Guide to Brazil

The real story behind Portugal’s “discovery” of Brazil

School books will tell you that Brazil was discovered by Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. Records show the country had visited the new land years before

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“First Mass In Brazil,” a 1861 canvas by Victor Meirelles

On the morning of April 22, 1500, after a long and tiring voyage, Portuguese captain Pedro Álvares Cabral spotted “a large hill, very high and round,” to the south of what is now the Brazilian state of Bahia. Partly by chance, Cabral had just discovered Brazil — originally called Vera Cruz — which he originally believed to be a small patch of land on the way to India.

This is the official story, propagated by the Portuguese and still taught to Brazilian schoolchildren today. But over 500 years later, this discovery tale is contested by historians from several parts of the world. Indeed, the word “discovery” was duly discarded, as Brazil had been inhabited by indigenous populations for thousands of years before Cabral’s arrival.

The Portuguese recorded their first contact with Brazil’s indigenous on April 23, 1500, after spending the night anchored 36 kilometers off the coast. In a historic letter to the Portuguese crown, knight Pêro Vaz de Caminha described the native folk as “brown-skinned, naked, showing their private parts as readily as they show their faces.” According to current calculations, there were 5 million indigenous people living on Brazil’s coastline in 1500.

While documented in Caminha’s letter, there are still several uncertainties about this “discovery.” The first of which relates to the exact point of arrival. Researchers from the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte argue that the “large hill” spotted by Cabral was in fact Mount Cabugi, located between today’s cities of Natal and Mossoró, some 1,200 kilometers north of Bahia.

But the biggest mystery surrounds the date of Portugal’s “discovery” of Brazil. There is ample evidence that Portuguese ships had already arrived in Brazil before 1500, and there is some suggestion that navigators from other countries got there first. According to a text from the end of the 18th century, French explorer Jean Cousin arrived at the Brazilian coast in 1492. The Spanish navigators Vicente Pinzón and Diogo de Lepe reportedly sailed down the coast in 1499. 

Portugal undoubtedly gets the credit, however, having announced its arrival to the world and taking control of this new land. But, even in this case, there is some suspicion that the country had already visited Brazil before 1500.

In order to understand the circumstances of Brazil’s “discovery,” one must comprehend the efforts made by the Portuguese to reach “India” — the name used by the crown to denote the much sought-after eastern lands and their spices and textiles. For almost an entire century, Portugal attempted to master the techniques that took Vasco da Gama to India, sailing around the southern tip of Africa in 1497.

Mystery and espionage

There is a shroud of uncertainty over the nine years between Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias’ feat of sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama’s own historic voyage. Despite being the world’s foremost maritime power, there are no official records of any Portuguese expeditions during this period. However, evidence found years later suggests the country was in fact exploring more than ever. 

Historian Armando Cortesão came across order sheets from a bakery close to the port in Lisbon, with requests for supplies for over 100 long sea voyages.

At that time, Lisbon was overrun with foreign spies, trying to garner shipping techniques from the renowned Portuguese explorers. The big secret they sought to uncover was how Portugal managed to sail around the southernmost tip of Africa. Until Vasco da Gama’s voyage, it was believed that the natural route would be to stick to the coast, travelling all the way down Africa until reaching the Indian Ocean. However, winds and currents made this trip treacherous and near impossible.

The Portuguese created a different route, by which their ships completely avoided the Gulf of Guinea and sailed southwest toward the Cape of Santo Agostinho, in northeastern Brazil. From there, they were able to circumvent the inhospitable conditions of the African coast and head for the Cape of Good Hope. With such an accentuated diversion, it would be almost impossible for explorers not to see the Brazilian coast on their travels.

But, beyond simply keeping their maritime techniques a secret from foreign rivals, there was another reason to keep their voyages off the official records.

Disputes with Spain and France

Until the Tordesilhas Treaty of 1494, Portugal did not have permission from the Vatican to occupy new lands in modern-day America, which were also sought after by Spain and France. Thus, even if Portuguese explorers had arrived in Brazil before the treaty, they would be unable to claim ownership.

This legal dilemma would explain the presence of a mysterious individual who lived on the coast of São Paulo during these times: Cosme Fernandes, the Bachelor of Cananéia. A landowner with a large family, he had reportedly settled in southeastern Brazil before Cabral’s voyage in 1500. His origin, however, remains uncertain. One prominent hypothesis is that he was a convict held in a Portuguese prison on the African island of São Tomé and Principe. From there, he would have been sent to Brazil as a human guarantor of Portugal’s possession of the new lands.

Indeed, the discussions surrounding the Tordesilhas Treaty indicate that Portugal were already well aware of Brazil’s existence before Cabral’s arrival. Negotiators insisted on extending Portuguese ownership by an extra 270 leagues on a meridian west of the Cape Verde islands. Had they not done this, the area now known as Brazil would have belonged to Spain.

Years later, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, one of the treaty’s negotiators, said the Portuguese crown sent him to the South Atlantic in 1488 to explore its western expanse, where there would be a “large land with many great adjacent isles” — Brazil. In December 1498, Pereira set off with a fleet of eight ships and explored Brazil’s northern coast, at the modern-day states of Pará and Maranhão. 

It was only after the Tordesilhas Treaty that Portugal felt comfortable announcing their grand discovery. But even then, they remained cautious. King Manuel I took an entire year to tell the king of Spain, who was also his father-in-law. Pêro Vaz de Caminha’s letter and several other documents pertaining to the voyage remained hidden in Lisbon until 1773.

Guide to Brazil

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