Diogo de Carcoma, whose refusal occasioned the appointment of D. Francisco de Moura. This individual not going, Francisco Coelho de Carvalho was elected, who sailed from the Tagus in March, 1624, and disembarked at Pernambuco, where the irruptions of the Dutch detained him nearly two years, so that he did not arrive at the capital of Maranham till 1626, having previously taken possession of the fort of Siara, which then formed a part of this province. In the following year he visited the province of Grand Para and entered the bay of Gurupy, where he established a povoaçao, which he called Vera Cruz, and died in the twelfth year of his government.

In 1641, when John IV. again had an ambassador at the Dutch court, which had recognised him as the legitimate sovereign of Portugal, a Dutch vessel arrived at Maranham, under the pretence of having been driven there by a violent tempest, and requested that assistance which in such cases is customary for friendly nations to afford to each other. The credulous friendship of the governor was taken advantage of by the Dutch, who suddenly possessed themselves of the capital, and with facility subjugated the rest of the province; from whence, however, they were expelled by the Portuguese in 1643.

All the governors of this province had not the titles of captains-general of the state; occasionally Grand Para enjoyed this pre-eminence. All proceedings that admitted of appeal after the sentence of the magistrates, in all the provinces, were always referred to the court, and their bishops immediately upon creation became suffragans of the metropolitan of Lisbon.

The subjection of the Portuguese nation to a foreign sceptre, the pretensions of the Dutch to the Brazil, afterwards the prolonged war preceding the reversion of the crown, and, finally, the alleged long existing destructive abuses of the Braganza family, are adduced as plausible reasons for the unflourishing state of the Brazil for nearly a century and a half.

With the change of hemisphere the first colonists are also said to have changed their customs, entering into the pursuits of agriculture with no spirit, alike regarding improvement and instruction with indifference, and preferring the idiom of the barbarous Tupinambas to their own. The various Jesuitical missionaries, however, made great progress in the conversion of the Indians, and in which they would have been more successful had not the colonists degenerated so much and relaxed in their obedience to the laws. The Portuguese language began to be generally used in the year 1755, and at this epoch agriculture assumed a more flourishing aspect, in consequence of the creation of a public company, which included the province of Para. Its capital amounted to one million two hundred thousand crusades, which was raised by twelve hundred shares; the possession of ten shares rendered each individual eligible to the administration of the affairs of the company, which was decried by some as introductory of ignorance and a system of destruction.