t Map of South America from a Spanish atlas, 1582.
t Map of South America from a Spanish atlas, 1582.
Home to the earliest peoples in South America, Brazil grew during its colonial era to become the center of the Portuguese empire. Although there is a persisting tendency towards political and social turbulence, today this vibrant country is one of the world’s leading economies.
The first inhabitants of Brazil migrated from North America and across the Pacific Ocean in several successive waves some 30,000 years ago. Some settled in the Amazon Basin, but many ventured up the Amazon river as far as the Andes, living off fish, plants, and animals. The middle Amazon region, around Santarém, was an important center for ceramic art and trading, home to thousands of seminomadic indigenous people. Little archaeological evidence has survived of the earliest inhabitants of the area, but ceramic remains suggest the existence of complex indigenous societies that lived in communal longhouses.
By the end of the 15th century BC, more than five million indigenous people had settled all around Brazil, traveling by dugout canoes down rivers and along the coast. Settlements contained thousands of inhabitants living in well-structured social groups. Despite sharing similar languages and customs, different communities often fought each other. Slash-and-burn farming was favored in the dense forests, where the heavy rainfall leached nutrients from the soil. Maize and manioc were the main crops cultivated, as these grew abundantly on the vast grasslands that were widespread in this late Ice Age era.
As the migrants moved south across the country, some formed large groups, notably the Tupí-Guaraní and the Tupinambá. While the seminomadic Tupí-Guaraní lived off slash-and-burn farming, the Tupinambá settled on the northeast coast and cultivated crops. These communities also set up trade routes – up river or by sea – and traded items such as fruits, nuts, and feathers from the rainforest in exchange for gold jewelry, precious stones, and prized Spondylus oyster shells.
Brazil’s coastline was widely inhabited by the Tupinambá and other indigenous communities when Spanish explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón landed on the northeastern shore on January 26, 1500. Limited by the Treaty of Tordesillas, he could not claim the newfound land for Spain. Signed in 1494 between Portugal and Spain, the treaty stated that all lands discovered west of a meridian near the Cape Verde Islands would belong to Spain, and all those east of this line would belong to Portugal. On April 23, 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in southern Bahia, marking the Portuguese arrival in Brazil and bolstering its position as a mercantile power rivaled only by Spain.
Colonial donatários – aristocrats and minor gentry – were expected to develop and govern the capitanias, or captaincies, on behalf of the Portuguese monarch, but they were met with adverse climatic conditions and strong opposition from the indigenous peoples. In 1549, Portugal sent Tomé de Sousa as Brazil’s first governor to protect the captaincies that survived these conflicts. The Tupinambá put up a particularly fierce resistance, but they and other indigenous peoples were soon all but wiped out – either by the Portuguese, who employed classic divide-and-conquer tactics, or by the alien diseases they brought with them. Jesuit influence also accompanied this early period of colonization. The first Jesuits had arrived in 1549 and acquired power in Brazil through their influence at the Portuguese court. A zealous missionary movement began, aimed at converting the indigenous groups.
Portugal needed to fund its costly imperial wars with Spain, and sugar, introduced into Brazil in 1532, was quickly established as a lucrative product. Setting up his capital in Salvador, Tomé de Sousa enlisted the support of the Jesuits. The indigenous people who did not convert to Christianity were enslaved and made to work in engenhos (sugar plantations) or in the wood trade. Many refused the forced labour, and many more died from introduced diseases. From the 1550s, plantation owners began importing enslaved people from Africa, with up to 15 million transported over the course of 300 years. Sugar soon became the base of the booming Brazilian economy.
For the next 200 years, the Portuguese struggled to fend off Dutch and French forces. Boosted by the discovery of gold in the south and west, however, Portugal regained control of the whole country, and made Rio de Janeiro the new capital in 1763. The gold boom was followed by a rising clamor for independence initially led by Tiradentes, a leader of the Brazilian revolutionary movement known as Inconfidência Mineira. Brazil’s independence was finally proclaimed on September 7, 1822, by Dom Pedro I, ruler of the new Brazilian empire.
