A history of the Brazil : $b comprising its geography, commerce, colonization, aboriginal inhabitants, &c. &c. &c.Henderson, James
History
A history of the Brazil : $b comprising its geography, commerce, colonization, aboriginal inhabitants, &c. &c. &c.
Henderson, James
Brazil; Brazil -- History -- To 1822
of territory, proceeding southward, was denominated the Capitania dos
Ilheos, running north and south from the Rio dos Ilheos, (River of
Islands,) and granted to Jorge Figueiredo Correa. Cabral’s Porto Seguro
was included in the range of coast which formed the capitania of the
same name, and was a donation to Pedro Campo Tourinha. Espirito Santo
(Holy Spirit) was the appellation given to the next in rotation, and
obtained by Vasco Fernandez Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro was not colonized
for some time afterwards. This mode of allotment was not calculated to
maintain a long duration. The captains possessed despotic jurisdiction
over the colonists, many of whom were degradados, or criminals,
consequently less adapted to live in harmony, and the whole being at
the mercy of the former, complaints were frequent; so that, after a
lapse of about seventeen years from its commencement, this system was
terminated by a royal revocation of the power of the captains, followed
by the appointment of Thomé de Souza, a fidalgo, as governor-general
of the Brazil, who arrived at Bahia, the bay of All Saints, in April
1549, with instructions to build a city, which was to be called St.
Salvador. The fleet was accompanied by some Jesuits, who thus obtained
in the Brazilian regions, those means of improving the condition of
the Indians, and of the country in other respects, which has been so
honourable to their Trans-Atlantic character, and which presents so
pleasing and striking a contrast to their conduct in Europe, filled
as that conduct was with “treasons, stratagems, and spoils.” With the
mother-country, this colony passed under the dominion of the Spanish
crown, in the year 1580, for a period of nearly sixty years. The Dutch
possessed themselves of Pernambuco in the year 1630, and ultimately of
the whole country from the great river St. Francisco to Maranham, which
they retained till the year 1654. The last Philip, just before the
Brazil reverted to the Portuguese, conferred the title of Viceroy upon
the governor-general at Bahia, who then was the Marquis of Montalvam,
and which honour all his successors enjoyed. The seat of the vice-regal
government was transferred by Don Joseph I. from Bahia to Rio de
Janeiro, in 1773, which expired on the arrival of the royal family in
that country, in the year 1808. Don John IV. gave the title of Prince
of Brazil to his eldest son, Prince Don Theodosio, which descended to
all the hereditary princes of the house of Braganza, till the 17th of
December, 1815, when the Prince Regent, (now Don John VI.) raised that
country into a kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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