alternatehistory.com

Considering the enormous wealth awaiting the Portuguese in the portion of the Americas allotted to them by the Treaty of Tordesillas, it is remarkable that they did not take an earlier, more proactive approach to establishing a settler colony there or to exploiting its abundant resources. Accidentally discovered by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500, Portuguese America received possibly as few as 5,000 settlers (both permanent and transient) over the next 30 years, almost all of which stuck within a few miles of the coast and stayed for only part of the year to harvest brazilwood. This population remained static, as the colonists usually never bothering to bring their families with them, and only copulated with the female natives out of wedlock and when they felt like it. There were two developments that would reverse this situation: the proximity of Portuguese America to Africa and Portuguese experiences there, and the risk of foreign interlopers.


Regarding the former, the Portuguese had been investing in and exploring the western coast of Sub-Saharan Africa since they first passed the Equator in the 1430s. The islands of Cabo Verde and of São Tomé, Príncipe, and Fernando Pó were all conveniently located off this coast and afforded the Portuguese excellent training how to run plantation colonies in tropical conditions - especially in terms of the widespread use of slave labor. While the Portuguese had gained experience in cultivating sugar from Madeira, the Portuguese-owned islands to the south had proven that sugarcane, as well as a plethora of other cash crops, could be exploited on a grand scale if the lively West African slave trade could be monopolized. It was two Pereiras (of no relation), Duarte Pacheco and Duarte Coelho, who would lay the proper groundwork for the full-scale colonization of Portuguese America by their actions in Africa. Both Pacheco and Coelho had served extensively across the growing Portuguese Empire, but had spent their longest tenures involved in Guinea and the Gold Coast. While Pacheco would never be directly involved with the Americas, he had spent several years as the captain-major of the Portuguese possessions on the Gold Coast and he recognized the value of the huge disposable labor market that lay before him and cooperated with Coelho to import the first African slaves across the Atlantic in 1519 (13 from São Jorge da Mina). Meanwhile, Coelho had experience growing sugar from his plantations in Madeira and Cabo Verde, and was among the first to realize that the northern bend of Portuguese America had prodigious circumstances for the cultivation of sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton. Establishing himself in a region in the north Lusitanized as “Pernambuco,” Coelho began manipulating tribal rivalries between the locals, recruiting settlers from Portugal, and enslaving African and indio alike to grow his hereditary (as included in the royal land grant) captaincy’s resource production.

Eventually, Coelho’s captaincy had become the predominant force in Portuguese America, so much so that he deemed its environs “Nova Lusitânia” (later used to designate it from the south, which was referred to by the more colloquial name of “Brasil”) and accumulated enough revenue to build a quasi European-style city as Pernambuco’s (and thus Nova Lusitânia’s) administrative center at São Francisco da Olinda in 1534. The deeds of aggressive individuals such as Coelho proved to be a success, as Portuguese America would receive an additional 35,000 settlers between the years 1535 and 1600. The early and inevitable symbiotic relationship between Portuguese America and Africa also greatly accelerated the development of Nova Lusitânia and Brasil: besides the most important exports of slaves, gold, and ivory, the Portuguese also imported valuable foodstuffs such as citrus, cassava, and plantains. This relationship also (obviously) initiated one of the most brutal, rapacious slave trades in history (Duarte Pacheco’s captaincy over the Gold Coast is often alone credited with keeping that region exempt from King Miguel’s ban on the Sub-Saharan slave trade), with hundreds of thousands of Africans transported to Portuguese America in chains over several centuries. The demand for slave labor also increased the number of inter-tribal conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa - such as those in the previously flourishing kingdom of Congo, the decline of which was almost parallel to the development of Portuguese Loanda. The necessity of African and indio slavery to the Portuguese colonies in the Americas became so intense, in fact, that Cristóbal de Pedraza, a follower of Bartolomé de las Casas, was murdered within only two weeks after having arrived in Pernambuco to preach against the enslavement and cruel treatment of Africans and indios.


Secondly, regarding the risk of foreigners, the first openly hostile foreign incursion into Portuguese America occurred in 1532, when a primarily French-manned carrack appeared off the coast of the Ilha de Itamaracá and held the Portuguese trading post there hostage for over 4 months. While this incident convinced the Portuguese to augment their naval patrols in the Southern Atlantic, it would take the establishment of full-blown French settlements to the south beginning in 1534 - with the first at an island they dubbed “Belle-île.” [1] - to convince the Portuguese to intensify their colonization. French subjects had been traipsing around Portuguese America almost as long as the Portuguese had, but were usually driven off after a few weeks, months, or years following bloody feuds with the Portuguese and between their respective native allies. While Belle-île primarily subsisted as a privateer colony, it represented a concerted effort sanctioned by Charles IX to subvert Spanish intentions in the New World, and was expected to be permanent, especially following the subsequent founding of Île-Résolue de Saint Jean [2] in 1535 as the de facto administrative center of the new colony.

Therefore, in order to both advance the frontier against the French and ensure the Castilians respect their treaty (considering the latter had founded two settlements far to the north of the Río de la Plata), and also to take advantage of the excellent harbor at the Baía de Guanabara (which up to this point only hosted a seasonally-occupied Portuguese feitoria), a joint expedition was organized by Pedro Mascarenhas, João de Castro, Lopo Soares de Albergaria, and Tristão and Nuno da Cunha (and funded in part by Duarte Coelho) to establish a permanent presence to the northeast of the French - all of which culminated in the settling of São Miguel Arcanjo da Guanabara [3] in early 1536. The very first royally-commissioned settlement in Portuguese America would be intended to fill the gap that had developed between the northern and southern captaincies. Ordered in 1540 and led by Garcia de Noronha, former captain of both Cochim and Moçambique, it was established at the Baía de Todos os Santos the same year as São Fernão da Bahía [4], with another settlement in the area being commissioned at Porto Seguro in 1542.

While the French presence in Brasil would only be mostly absorbed by the Portuguese during the chaos that consumed France in the 1550s (and only formally handed over in the late 1570s), its overthrow would be sealed in June of 1542, when João de Castro (at the time captain general of São Miguel Arcanjo), at the head of 800 Portuguese militiamen and 1400 native auxiliaries, defeated the 1200 strong force (300 Frenchmen, 900 Tamoio) of the French governor Louis Samuel d’Ambès 2 miles to the north of Île-Résolue at Fort Terre-Rouge. However, de Castro found the French too numerous and too intractable to consider dislodging them in their entirety, and so he settled with forcing the French to settle only within the boundaries of Belle-Île and the Île du Saint-Esprit [5], and with the replacement of the hardheaded d’Ambès with a candidate of his choosing. French colonists would continue to settle here for decades, even after the colony’s takeover given the family ties that had been established - leaving a distinct cultural impact on the region.


[1] OTL Ilhabela
[2] OTL Ilha de São Vicente
[3] OTL Rio de Janeiro
[4] OTL São Salvador
[5] OTL Ilha de São Francisco del Sur