Captaincies of Brazil

The Captaincies of Brazil were captaincies of the Portuguese Empire ^{[Note 1]}, administrative divisions and hereditary fiefs of Portugal in the colony of Terra de Santa Cruz ^{[Note 2]}, later called Brazil, on the Atlantic coast of northeastern South America. Each was granted to a single donee, a Portuguese nobleman who was given the title captain General. Except for two, Sao Vicente (later called São Paulo) and Pernambuco, they were administrative and economic failures. They were effectively subsumed by the Governorates General and the States of Brazil and Maranhao starting in 1549, and the last of the privately granted captaincies reverted to the Crown in 1754. Their final boundaries in the latter half of the eighteenth century became the basis of the provinces of Brazil.

Establishment as Colonies

1534 Captaincy Colonies
Maranhao(2 sections)
Ceara
Rio Grande de Norte
Itamaraca
Pernambuco
Bahia
Ilheus
Porto Seguro
Espirto Santo
San Tome
Sao Vicente(split into 2)
Santo Amaro
Santana

1709 Pernambuco and São Paulo at Zenith

Following the successful expedition of Martim Afonso de Sousa in 1530, in order to exploit the trade in Brazilwood discovered on the Atlantic coast, as well as explore rumors of vast riches in silver and gold in the interior, the Portuguese Crown determined to establish permanent colonies in their claim on the new continent. The Portuguese realized that they had no human or financial resources to invest in a large and distant colony, and decided to assign this task to private entrepreneurs, called donatários, each of whom would become owner and administrator of a capitainia or captaincy, a land grant (this system had already been successful in the settlement of the Portuguese colonies in Africa).

The captaincies were drawn as stripes parallel to the equator, commencing at the Atlantic coast and terminating in the west at the Tordesilhas Line (where Spanish territory began). They were established by King John III of Portugal in 1534. Within a system of royal patronage and nepotism, five of the captaincies were given to two cousins of finance minister António de Ataíde: Martim Afonso de Sousa and his brother Pero Lopes. An additional captaincy was issued to Pero de Gois, captain of Afonso's 1530 expedition. The remaining captaincies were granted to a trusted mixture of military men - more precisely called conquistadores - and court bureaucrats.

Each captaincy was to be of fifty leagues "height" (measured north-south), but in practice, boundaries were marked by pairs of rivers, a plethora of which emptied into the Atlantic ocean on the northeastern coast of the continent. So actual heights varied, as shown in the map at right. Initially fifteen, they were granted to twelve donees. They were the following (north to south):

All but two captaincies failed, due to inadequate resources of the donees and lack of support from the Crown. Four donees failed to take possession of their lands, and four more quickly succumbed to Indians. Only four captaincies survived past 1549: Sao Vicente, Pernambuco, Ilheus and Porto Seguro.^[1]

Subsumption by Governorates

In 1549, in order to solve the governance problem of his South American colonies, D. Jao III established the Governorate General of Brazil. The governorate united the fifteen colonies into a single colony, but each captaincy would continue to exist as a privately owned provincial administrative unit of the governorate. In 1572, the Governorate was split into two separate Governorates: the Governorate General of Bahia in the North, which included Bahia (and Ilheus which was merged with Bahia) and captaincies to the north, and the Governorate General of Rio de Janeiro in the South, which included all the captaincies south of Bahia/Ilheus. Thereafter, the Governorates split and merged, shuffling captaincies among them.

Crown captaincies and provinces

Beginning as early as 1548 when the captaincy of Baia de os Todos Santos (Bahia)^{[Note 3]} reverted to the Crown due to death of its donee, the captains donatory failed financially and faded from the picture one by one. Their powers then reverted to the Crown, and the donatary captaincies became Crown Captaincies with royal officials in place of the former grantees.

The history of the captaincies is one of constant subordination, annexation and division. New donatary captaincies were carved out of territories which were too vast and difficult to administer directly and small captaincies, nominally in private hands but often abandoned by their donataries, were annexed by larger or more successful Crown captaincies. At least fifteen donatary captaincies were granted through the middle of the 18th century, carved out of royal captaincies. New royal captaincies and provinces (after 1640) were also carved out of existing ones.

