The date at which the first Portuguese settler established himself in _Bahia_ was about 1510. The name of this pioneer was Diogo Alvarez, the sole survivor of a crew wrecked to the north of that beautiful bay. He made himself useful to the natives, and being the fortunate possessor of a musket and some gunpowder, he so impressed their imaginations that they presently made him their chief. After a time, taking advantage of the visit of a French vessel, he was enabled to return to Europe and to initiate a trade between France and the region in which his lot was cast. He likewise desired that his countrymen should colonize the province; but the Portuguese Government were disposed rather to lend assistance towards establishing a trade between their own and distant countries than to encourage agricultural settlements abroad. For this reason, _Brazil_, which, from the nature of its population, offered but scanty inducements to traders, was neglected for many years after its discovery. At length, however, it became of sufficient importance to attract attention, and the system was adopted, which had succeeded in other Portuguese settlements, of apportioning it out into captaincies, extending, as a rule, each for fifty leagues along the coast. [Sidenote: 1531] The first person who took possession of one of these captaincies was Martim Affonso de Sousa, afterwards governor of the Portuguese possessions in India, and who had the distinction of carrying St. Francis Xavier to the East. He has the honour of having discovered the bay on which was to rise the future capital of _Brazil_, and which, under the belief that it was the estuary of a river, he named _Rio de Janeiro_, having discovered it on the first of January. Having surveyed the coast southward to the _Plata_, he selected as a spot for a settlement an island in the twenty-fourth degree of southern latitude, and was fortunate enough to conciliate the good-will of the neighbouring population through the medium of a ship-wrecked Portuguese sailor whom he found amongst them. This colony soon removed to the island of _S. Vicente_, from which the captaincy was named. Here Martim Affonso introduced the sugar-cane, and reared the first cattle known to that region. Amongst the other captaincies founded about this period were those of _S. Amaro_, which adjoined _S. Vicente_, and _Espirito Santo_ to the north. Next came the captaincy of _Porto Seguro_, where Cabral had landed on first taking possession of _Brazil_. Here sugar-works were established with considerable success. Beyond came the captaincy of the _Ilheos_ or Isles, so called from a river with three islands near its bar. The town of old _S. Paulo_ was soon afterwards founded.