Captaincies of Brazil

Capitanias do Brasil

1534–1549


Flag	Coat of arms

Capital

Various capitals

Languages

Portuguese

Religion

Roman Catholicism

Government

Monarchy

Monarch

•

1534 - 1549

John III

History

•

Established

1534

•

Disestablished

1549

Currency

Portuguese Real

Succeeded by

Governorate General of Brazil

The Captaincies of Brazil (Portuguese: Capitanias do Brasil) were captaincies of the Portuguese Empire,administrative divisions and hereditary fiefs of Portugal in the colony of Terra de Santa Cruz, later called Brazil, on the Atlantic coast of northeastern South America. Each was granted to a single donee, a Portuguese nobleman who was given the title captain General. Except for two, São Vicente (later called São Paulo) and Pernambuco, they were administrative and economic failures. They were effectively subsumed by the Governorates General and the States of Brazil and Maranhão starting in 1549, and the last of the privately granted captaincies reverted to the Crown in 1754. Their final boundaries in the latter half of the eighteenth century became the basis of the provinces of Brazil.

Following the successful expedition of Martim Afonso de Sousa in 1530, in order to exploit the trade in Brazilwood discovered on the Atlantic coast, as well as explore rumors of vast riches in silver and gold in the interior, the Portuguese Crown determined to establish permanent colonies in their claim on the new continent. The Portuguese realized that they had no human or financial resources to invest in a large and distant colony, and decided to assign this task to private entrepreneurs, called donatários, each of whom would become owner and administrator of a capitania or captaincy, a land grant (this system had already been successful in the settlement of the Portuguese colonies in Africa).

The captaincies were drawn as stripes parallel to the equator, commencing at the Atlantic coast and terminating in the west at the Tordesillas Line (where Spanish territory began). They were established by King John III of Portugal in 1534. Within a system of royal patronage and nepotism, five of the captaincies were given to two cousins of finance minister António de Ataíde: Martim Afonso de Sousa and his brother Pero Lopes. An additional captaincy was issued to Pero de Gois, captain of Afonso's 1530 expedition. The remaining captaincies were granted to a trusted mixture of military men (more precisely called conquistadores) and court bureaucrats.

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Wikipedia