The poor and barbarous tribes of Brazil, and their country, the mineral riches of which were not immediately discovered, offered but few attractions to a government into the coffers of which the wealth of India and Africa was flowing. For nearly thirty years the kings of Portugal paid no further attention to their newly-acquired territory than what consisted, in combating the attempts of the Spaniards to occupy it, and dispersing the private adventurers from France who sought its shores for the purposes of commerce. The colonization of Brazil was prosecuted, however, by subjects of the Portuguese monarchy, who traded thither chiefly for Brazil-wood. The government also sought to make criminals of some use to the state, by placing them in a situation where they could do little harm to society, and might help to uphold the dominion of their nation.
The first attempt on the part of a Portuguese monarch to introduce an organized government into his dominions was made by John III. He adopted a plan which had been found to succeed well in Madeira and the Azores,— First organization in Brazil. dividing the country into hereditary captaincies, and granting them to such persons as were willing to undertake their settlement, with unlimited powers of jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. Each captaincy extended along fifty leagues of coast. The boundaries in the interior were undefined. The first settlement made under this new system was that of São Vicente Piratininga, in the present province of São Paulo. Martim Affonso de Sousa, having obtained a grant, fitted out a considerable armament and proceeded to explore the country in person. He began to survey the coast about Rio de Janeiro, to which he gave that name, because he discovered it on the 1st of January 1531. He proceeded south as far as La Plata, naming the places he surveyed on the way from the days on which the respective discoveries were made. He fixed upon an island in 24½° S. lat., called by the natives Guaibe, for his settlement. The Goagnazes, or prevailing tribe of Indians in that neighbourhood, as soon as they discovered the intentions of the new-comers to fix themselves permanently there, collected for the purpose of expelling them. Fortunately, however, a shipwrecked Portuguese, who had lived many years under the protection of the principal chief, was successful in concluding a treaty of perpetual alliance between his countrymen and the natives. Finding the spot chosen for the new town inconvenient, the colonists removed to the adjoining island of São Vicente, from which the captaincy derived its name. Cattle and the sugar-cane were at an early period introduced from Madeira, and here the other captaincies supplied themselves with both.
Pero Lopes de Sousa received the grant of a captaincy, and set sail from Portugal at the same time as his brother, the founder of São Vicente. He chose to have his fifty leagues in two allotments. That to which he gave the name of Santo Amaro adjoined São Vicente, the two towns being only three leagues asunder. The other division lay much nearer to the line between Parahyba and Pernambuco. He experienced considerable difficulty in founding this second colony, from the strenuous opposition of a neighbouring tribe, the Petiguares; at length he succeeded in clearing his lands of them, but not long afterwards he perished by shipwreck.
Rio de Janeiro was not settled till a later period; and for a considerable time the nearest captaincy to Santo Amaro, sailing along the coast northwards, was that of Espirito Santo. It was founded by Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, who having acquired a large fortune in India, sank it in this scheme of colonization. He carried with him no less than sixty fidalgos. They named their town by anticipation, Our Lady of the Victory (Victoria); but it cost them some hard fighting with the Goagnazes to justify the title.
Pedro de Campo Tourinho, a nobleman and excellent navigator, received a grant of the adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro. This, it will be remembered, is the spot where Cabral first took possession of Brazil. The Tupinoquins at first offered some opposition; but having made peace, they observed it faithfully, notwithstanding that the oppression of the Portuguese obliged them to forsake the country. Sugar-works were established, and considerable quantities of the produce exported to the mother country.
Jorge de Figueiredo, Escrivam da Fazenda, was the first donatory of the captaincy Ilhéos, 140 m. south of Bahia. His office preventing him from taking possession in person, he deputed the task to Francisco Romeiro, a Castilian. The Tupinoquins, the most tractable of the Brazilian tribes, made peace with the settlers, and the colony was founded without a struggle.
The coast from the Rio São Francisco to Bahia was granted to Francisco Pereira Coutinho; the bay itself, with all its creeks, was afterwards added to the grant. When Coutinho formed his establishment, where Villa Velha now stands, he found a noble Portuguese living in the neighbourhood who, having been shipwrecked, had, by means of his fire-arms, raised himself to the rank of chief among the natives. He was surrounded by a patriarchal establishment of wives and children; and to him most of the distinguished families of Bahia still trace their lineage. The regard entertained by the natives for Caramuru (signifying man of fire) induced them to extend a hospitable welcome to his countrymen, and for a time everything went on well. Coutinho had, however, learned in India to be an oppressor, and the Tupinambas were the fiercest and most powerful of the native tribes. The Portuguese were obliged to abandon their settlement; but several of them returned at a later period, with Caramuru, and thus a European community was established in the district.
Some time before the period at which these captaincies were established, a factory had been planted at Pernambuco. A ship from Marseilles took it, and left seventy men in it as a garrison; but she was captured on her return, and carried into Lisbon, and immediate measures were taken for reoccupying the place. The captaincy of Pernambuco was granted to Don Duarte Coelho Pereira as the reward of his services in India. It extended along the coast from the Rio São Francisco, northward to the Rio de Juraza. Duarte sailed with his wife and children, and many of his kinsmen, to take possession, of his new colony, and landed in the port of Pernambuco. To the town which was there founded he gave the name of Olinda. The Cabetes, who possessed the soil, were fierce and pertinacious; and, assisted by the French, who traded to that coast, Coelho had to gain by inches what was granted him by leagues. The Portuguese managed, however, to beat off their enemies; and, having entered into an alliance with the Tobayanes, followed up their success.
Attempts were made about this time to establish two other captaincies, but without success. Pedro de Goes obtained a grant of the captaincy of Parahyba between those of São Vicente and Espirito Santo; but his means were too feeble to enable him to make head against the aborigines, and the colony was broken up after a painful struggle of seven years. João de Barros, the historian, obtained the captaincy of Maranhão. For the sake of increasing his capital, he divided his grant with Fernão Alvares de Andrade and Aires da Cunha. They projected a scheme of conquest and colonization upon a large scale. Nine hundred men, of whom one hundred and thirteen were horsemen, embarked in ten ships under the command of Aires da Cunha. But the vessels were wrecked upon some shoals about one hundred leagues to the south of Maranhão; the few survivors, after suffering immense hardships, escaped to the nearest settlements, and the undertaking was abandoned.
By these adventures the whole line of Brazilian coast, from the mouth of La Plata to the mouth of the Amazon, had become studded at intervals with Portuguese settlements, in all of which law and justice were administered, however inadequately. It is worthy of observation, that Brazil was the first colony founded in America upon an agricultural principle, for until then the precious metals were the exclusive attraction. Sufficient capital was attracted between the year 1531 (in which De Sousa founded the first captaincy) and the year 1548 to render these colonies an object of importance to the mother country. Their organization, however, in regard to their means of defence against both external aggression and internal violence, was extremely defective. Their territories were surrounded and partly occupied by large tribes of savages. Behind them the Spaniards, who had an establishment at Asuncion, had penetrated almost to the sources of the waters of Paraguay, and had succeeded in establishing communication with Peru. Orellana, on the other hand, setting out from Peru, had crossed the mountains and sailed down the Amazon. Nor had the French abandoned their hopes of effecting an establishment on the coast.