To return to _Brazil_: the kings of Portugal had, it is true, been individually ever desirous of mitigating the conditions of slavery to which their Indian subjects in South America were subjected; but circumstances were ever too strong for them. The wealth of _Brazil_ was only to be obtained by agricultural labour; and so long as Indians were to be captured or reared for the purpose, the cupidity of the colonists devoted their Indian fellow-subjects to this end. The native races, however, were not used to such hard labour as was imposed upon them, and they gradually sank and died away beneath it. They were then replaced by Africans, whose descendants are now the means of producing the sugar-wealth, coffee-wealth, and tobacco-wealth of _Brazil_. Various enactments were from time to time passed by the Government at Lisbon to restrain their colonial subjects in their dealings with the natives; but all were of no avail. In the first instance the colonists were permitted to enslave them without control; but a law was passed by King Sebastian, declaring that no Indians should be considered slaves, excepting such as should be taken in war made by command of the King or Governor, or such as were aggressive cannibals; but this regulation was invariably made to suit every individual occasion. By a second law, it was provided that the Indians who worked for the Portuguese should not be regarded as slaves, but as free labourers. King Phillip II. decreed that none should be considered slaves excepting those taken in hostilities for which he should have issued orders. Philip III. forbade that any Indians should be made slaves; but the evil had gone too far for his edict to be attended with any good result, and he was induced to revoke it, and to permit the enslavement of Indians taken in war. In short, so general was the interest amongst all classes of the Portuguese in _Brazil_ in encouraging slavery, that every well-meant edict and regulation of the Portuguese Crown was evaded. The same law provided that in each village of the “reduced” Indians there was to be a captain, who should hold office for three years. The Indians were to be settled in villages of about three hundred houses. Lands were to be allotted for their use and a church built in each village. These Indians were to be considered free, and were paid for their labour. Joam IV. renewed the law of Philip III., and Sousa Pereira, going out as governor of _Maranham_, took with him orders emancipating all Indians then enslaved. These orders produced an insurrection, which was only quelled by a promise of the Governor that the law should not be enforced, pending an appeal to the King. The same occurrence took place likewise at _Pará_ when the law was announced at that place. Such was the state of things in Northern _Brazil_ at the date of Vieyra’s coming.