Portuguese Empire - Colonization Efforts in The Americas

Colonization Efforts in The Americas

Within a few years after Cabral arrived from Brazil, competition came along by means of France. In 1503 an expedition under the command of Gonçalo Coelho reported French raids on the Brazilian coasts, and explorer Binot Paulmier de Gonneville traded for brazilwood after making contact in southern Brazil a year later. Expeditions sponsored by Francis I along the North American coast was in direct violation of the Treaty of Torsedillas. By 1531 the French had stationed a trading post off of an island on the Brazilian coast.

The increase in brazilwood smuggling from the French led João III to press an effort to establish effective occupation of the territory. In 1531, a royal expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa and his brother Pero Lopes went to patrol the whole Brazilian coast, banish the French and create some of the first colonial towns, among them São Vicente, in 1532. Sousa left returned to Lisbon a year later to become governor of India and never returned to Brazil. The French attacks did cease to an extent after a retaliation that led to the Portuguese paying the French to stop attacking Portuguese ships throughout the Atlantic, but would continue to be a problem well into the 1560s.

Upon de Sousa's arrival and success, fifteen longitudinal tracks, theoretically to span from the coast to the Tordesillas limit, was decreed by João III on 28 September 1532. This vast lands were donated in form of hereditary captaincies (Capitanias Hereditárias) to grantees rich enough to support settlement, as had been done successfully in Madeira and Cape Verde islands. Each captain-major was to build settlements, grant allotments and administer justice, being responsible for developing and taking the costs of colonization, although not being the owner: he could transmit it to offspring, but not sell it. Twelve recipients came from Portuguese gentry who become prominent in Africa and India and senior officials of the court, such as João de Barros.

Of the fifteen original captaincies, only two, Pernambuco and São Vicente, prospered. Both dedicated to the crop of sugar cane and the settlers managed to maintain alliances with Native Americans. The rise of the sugar industry came about due to Crown taking the easiest sources of profit (brazilwood, spices, etc.) that led the settlers to create new revenue. The establishment of the sugar cane industry demanded intensive labor which would be met with native American and, later, African slaves. Deeming the capitanias system ineffective, João III decided to centralize the government of the colony, in order to "give help and assistance" to grantees. In 1548 he created the first General Government, sending in Tomé de Sousa as first governor and rescuing the captaincy of the Bay of All Saints, making it a royal captaincy, seat of the Government. This measure did not entail the extinction of captaincies.

Tomé de Sousa built the capital of Brazil, Salvador at the Bay of All Saints. The first Jesuits arrived the same year. From 1565 through 1567 Mem de Sá, a Portuguese colonial official and the third Governor General of Brazil, successfully destroyed a ten year-old French colony called France Antarctique, at Guanabara Bay. He and his nephew, Estácio de Sá, then founded the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1567.