Portuguese Colonization of Brazil
For centuries, the earth’s Western hemisphere was hidden from all that was happening in Europe. No one even imagined North, Central, or South America when they looked at their flat earth maps. But after Marco Polo’s journeys to the Far East in the late 1200’s, the world and its riches started opening up, revealing new opportunities for European nations to expand their power and reach.
Spain, Portugal, and France led the world to claim these new frontiers. Spices, silks, and precious metals stirred the souls of explorers like Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, and Vasco De Gama. They would set out to find new routes to the East around the great Horn of Africa, seeking glory for themselves and their royal sponsors.
In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral set sail for India with 13 ships and 1,200 men. His royal commission was to find a new trade route. As he was sailing off the Western coast of Africa, he hit a big storm, which carried his ships further west and out to sea. On April 22, 1500, his fleet made landfall on what he thought was an island in the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, he had landed here on mainland Brazil.
Cabral claimed the new land for Portugal – a land he first called Vera Cruz, or “True Cross.” He raised a small cross as a symbol of victory for both the Crown and the Church. The first Catholic mass in Brazil was a joyous affair with local drums, tambourines, and trumpets. The indigenous Tupi people welcomed Cabral and his men.
But soon, it was obvious that spreading the Gospel wasn’t the first priority of these opportunistic sailors and traders. Tribal oppression quickly followed. Vera Cruz was renamed Brasil, after the plentiful “pau-brasil” (brazilwood) that produced a valuable red dye.
Portuguese Colonization of Brazil
Randall acts as the lead writer for ColdWater’s Drive Thru History® TV series and Drive Thru History® “Adventures” curriculum.