A New World with New Ideas - A Brazilian Timeline

[CobraFumante]

Chapter I - A Saint for every Soul

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

An old man looks to the sea, its majestical blue waters alongside the bright sky fill his eyes with joy and happiness, he stops for a bit and contemplates on how his life has changed, he was so far from home and yet so close to it, for in the land he now lives he made his house, he ate his daily bread and prayed to the almighty god, best of all his ideas helped define a nation and changed its course forever stamping his footprint in the history books, he had a name as all people do, revered and acclaimed by all the inhabitants of the land who knew him, his name was Bartolomé de Las Casas and as his looks further into the ocean more and more memories come afloat of how things got this way.

It was November 11th 1484, there in the Spanish city of Seville Bartolomé was born, he was the son of Pedro de Las Casas a merchant who descended from French migrants who came to rebuild Seville after its conquest in 1248, Las Casas childhood is a mystery however with little to no sources on his early years, what we know is that Las Casas studied in Salomanca getting his degree there, by 1502 we know that him and his father travelled to the New World settling in the island of Hispaniola with Bartolomé participating in the expedition of Nicolás de Ovando[1], following his services as a Conquistador Las Casas earned an Ecomienda[2] and became a landowner and a slaver, during those year he would treat his servants with brutality and indifference to their suffering, even in 1510 when he became the first Catholic priest ordained in the Americas he still exploited the natives for his own monetary gain, however soon after the was ordained something happened that would change his life.

In September 1510 a group of Dominican fryers arrived on the island, they were disgusted by the practices of the Encomiendas, the whipping, rapes and constant abuses horrified the holy men, who preached sermons condemning the system and even denying confession to slavers which included Las Casas, furious Bartolomé and the other colonists petitioned the King of Spain and had the Dominicans removed, however they had planted the seeds of doubt in his head, Bartolomé would become ever more confused about the morality of his actions and the more the thought about it the more guilt he felt, finally in 1514 he changed his mind and freed his slaves while simultaneously preaching other to do the same, the colonists of the island then turned on Las Casas and had him removed from the island.

Back in Spain he continued to preach against slavery and the Ecomiendas, the upper classes did not like this as the money gathered from the Americas filled Spanish coffers alongside with their own pockets, (POD) so in 1517 a group of armed thugs stroke Las Casas after he gave a sermon criticizing slavery, the would-be assassins left the man severely injured however by the grace of god Las Casas lived, he went into hiding for an year before finally realizing that his country was no longer safe for him, so in 1518 Las Casas departed from Seville and arrived to the neighboring Kingdom of Portugal, more specifically he went to the court of El Rei[3] D.Manuel I of which the priest quickly gained the favor and even became close to the King’s son João, in 1521 Manuel died and was succeeded by João now called João III, the priest lived on Lisbon while also continuously fighting for native rights, it would be in 1533 when a peculiar letter arrived at the hands of the king, this letter would latter prove to have the most important question regarding the history of Portugal’s biggest colony.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

[1] The expedition consisted on the complete subjugation of the natives of Hispaniola
[2] For those who don’t know it’s a system on which the land of the Indigenous people were decided amongst the European conquerers with the natives living inside the Ecomiendas working without pay and becoming slaves
[3] This is how the Portuguese kings styled themselves the term comes from Galician-Portuguese and remained unchanged throughout the centuries

 

[CobraFumante]

Chapter II - The most important choice

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

In the year of 1533 the court of the Lusitanian kingdom was shocked by the arrival of a letter, said latter came from the colony of Portuguese America, despite of the highs Brazil has reached over the past century back then the place was a backwater, it didn’t produce the immense wealth that the Feitorias[1] of the East Indies produced nor the Gold and Ivory acquired in Africa, Brazil was by all means just an extra and not the main show, trying to fix this Pero de Gois, Captain-Mor da Costa do Brazil, requested El-Rei, the shipment of 17 Ethiopians[2] to his Captaincy of São-Thomas (Parahyba)[3], D.João was inclined to accept this until a voice raised in opposition.

Bartolomé rose upon hearing about the proposition and with vigor told the monarch not to accept the request of the Captain, upon hearing this some nobles protested this as a mere priest trying to subvert the merit of the King, however D.João ordered both sides to quiet down before letting Bartolomé speak his mind about this and why he shouldn’t accept it, so Bartolomé said:

B - “My Lord, it is unjust and ungodly of us to condemn these people to suffer for our own benefit, as you know I lived in Hispaniola and was a slaver myself, I saw the brutal conditions that this system of slavery imposes and I think it is not right for us to damn these souls to earthly suffering”

Upon hearing this a Noble answered :

N - “What do you care? They are heathens and don’t deserve gods love, they are animals who live in huts and eat raw meat, we shouldn’t threat Indians like our kin much less the Ethiopians”

In a fit of rage Bartolomé responded:

B - “Who are you to claim who deserves gods love? Weren’t we Barbarians who lived in huts before the light of Rome and Christ blessed us? These folk have no fault of being so far from the word of god, they have no fault in being ignorant to civilization when they are so far from it[4], we shouldn’t exploit them from what they are, rather we should teach them about what they can become, be they Indian or Ethiopian it’s our mission as the warriors of Christ to spread his word far and wide.

