Discovery of Brazil

Did You Know?

• In 1499, an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa included Amerigo Vespucci, who financed two of the four ships and sailed south past the Amazon and Para rivers.
• The date of the discovery in Luso-Brazilian historiography varied: until 1817 it was considered 3 May, then changed to 22 April after the publication of Pero Vaz de Caminha's letter.
• A republican decree in 1890 established 3 May as a holiday for the discovery, but a 1930 decree by Getúlio Vargas abolished it, affirming 22 April.

Discovery by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

Many scholars consider the Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón the real discoverer of Brazil. He landed at the Cape of Santo Agostinho on the southern coast of Pernambuco on 26 January 1500, the earliest documented European voyage to what is now Brazilian territory. Pinzón's fleet of four caravels had sailed from Palos de la Frontera on 19 November 1499. After crossing the Equator and enduring a severe storm, Pinzón sighted the cape and anchored in a sheltered port with a depth of 16 feet, the cove of Suape on the promontory's southern slope. He named the location Cape of Santa María de la Consolación. Although the discovery was meticulously recorded by Pinzón and chronicled by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera and Bartolomé de las Casas, Spain did not claim the territory because the Treaty of Tordesillas assigned the area to Portugal. That night the Spanish saw large fires along the northwest coast. The next morning they sailed to a river Pinzón called Rio Formoso, where a violent encounter occurred with the local Potiguara people. Heading north, Pinzón rounded the Cape of São Roque and reached the Amazon River in February, naming it Santa María de la Mar Dulce. He continued to the Guianas and the Caribbean, returning to Spain on 30 September 1500. Pinzón's cousin Diego de Lepe made a parallel voyage, departing Palos in 1499 twenty days after Pinzón. Lepe arrived at the Cape of Santo Agostinho in February 1500, sailed a few miles south, and noted the coast slanted markedly southwest before following the same route north.

Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet

King Manuel I hurried to outfit a new fleet for the Indies after Vasco da Gama's successful voyage to India, aiming to secure the sea route that bypassed the Mediterranean. This became the largest fleet assembled by the West up to that time, comprising thirteen vessels and more than a thousand men. It carried provisions for about eighteen months. The fleet consisted of ten ships, three caravels, and a supply ship. The flagship's name is unknown, but the vice-commander Sancho de Tovar's ship was called El-Rei. Another ship, the Anunciada, commanded by Nuno Leitão da Cunha, belonged to Álvaro de Bragança and was financed by Florentine bankers Bartolomeo Marchionni and Girolamo Sernigi. The caravel São Pedro was commanded by Pero de Ataíde, while the name of the caravel under Bartolomeu Dias is lost. A supply ship under Gaspar de Lemos was tasked with returning to Portugal with news of the discovery. Based on an incomplete document from the Torre do Tombo, Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen identified five ships—Santa Cruz, Vitória, Flor de la Mar, Espírito Santo, and Espera—but most historians reject these names because the source has never been found again. Some 19th-century historians claimed Cabral's flagship was the São Gabriel, Vasco da Gama's ship, but no documentation supports this. Before departure, the king ordered a mass at the Monastery of Belém, where the Bishop of Ceuta blessed a flag with the royal arms and handed it to Cabral.

Native peoples

On the eve of the Portuguese arrival in 1500, two major groups dominated Brazil's coast: the Tupi, who spoke Tupi–Guarani languages and occupied almost the entire coastline, and the Tapuia, a term for non-Tupi groups, mostly Jê-speaking peoples living inland. A long pre-colonial conflict between the Tupis and Tapuias, especially the Tremembé, had resulted in the defeat and expulsion of the Tapuias from most coastal areas. Although the coastal Tupi were divided into frequently hostile sub-tribes, they were culturally and linguistically homogeneous, which facilitated early European communication. From north to south, the coastal sequence around 1500 included the Tupinambá from the Amazon delta to Maranhão; the Tremembé, a Tapuia tribe ranging from São Luis Island to the Acaraú River; the Potiguara, a Tupi group known as "shrimp-eaters" and aggressive expansionists, inhabiting the coast from the Acaraú River to Itamaracá island; the small Tabajara tribe between Itamaracá island and the Paraíba River; the Caeté in Pernambuco and Alagoas; the Tupinambá again from the São Francisco River to the Bay of All Saints; the Tupiniquim along the Bahian discovery coast; and the Aimoré, a Tapuia (Jê) tribe in Espírito Santo.

Theories regarding the discovery of Brazil

Several hypotheses surround the discovery of Brazil. One involves a possible secret expedition by Portuguese navigator Duarte Pacheco Pereira in 1498 to identify territories under the Treaty of Tordesillas. This theory rests solely on Pereira's account in his book Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (1505), but the text is ambiguous: Pereira states the king "ordered the discovery of the western part," which may refer to known explorations rather than his own. The latitudes and longitudes he provides range from Greenland to southern Brazil. The idea of a Portuguese policy of secrecy, proposed by historian Damião Peres, is not sustainable because claiming sovereignty typically required publicizing a discovery. Another theory suggests the Portuguese discovery in 1500 was intentional, based on prior knowledge. Pereira's book indicates that Portuguese navigators in 1498 were instructed to explore the Atlantic for lands. Cabral may have deviated westward beyond necessity to verify such territories as the king desired. Upon sighting Brazil, Cabral believed he had discovered an island, which contradicts the theory that he knew of continental lands there. Juan de la Cosa's map of the same year shows the Island of Vera Cruz, refuting the idea that Portuguese discoveries were kept secret from Spain. Cabral's voyage to India was considered a failure; he received an annual pension of 30 thousand reais, far less than Vasco da Gama's 400 thousand reais, and died in obscurity around 1520. His tomb was located in 1839 by historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen.