The day April 22, 1500 officially marked the arrival of the Portuguese to Brazilian territory, and this event is widely known as “discovery of Brazil”. The arrival of the Portuguese here was one of the most memorable moments of the great navigations carried out by them throughout the 15th century. Since that event, the Portuguese presence in the territory has been constant, although small at first. From the 1530s onwards, colonization measures were implemented here.
Also access: Details of the travel diary of Martim Afonso de Sousa's expedition
Context
The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil was one of the greatest moments of the great navigations, a process initiated by the Portuguese in the 15th century. The great sailings are how we know the exploratory expeditions, organized by the Portuguese, in the Atlantic Ocean throughout that century. This was only possible thanks to a number of factors.
First unificationterritorial. The national territory of Portugal was consolidated in 1249, when the king d. Afonso III was able to definitely conquer
Algarve (Southern region of Portugal) of the Moors. Another important factor was the stabilitypolitics that the country experienced from the end of the 14th century.Between 1383 and 1385, it happened in the country the Avis Revolution, responsible for placing João, master of Avis on the throne of Portugal. With this revolution, the Burgundy dynasty came to an end, and the new dynasty—that of Avis—began. Portugal experienced great political stability that enabled the country to experience commercial and technological development, which included the nautical development.
In addition localizationgeographic from Portugal guaranteed easy access to the maritime currents of the Atlantic Ocean, and the commercial development of Lisbon made the city an important center. Finally, the need for find a new route to the east — since the usual one, which passed through Constantinople, had been closed in 1453 — reinforced the exploration of the oceans by the Portuguese.
These factors help us to understand why Portugal pioneered the exploration of the oceans and why the great “discoveries” of the 15th century were made by the Portuguese. The only big exception was the expedition of christopherColumbus, a Genoese navigator who arrived in America on October 12, 1492, in an undertaking financed by Spain (Portugal refused to finance Columbus' expedition).
In the context of the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil, Portugal was enjoying the height of the India's spice trade — goods from Asia, such as black pepper, nutmeg, perfumes and incense, which, due to their rarity in the European market, were invaluable. The search for a new route to India was precisely to guarantee access to these goods.
After the Spaniards arrived in America in 1492, the newly discovered lands began to be disputed by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. It was from this concern of the Portuguese to contain Spanish expansion that two agreements emerged: the package insertInter Caetera (1493) and the Treaty of Tordesillas(1494).
These two divided the new lands between Portugal and Spain, and the latter stipulated the following division: a 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde archipelago, an imaginary line would be passed. The lands west of that line would be Spanish, and the lands east of that line would be Portuguese.
Accessalso: General Government – the first centralized government implemented by the Portuguese
Expedition by Pedro Álvares Cabral
![Pedro Álvares Cabral was chosen to lead the Portuguese expedition that arrived in Brazil on April 22, 1500. [1]](/f/77fd8a50aea8abe4034668d138dafbda.jpg)
In this context of exploring the possibilities of land in the west and carrying out trade in India, Portugal organized a new expedition. The name chosen to lead it was Pedro Alvares Cabral, knight of the Order of Christ since 1494 (important order of knights). Historians are not sure why Cabral was chosen to be the leader of the expedition, since there were other navigators more experienced than him, such as Bartolomeu Dias.
Pedro Álvares Cabral's expedition had 13 vessels. nine ships, three caravels and a supply ship. The leaders of each vessel were: Pedro Álvares Cabral, Sancho Tovar, Simão de Miranda de Azevedo, Aires Gomes da Silva, Nicolau Coelho, Nuno Leitão da Cunha, Vasco de Ataide, Bartolomeu Dias, Diogo Dias, Gaspar de Lemos, Luís Pires, Simão de Pina and Pero de ataide|1|.
Cabral's expedition also had 1200 to 1500 men, who sailed from Lisbon on March 9, 1500. After setting sail, the expedition sailed directly to the Cape Verde archipelago, therefore, took a route far from the African coast. The usual route of the Portuguese towards India was closer to the coast, but the distinct path suggests that they had a different script than the other expeditions.
The route of Cabral's expedition was as follows|2||3|:
March, 9: sailed from Lisbon.
14th March: passed through the Canary Islands.
March 22nd: passed through Cape Verde.
March 23: disappearance of Vasco Ataíde's ship.
March 29th and 30th: entered the calm region in the equatorial zone.
April 10th: passed 210 miles from Fernando de Noronha.
April 18th: were close to the Baía de Todos os Santos.
April 21st: they saw signs of approaching land.
April 22nd: sighted Mount Pascoal.
The land sighting, which took place on April 22, 1500, was reported by Pero Vaz de Caminha, the expedition's scribe, as follows:
The next day [April 22]—Wednesday morning—we came across birds they call wormholes. On the same day, at vespers [between 3 pm and 6 pm], we sighted land! First a big mound, very tall and round; then other lower ranges, south of the hill, and more flat earth. With large trees. The high mountain the Captain named Monte Pascoal; and to the land, Land of Vera Cruz|4|.