“But what about the extra wealth?” Said an unidentified Noble.

“What about it?” Answered Bartolomé.

B - “My Lord… do not let worldly ideas of gold and spices cloud your rightful judgement, for centuries to come the people will speak about this meeting, about how D.João III either saved or condemned two races to slavery and suffering, please my king make the right choice and give those people and their souls the ability to pass to heaven free of mistreatment and cruelty, please… say no to the letter.

After pondering the question for many hours the King of the Portuguese gave his definitive answer.

“No”.

The Indians and Ethiopians would not be condemned into slavery in his American possessions, for the King was the ultimate overlord of his West Indian holdings, he then went to his quarters to write and official response to the Captains stating that both the Red and Black skinned people were under their suzerain’s protection.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

[1] They have the same etymological origin as Factories and they mean “a place were things are made”
[2] The concept of Africa as the entire continent was not yet universal, some people called only the north of the continent as Africa while other called the Subsaharan part Ethiopia which literally means “Land of the Burned Face”
[3] Thomas was the Archaic Portuguese way of saying either Tomé or Tomás and also Parahyba was how it was written back then
[4] Despite how wholesome he is Las Casas still has some soft prejudice in the form of believing the Indians and Black weren’t really civilized and needed to be converted to be saved

 

[Caio79]

Quite creative

 

[CobraFumante]

Chapter III - A whole new world
​

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Since the “discovery” of Brazil by Pedro Álvares Cabral the it was never important, it didn’t have the mighty silver and gold deposits of Spanish America, nor the precious spices and fine crafts of the East, instead the colonies only export was the red coloured brazilwood, which allowed for the creation of red paint, the main color used by the nobility of Portugal, but even then, this amounted to nothing in comparison to what Portugal generated in its monopoly of the Spice trade, it fought various wars with the Ottomans and local Indian rulers to keep it that way, thus Brazil was relegated to a colony of secondary importance used only to gather wood and to resupply ships on their way eastward, however things changed with the arrival of the letter.

The fierce debate about wether they should import Ethiopian slaves or degrade the Indians to slave status was ultimately won by Bartolomé, who defended the rights of the Natives and Bantus against such system. However, such arrangement meant that the colony couldn’t develop in the same molds as those of the Spanish Americans, so even thought the king agreed to Las Casas proposal another alternative way of bringing people to Brazil would be needed, luckily for the Portuguese Las Casas already had something in mind, his plan, was to start a settlement scheme in which European farmers, poor street dwellers and unwanted minorities would be settled in Brazil, not only that he proposed going there personally in order to enforce the rights of both Natives and small colonists against the ruling elite, as well as stop the colonists from getting to angry at the colonial elites, with the plan being presented to João by the end of 1533 and put into action by 1534. With his idea finally approved, Las Casas went on to truly make it work, his first task would be to obtain settlers to well… settle, for that Las Casas ventured into the North of the kingdom more specifically the regions of Entre-Douro-e-Minho and Trás-os-Montes, whose mountainous nature made agriculture rather difficult and meant that good land was very concentrated, not only that the rural areas of such provinces were poorer and less developed than the regions around Cõymbra and Lisbõa[1] and also presented a problem of overpopulation, thus making eager volunteers flock to the port of Porto in order to make the travel to the lands beyond the Atlantic, Las Casas also convinced some Galician to come along the way, so on the 17th of June 1535 a fleet of 6 ships and 432 people left from Cõymbra and headed strait to Brazil, they arrived on the 10th of July at the city of São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos alongside these colonist also sailed Las Casas who came to exercise his duties as Guardião dos Índios Ocidentais[2].

Before the colonists left for Brazil Las Casas and João were negotiating for Las Casas to have a position of power in the Portuguese America to better enforce the will of the King there, of course this needed to be well crafted otherwise there was the danger of the elites trying to murder Las Casas and the locals resentful of the elites, so while Las Casas could play the role of a benevolent saint who took care of the poor and oppressed, he also needed to attended some of the elites wishes and in general try to connect with them.

