Captaincy

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A captaincy is a historical administrative division of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. Each was governed by a captain general.

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[edit] In the Portuguese Empire

In the Portuguese Empire, captaincies (capitanias, in Portuguese) were the administrative divisions and hereditary fiefs of the Portuguese state in some of its colonies.

Before the discovery of Brazil (1500), there were captaincies in the Portuguese Atlantic possessions of Madeira and the Azores Islands and in other island and settlements along the African coast.

The most important captaincies were, however, in the colony of Terra de Santa Cruz, or Land of the Holy Cross (modern Brazil). Each was delivered to a single captaincy general (capitão-mor, or capitão-donatário), 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.

[edit] Captaincies of Brazil

The captaincies in Brazil were initially fifteen in total, granted to twelve donatários. They were the following:

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

All but two failed. The Captaincy of Pernambuco succeeded through the plantation of sugarcane, and thus formed the basis for the Viceroyalty of Grão-Pará. The Captaincy 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).

1534
Hereditary Captaincies

1573
Two Viceroyalties

[edit] In the Spanish Empire

Captaincies (capitanías, in Spanish) were military and administrative divisions in colonial Spanish America and the Spanish Philippines, established in areas under risk of foreign invasion or Indian attack. They could consist of just one province, or group several together. Captaincies general were governed by what is usually refered to as a captain general, but was actually a person who held two distinct offices, one military and the other civilian: the command of the regional forces (the "captaincy general" proper), and the governorship, which would include the presidency of the audiencia, if there was one in the provincial captial. The specific powers of any governor-captian general varied by time and place and were specified in the decrees establishing the captaincy general. The captaincy general predated the viceroyalty, but was incorporated into the latter when the viceroyalties were established in the mid-16th century.

Some captaincies general, such as Guatemala, Chile and Venezuela were eventually split off from their viceroyalties for better-administration purposes. Although under the nominal jurisdiction of their viceroys, governors-captains general were virtually independent, because the law granted them special military functions and given the considerable distance of their districts from the viceregal capital, they were authorized to deal directly with the King and the Council of the Indies, in Madrid.

During the Reconquista, the term captain general and similar ones had been used for the official in charge of all the troops in a given district. This office was transfered to America during the conquest and was usually granted along with the governorship to the adelantado in the patent granted by the Crown, usually with the right to pass the office to an heir, establishing the precedent that was recognized by the New Laws of 1542. The institution was later revived with a very different form as part of the Bourbon Reforms. Captaincies general were introduced into Spain beginning in 1713 during the War of the Spanish Succession. After the losses of the Seven Years' War, the Bourbon kings implemented them in many American possessions, which had not had them before, along with new offices, such as the Intendant.

[edit] Spanish Captaincies

[edit] See also