Although they sighted land on April 22, it was only the following day that Cabral decided to send men to it, and that's when the first contacts between Portuguese and natives happened. Pero Vaz de Caminha's account of them stated that “they were brown, all naked, with nothing to cover their shame. They had bows and arrows in their hands"|5|.
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This first expedition that marked the initial contacts between Portuguese and natives was led by Nicolau Coelho. He and other men were sent to the shores of the beach in a boat to establish a relationship with the Indians, and these contacts, of course, were peaceful. In another passage about the natives, Pero Vaz de Caminha states that:
Their features are brown, somewhat reddish; of good faces and good noses. They are generally well done. […] Both […] had their lower lip pierced and inserted a white bone and really bone, the length of a naughty hand, and the thickness of a cotton spindle, sharp at the tip like an awl. They are put through the inside of the lip, and the part that is between the lip and the teeth is made with chess cast, fitted there so as not to impair speaking, eating and drinking|6|.
The contact was calm, there was an exchange of gifts between the two parties, and some of the Indians were taken to the vessel where the Captain General, Cabral, was, so that he could meet them. They were given food and wine, but they rejected the food and did not like what they tasted, according to Caminha's account.
The Portuguese followed a few more days exploring the Brazilian coast, and on April 26, a Sunday, they celebrated the first mass in Brazil, performed by Friar Henry of Coimbra. Afterwards, the expedition's commanders decided to send a vessel to Portugal with the news of the discovery of the new land. Pero Vaz de Caminha was also appointed to report, in detail, the news of the lands found.
On May 2, Cabral's expedition left Brazil for India. The Portuguese king, d. Manoel I, learned of the news of the discovery of the new land in 1500. Despite this, Brazil remained in the background, since the Portuguese priority, at that time, was to continue trade in India.
It was only from the decade of 1530, with the decline of the spice trade and the French invasions, the Portuguese started a colonization policy. In that first moment, they implanted some trading posts on the Brazilian coast and started to explore brazilwood.
Accessalso: Discover the history of the origin of the name “Brazil”
Curiosities
Pedro Álvares Cabral's payment was 10 thousand cruzados (the equivalent of 35 kilos of gold). He could also buy and sell 30 tons of pepper and 10 boxes of other spice. A common sailor, in turn, earned 10 cruzados monthly, in addition to 10 quintals of pepper|7|.
Pedro Álvares Cabral was 1.90 m tall.
It was common that, in these maritime expeditions of the Modern age, prostitutes were taken hidden in the boats.
Scurvy (a disease caused by lack of vitamin C) was one of the diseases that most affected sailors during the period of great navigation.
It is still unknown what happened to Vasco Ataíde's ship (one of the 13 ships in Cabral's expedition), but it is believed that it sank during a storm.
The first name given to Brazil was Ilha de Vera Cruz, and later it was called Terra de Santa Cruz.
Another name by which Brazil was called, at the time, was Terra dos Papagaios, due to the number of parrots there were here.
Pero Vaz de Caminha, when reporting the discovery of Brazil to the Portuguese king, believed that the new lands were, in fact, an island.
The island of Fernando de Noronha has this name in reference to Fernão de Loronha, Portuguese nobleman who received the island as captaincy of the King of Portugal, in 1504.
It is estimated that, when the Portuguese arrived, approximately seven million indigenous people lived in Brazilian territory.
When Cabral's expedition left Brazil, on May 2, 1500, two deserted cabin boys and two exiles were left in the territory with the natives.
Before being called Pedro Álvares Cabral, the name of the leader of the Portuguese expedition was Pedro Álvares Gouveia. The change of name took place with the abandonment of his mother's surname, d. Isabel Gouveia, and the adhesion of her father's surname, Fernão Cabral.
Summary
The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil was part of the process of the great navigations.
Pedro Álvares Cabral was the leader of an expedition consisting of 13 boats and about 1200 men.
The first point of Brazil seen by the Portuguese was the Monte Pascoal region, in Bahia, on April 22, 1500.
The first mass, held here, took place on April 26, 1500, and on May 1, the expedition left for India.
The first name of Brazil, as stated in the letter by Pero Vaz de Caminha, was Ilha de Vera Cruz.
Grades
|1| COUTO, Jorge. The genesis of Brazil. In.: MOTA, Carlos Guilherme (org.). trip incomplete: the Brazilian experience. São Paulo: Editora Senac, 1999. P. 48.
|2| Idem, p. 48-49.
|3| CASTRO Silvio. Pero Vaz de Caminha's letter. Porto Alegre: L&PM Pocket, 2013. P. 87.
|4| Idem, p. 87.
|5| Idem, p. 88.
|6| Idem, p. 90.
|7| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloisa Murgel. Brazil: a biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015. P. 25.
Image credits
[1] nephthali and Shutterstock
[2] commons
By Daniel Neves
History teacher