The arrival of the ships at Salvador was a game-changer if successful Las Casas would be able to prove that slavery was unnecessary and also prove that Brazil had a place on the Portuguese Empire, the new colonists were then sent to outside the city walls on farmland which was supposed to be used for slave-plantations but instead was being used by independent small farmers, Las Casas upon arrival went to speak directly to the Captain[3] and proclaimed his purposed and gave the governor a letter written by the king himself, the contents of the letter specified that Las Casas was to ensured that the colonists, elites and Indians all were satisfied and to let no one oppress the other, the message was then dispatched to all the other Captains, afterward he went to meet the Cacique[4] of the local Tupinambá tribe and established accords of mutual cooperation between Europeans and Natives, amongst these were accords upon commerce of goods and the settlement of further Europeans, this particular part stipulated that the land needed to be bought from the tribe before settlers were able to come, within a few days Las Casas was able to make an ally securing the lives of the colonists and guaranteeing aid in the the Captains got some rebellious ideas.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

[1] The old Portuguese way of referring to Coimbra and Lisboa
[2] Guardian of the West Indians
[3] Back then Brazil was divided into hereditary Captaincies and who ruled them was a Captain
[4] In Spanish at least it can mean someone who is powerful but in Portuguese (at least Brazilian Portuguese) it is simply a tribal chief

 

[Victoro]

The Capitanias did was a very well developed plan for colonization at the time. It even turned Madeira into the world best sugar and melasse exporter. The problem was that in order to it work in Brazil, the natives would have to "vanish" or at least be a lot less warring in order to be converted into... ahem... "manpower"...

Sincerely King Sebastian of House Aviz was the best planner when dealing with Brazilian development.

The man created the colonies first environmental laws to protect the forests (Mata Atlantica was a cash cow and the locals, both natives and landowners alike were destroying it for a fast non-renewable profit!), worked with the Jesuits hunting for local talented leadership (my hone City was taken from the French by a Brazilian Noble who was a entitled native named Arariboya), give Liberal reforms that permitted Brazilian ports export products to the best bidder rather than only to the metropole (and reinvest the surplus in their own local economy), and other cool things, like abolishing slavery for sure...


Too bad he died young and without heirs...

 

[CobraFumante]

The Capitanias did was a very well developed plan for colonization at the time. It even turned Madeira into the world best sugar and melasse exporter. The problem was that in order to it work in Brazil, the natives would have to "vanish" or at least be a lot less warring in order to be converted into... ahem... "mampower"...

Sincerely King Sebastian of House Aviz was the best planner when dealing with Brazilian development.

The man created the colonies first environmental laws to protect the forests (Mata Atlantica was a cash cow and the locals, both natives and landowners alike were destroying it for a fast non-renewable profit!), worked with the Jesuits hunting for local talented leadership (my hone City was taken from the French by a Brazilian Noble who was a entitled native named Arariboya), give Liberal reforms that permitted Brazilian ports export products to the best bidder rather than only to the metropole (and reinvest the surplus in their own local economy), and other cool things, like abolishing slavery for sure...


Too bad he died young and without heirs...

Don’t worry Sebastian already has a nice place on TTL lore

 

[Victoro]

Don’t worry Sebastian already has a nice place on TTL lore

A true Portuguese TL need to have a place to the guy.

His legend is almost Arcturian in its lore. Like the legend that says he entered the Tomb of King Alphonso Henry Khes and after dueling with the woken specter of the monarch he traded his blade to Alphonso's great sword.

Other says that he didn't die in the battle of the three kings, but was usurped and ended exiled like Napoleon in that cool movie "The Emperor's New Clothes"

And there was this Brazilian religious leader that once said Sebastian will be back with his knights from de deep of the ocean in the day that "O sertão vai virar Mar e o Mar vai virar Sertão." (The desert becomes Sea and the Sea becomes Desert). Tho greet the second coming of the Savior.

 

[CobraFumante]

Chapter IV - Olá Sertão
​

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

With the first fleet of colonists arriving in Salvador also came in new things, chief amongst these was that the Captains now had a new class of people to deal with, since they were Portuguese or Galician they couldn’t be enslaved nor forced into servitude, this would be a major headache for the Captains later on, for now they simply waited to see how things turned out.

