Bandeiras

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Departure of a "monsoon", a party of Bandeiras by river. Oil by Oliveira Jr., Museu Paulista, São Paulo

The Bandeiras were the expeditions by Paulistas and allied Indians to find precious metals and stones, new Indianslaves and runaway slaves. The leaders of bandeiras were called "bandeirantes".

Leaving from the then poor and tiny village of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, which was so unimportant to the Portuguese Empire that it even used the Língua Geral instead of the Portuguese language, the Bandeiras followed the course of the rivers -- in Brazil rivers flow from the edge of the altiplane in the coast inland -- and profited from the Union of the Crowns of Portugal and Spain to effectively invade the Spanish America territories which were then unimportant to Spain, their rich mines and Indian cities being in the western Andes mountains.

As a result of the Bandeiras, the Capitaincy of São Vicente became the basis for the vice-kingdom of Brazil and encompassed current states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Tocantins and both Northern and Southern Mato Grosso.