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Bandeiras
The ''Bandeirantes'' (), literally "flag-carriers", were slavers, explorers, adventurers, and fortune hunters in early Colonial Brazil. They are largely responsible for Brazil's great expansion westward, far beyond the Tordesillas Line of 1494, by which Pope Alexander VI divided the new continent into a western, Castilian section, and an eastern, Portuguese section. The ''bandeirantes'' were also known as Paulistas and Mamelucos. They mostly hailed from the São Paulo region, called the Captaincy of São Vicente until 1709 and then as the Captaincy of São Paulo. The São Paulo settlement served as the home base for the most famous ''bandeirantes.'' Some ''bandeirante'' leaders were descendants of first- and second-generation Portuguese who settled in São Paulo, but the bulk of their numbers was made of people of mameluco background (people of both European and Indian ancestries) and natives. Miscegenation was the norm in that society, and its initial family structure was po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colonial Brazil
Colonial Brazil ( pt, Brasil Colonial) comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in union with Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. During the early 300 years of Brazilian colonial history, the economic exploitation of the territory was based first on brazilwood (''pau brazil'') extraction (16th century), which gave the territory its name; sugar production (16th–18th centuries); and finally on gold and diamond mining (18th century). Slaves, especially those brought from Africa, provided most of the work force of the Brazilian export economy after a brief period of Indian slavery to cut brazilwood. In contrast to the neighboring Spanish possessions, which had several viceroyalties with jurisdiction initially over New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, and in the eighteenth century expanded to viceroyalties of the Río de la Plata and New Granada, the Portuguese colony of Brazil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
