Capitania

Capitania (from the Portuguese Capitão, in English Captain) was the Administrative division and hereditary fief of the Portuguese state in some of its colonies.

Before the discovery of Brazil (by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500), there were Capitanias in the Portuguese Atlantic possessions of the Madeira Islands and the Azores and other island and establishments in the African coast.

The most important Capitanias where, however, in the colony of Terra de Santa Cruz, or Land of the Holy Cross (modern Brazil). Each was delivered to a single Capitão-Mor, who was a Portuguese nobleman. They were straight stripes of variable height of land, divided parallel to the Equator from the coast to the Tordesilhas Line, created by King John III of Portugal in 1534.

The Capitanias in Brazil were initially fifteen in total, granted to twelve Capitães-Mor (or Donatários). They were the following:

Capitania	Capitão-Mor
Capitania of Maranhão	Fernão Aires
Capitania of Maranhão	João de Barros
Capitania of Ceará	Antônio Cardoso de Barros
Capitania of Rio Grande	João de Barros / Aires da Cunha
Capitania of Itamaracá	Pero Lopes de Sousa
Capitania of Pernambuco	Duarte Coelho Pereira
Capitania of Bahia	Francisco Pereira Coutinho
Capitania of Ilhéus	Jorge de Figueiredo Correia
Capitania of Porto Seguro	Pero Campos de Tourinho
Capitania of Espírito Santo	Vasco Fernandes Coutinho
Capitania of São Tomé	Pero de Góis da Silveira
Capitania of São Vicente - 1st section (from Parati to Cabo Frio)	Martim Afonso de Sousa
Capitania of Santo Amaro (from Bertioga to Parati)	Pero Lopes de Sousa
Capitania of São Vicente - 2nd section (from Cananéia to Bertioga)	Martim Afonso de Sousa
Capitania of Santana (from Cananéia to Laguna)	Pero Lopes de Sousa

All but two failed. The Capitania of Pernambuco succeeded through the plantation of sugarcane, and thus formed the basis for the Viceroyalty of Grão-Pará. The Capitania of São Vicente succeeded through the explorations of the hinterlands known as Bandeiras, and was at the origin of the Viceroyalty of Brazil (later the province of São Paulo).