The early history of the State of São Paulo has a romance running through its pages which can never cease to be of interest, and the beginnings of its prosperity are traceable to the friendly relationships established in the beginning of the sixteenth century between a shipwrecked Portuguese sailor, João Ramalho, and Tybiricá, the chief of the Guayanás, a tribe who dominated the country. Ramalho married the chief’s daughter, and this alliance cemented a friendship with the chief and his tribe, over which the castaway soon acquired so great an influence that when Martin Affonso arrived at the head of an expedition he met with a friendly welcome. For his good offices Ramalho was rewarded by the Portuguese Crown with a grant of the lands which he and the tribe were occupying, the new-comers establishing a settlement at St. Vincente, near Santos, and erecting a fort on the island of St. Amaro at the entrance to the bay. From the union between the Portuguese settlers and the Guayanás there sprang the race of half-breeds known first as Mamelucos and later as Paulistas, a race that accomplished much in the exploration and development of various parts of Brazil. The village of St. Andre, where Ramalho and his father-in-law Tybiricá lived, rapidly grew until in 1533 it was raised to the position of a town, and these two settlements of St. Vincente and St. Andre were the forerunners of the cities of Santos and São Paulo which afterwards arose upon adjacent sites. The Jesuits, who arrived upon the scene in 1554, proved an important factor in suppressing the invasions of savage tribes who threatened the little colonies from time to time, and in organising the settlements by the construction of a road connecting that at the coast with the mission station which they established at São Paulo. This mission station grew in power and importance until finally it usurped the position of St. Andre, which was destroyed at the instigation of the priests. The history of the two succeeding centuries is filled with the contests between the lay Paulistas and the Jesuits, their methods being in constant opposition, for whilst the former desired native labour to cultivate their lands and work their industries, they found that the missions absorbed most if not all of the available natives. These were gathered under the protection of the missions upon the communistic plan so successfully practised under the Jesuits in other parts of the continent, the natives meeting with fair and considerate treatment, although practically reduced to the position of slaves working for the common good. The laymen sought to bring the natives into the condition of slaves for their own personal interest, and to treat them as property to be used for their own aggrandisement, and professed to see little or no difference in their doing individualistically what the Church did communistically.