During the Iberian Union, some of the captaincies attained the status of provinces, and Portuguese Brazil thereafter was a mixture of donatary captaincies, royal captaincies and provinces.

List of post-1549 captaincies and provinces

Some complications result from captaincies being merged and recreated with the same name, but representing altered regions. At least a few of the later captaincies were islands or capes of negligible size.

• Fernando de Noronha (not occupied or abandoned) 1504-1737
• Itaparica and Itamarandiba (islands), 1556, split from Bahia
• Rio de Janeiro, 1563, renamed first (northern) section of Sao Vicente + Paraiba do Sul(?)
• Paraguaçu, 1566, carved from Bahia
• Paraiba, 1580, created from part of Rio Grande, enlarged by acquisition of most of Itamaraca, 1585
• Rio Grande de Norte, 1597, merger of northern portion of Rio Grande, Ceara and Maranhao
• Cabo Frio, 1615, promontory in Rio de Janeiro
• Itapecuru (renamed Icatu after 1691), 1621
• Itanheim, 1624
• Paranagua, 1624
• Paraiba do Sul (originally Sao Tome), 1629
• Gurupa, 1633
• Santa Cruz de Cameta, 1633
• Rio Sao Francisco, ~1634
• Pará (renamed Grão-Pará in 1775), 1637, from newly incorporated territory
• Cabo de Norte, 1637, from newly incorporated territory; merged into Maranhao 1654
• Vigia, 1652
• Caete (originally Captaincy of Vera Cruz de Gurupi), 1622, merged into Maranhao 1654
• Ilha Grande (island of Marajo), 1665, merged into Maranhao
• Xingu, 1685, merged into Maranhao 1654
• Araroba, 1690
• São Paulo and Minas de Ouro, 1709, renamed from Sao Vicente
• Minas Gerais, 1720, split from São Paulo and Minas de Ouro
• Sao Paulo, 1720, remaining after Minas Gerais split
• Mearim, 1723, within Maranhao
• Cuma, 1727, sub-captaincy split from Maranhao; merged in Maranhao 1654
• Santa Catarina, 1739, split from Sao Paulo
• Goiaz, 1748, split from Sao Paulo
• Mate Grosso, 1748, split from Sao Paulo
• Sao Jose de Rio Negro (most of Amazonia region), 1755, split from Pará
• Piaui, 1759, split from Maranhao
• Espirito Santo, 1799, independent from Bahia
• Rio Grande do Sul, 1760, newly incorporated territory of Rio Grande de Sao Pedro
• Ceara, 1799, split from Pernambuco
• Rio Grande de Norte, 1808, split from Pernambuco
• Alagoas, 1817, split from Pernambuco
• Sergipe, 1820, split from Bahia

Pernambuco and Sao Vicente

The Captaincy of Pernambuco thrived due to sugarcane plantations. The Captaincy of São Vicente, later called São Paulo, obtained success through the exploration of the hinterland known as bandeiras. In 1621, these became the bases for the northern State of Maranhão and the southern State of Brazil respectively.

Provinces of Brazil

In 1815, the State of Brazil was elevated to a kingdom and provinces, Crown captaincies and captaincies general became provinces of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

Legacy of the Captaincies

Thirteen modern states have names of their predecessor captaincies, and several cities. The captaincies immortalized a set of Tupi-guarani place names, chiefly those of rivers and mountains.

In echoes of the feudal system of landed noblemen, the huge fazendas of the 18th and 19th centuries were allocated from the land holdings of the captaincies.

Brazil today still lives with the legacy of a plantation culture that consumed four million African slaves and left land ownership hideously askew. An elite 1.7 percent of the landowners continue to own nearly half the arable land; the top 10 percent of the nation earns half the income.

See also

• Captaincy General
• Provinces of Brazil

Notes

References