The introduction of coffee in the early 1800s triggered another economic boom, which in turn led to an upsurge in the slave trade. By the late 1800s, increasing political pressure called for this traffic to be stopped and on May 13, 1888, the government passed the Lei Aurea law, abolishing slavery. However, African-Brazilians still had no property or education, and struggled to find work after European immigrants replaced their labor, a detrimental legacy that is still felt to this day. Soon after slavery was abolished, the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup supported by Brazil’s coffee barons, paving the way for a long period of dictatorial rule, armed conflict, and political instability. In 1956, Juscelino Kubitschek was elected president and ushered Brazil into modernity, with his most notable legacy being the creation of Brasília. Mild structural reforms took place under president João Goulart (1961–64), but corporate elites sponsored another military coup in 1964, leading the country into an era of right-wing military rule. It was only in 1989 that democracy returned to Brazil and it emerged as a vibrant modern nation.
As an economic superpower rich in mineral resources and with a large, well-educated workforce, Brazil today can boast of its global successes. On the other hand, political corruption is still rife and drug-gang violence in its inner-city favelas reflects a considerable wealth gap. President Jair Bolsonaro has vowed to clean up Brazilian politics, but opponents are concerned about his hinted threats to repeal or relax laws protecting both the environment and indigenous peoples. Despite these uncertainties, Brazilians remain optimistic about the future.
An estimated 1,500 languages were spoken across Brazil before the arrival of the Portuguese.
Favelas (shantytowns) are thought to have gained their name from the favela tree.
Established in 1979, the Parque Nacional de Serra da Capivara contains more than 300 archaeolog-ical sites. Several of these contain incredible rock paintings, tens of thousands of years old, made by the Pre-Columbian peoples. Evidence at one site, Pedra Furada, may even suggest that some indigenous communities inhabited this area over 50,000 years ago.
Officially, Brazil was named after pau-brasil, or brazilwood, a highly prized local tree. But this name, meaning “blessed land” in Gaelic, also appeared in the Irish legend about St. Brendan. It became part of European maritime folklore, designating an imagined land in the Atlantic. When Cabral found a new land in that general area, it is possible that he identified it with this Gaelic Brazil.
Thousands of wildfires swept across the southern Amazon in August 2019, a shocking 80 per cent increase from the same time period the previous year. Most of these fires were caused by increased deforestation led by farmers trying to gain more farmland. Environmental groups such as the Rainforest Alliance are working to provide sup-port to local communities fighting the fires.
DISCOVER Brazil Your Way
Timeline of events |
22000-9500 BCMigrations of the earliest humans take place in successive waves to the mid-Amazon region. |
13000 BCEarly hunting communities flourish near Pedra Furada, in Piauí state. |
c. 10000 BCCave paintings in the Serra da Capivara National Park are dated to this period. |
3000 BCShell-mound sediment in Rio de Janeiro dated to this era is evidence of human activity, related to the Goitacá and Tamoio peoples. |
1000 BCPrehistoric cultural developments in Marajó and Santarém are dated to this period. |
AD 300-500Slash-and-burn agriculture is widely practiced across the Amazon Basin. |
500–1300This is a period of major growth and expansion of Marajoara culture. |
1000Hierarchical societies of indigenous peoples settle along the Amazon river. |
1500Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Bahia, northeast Brazil. |
1532Sugarcane is first introduced to Brazil; it goes on to become a top cash crop. |
1534King João III divides the land into 15 capitanias, or captaincies. |
c. 1538The first enslaved Africans are shipped to Brazil to work on sugar plantations. |
1549Salvador is founded by Tomé de Sousa and becomes the first capital of Brazil. |
1554Jesuits found São Paulo on 25 January, the Catholic feast day of the Conversion of Saint Paul. |
1555French forces establish a colony, France Antarctique, on Guanabara Bay. |
1565France Antarctique is destroyed and Rio de Janeiro is founded. |
1595The first Tupí language grammar is published by Jesuit missionary José de Anchieta. |
1661The Dutch formally withdraw from Portuguese territories. |
1789The Inconfidência Mineira uprising is quelled, and rebel leader Tiradentes is hanged. |
1888The Lei Aurea (Golden Law) is passed, abolishing slavery in Brazil. |
1960Brasília is inaugurated as the new capital of Brazil. |
1985Civilian Tancredo Neves is elected president, heralding the return of civilian rule. |
2011Dilma Rousseff becomes Brazil’s first female president; she was impeached in 2016. |
2014Brazil hosts the FIFA World Cup. |
2016Rio de Janeiro city hosts the Olympics. |
2018Jair Bolsonaro, a member of the extreme-right Partido Social Liberal (Social Liberal Party), is elected president. |
2019The proliferation of forest wildfires in the Amazon Basin draws international attention. |