European Exploration and Settlement

During 1493–94 Pope Alexander VI assigned to Portugal all unclaimed lands, including those yet unknown to Europeans, that lay east of about 51° West longitude. Thus, when Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator, sighted Brazil in 1500 the region already was recognized by most Europeans as belonging to Portugal. In 1534 King John III granted large regions to Portuguese nobles.

In the 1620's and 1630's, the Dutch West India Company seized control of several coastal areas, but it was driven out in 1654. Slave traders and Jesuit missionaries led the first movement of Europeans into the interior, and by the end of the century ranchers had followed them west. Portuguese explorers followed the Amazon in search of precious metals, pushing the colony's borders far west of the original papal division. This caused many minor wars with Spanish settlers and other Europeans who had arrived earlier from the west coast.

When gold was discovered in the southeast, around 1690, many new Portuguese settlements were formed. The Portuguese mixed freely with the Indians, and there developed a large group of Brazilians with mixed European and Indian ancestry. African slaves were brought to work in the mines. The gold rush caused a great European migration to and within Brazil. As the population increased, the Portuguese tightened their administrative control over the colony, causing resentment among earlier Brazilian settlers.