After the success of the first fleet and their acquiring of new land more and more Portuguese and Galicians made the journey overseas, in 1536 up to 356 new colonists arrived, by 1537 some 419 got there and the number kept getting higher. The colonists for the most part avoided the cities as most of them were from rural areas and mostly just wanted to gain plots of land for themselves, the make-up of those settlers was also not quite diverse as during the first 50 years of colonization, about 90% of all settlers would be Portuguese and Galician (collectively known as Lusos[1]) and from these 90%, around 80% would come from Trás-os-Montes and Dentre-Ouro-e-Minho and some 10~15% would come from Galicia, with the proportion of Galicians steadily rising throughout the decades, in general, the Lusos would make the overwhelming majority of free settlers until the reign of King Sebastian I and be the dominant culture for all of colonial Brazil. The second group was made of the Conversos[2] which was composed of former Sephardic Jews who converted to Christianity or Jews who lied about their conversion, thus most Sephardics who came to Brazil were usually sent in the form of Degredados[3] as the Portuguese State could acuse them of just about anything and then send them to Brazil, the community at first was highly insular and disliked contact with the Lusos, however after a decade or two they began to formally integrate.

Culturally speaking, the the Northern Lusos were by far the most influential group of settlers, their dialect for instance would form the basis for what would eventually be the Brazilian dialect of Portuguese, not only that but the clothings, traditions and toponyms show an overwhelming northern influence. This overwhelming cultural influence, often meant that other non-urban groups of people would integrate into this dominant northern luso culture rather than the more prestigious culture of the urban elites, this is seen clearly in the Conversos, who, over the decades abandoned their unique Judeo-Portuguese language and culture and instead adopted the luso language and culture, the result of which was that both groups heavily intermarrying with each other, a phenomenon which is very well attested as we have numerous letters from priests complaint about Christian men and women marrying with Sephardic men and women, this also meant that white people in the Brazilian northeast tend to have some Middle Eastern admixture to them.

Bartolomé meanwhile was spending his time negotiating with Indian tribes and local Captains for peaceful coexistence, both sides had something to gain as the Natives were dwindling in population ever since the Europeans arrived, many had acquired Old World diseases and tribes perished in the tens of thousands, Las Casas which already experienced this phenomenon back in Hispaniola was keen on protecting the Indians, the Captains meanwhile lacked the men and material to push the Indians back and hoped that Las Casas could keep the “savages” at bay. Las Casas also spent time with the growing immigrant populations and helping them, during the 1550’s religious orders like the Jesuits and Dominicans arrived on the colony in great numbers, Bartolomé used those orders to not only baptize the Natives but to also offer education to the colonists[4] and also church service, as a result multiple churches were constructed throughout the colony with every little town required to have a church and a priest, a position of great power due to the extreme religiosity of settlers as well as the fact that priests were the ones in charge of making people how to read and write.

Keep in mind however that not all tribes saw this with good eyes, the Caeté and Tabajara tribes were not friendly to Las Casas nor the Portuguese and launched frequent raids against farms and small settlements of Pernambuco and Itamaracá, unfortunately for the Indians such raids often brought back European diseases of which the natives had no immunity, the result was that entire villages were left deserted as plague and death swept trough their populations. After they were weakened, the Portuguese began their counter-attack as they began raiding their enemies lands and stripping them of their valuables, however during these raids no slaves were taken as Las Casas was determined to not let any Indian to be taken, eventually the Portuguese led a group of Portuguese Regulars, European Militias and Native Allies into the enemy heartland, the resuiltimg conflict was bloody but short as the European advantage in horses, iron and gunpowder allowed for them to quickly secure victory and capitulate their enemies, the resulting war was dubbed the “Savage War” allowed for the Portuguese to take control over huge swaths of land in the north as they exposed harsh treaties upon their defeated enemies, this new free land was later allocated for incoming settlers and basically set the precedent on how Portuguese expansion into Brazil was going to be.

Since we are already talking about Indian-Portuguese relations, it would be wise to present you guys to another group of people that would define early Brazilian history, the Mestiços, a group of people descended from the unions between Europeans and Native-Americans. Their origins however are a not very colorful, Mestiços were usually the result of unions between European men and Amerindian women and in a lot of cases such relations were not consensual as some times you could see young men (usually between the ages of 18-25) “marrying” Indian girls who were often under 18, this is once again something well documented as we have loads of letter of angry priests who were rambling about the Portuguese men basically walking into the Sertão[6] and taking multiple wives for themselves. This, is of course not to say that there weren’t unions between Indian men and White women, it’s just that the latter were much rarer than the former, this is usually attributed to some factors like the fact that between the 1500s-1550’s white men constitute between 60~70% of the white population and thus had a lack of women, this coupled societal pressures put upon females generally made it very hard for them to go and marry Indians and basically resulted in Mestiços being overwhelmingly made out of white males and Indian females.

By 1560 the Portuguese hold on Brazil was basically solidified, there were many Lusos living alongside the vast Brazilian coast, the new race of mixed people usually integrated into Luso culture and thus worked with the Portuguese as translators and merchants. and many native tribes basically allied themselves with the Portuguese after European diseases devastated their populations and made them incredibly vulnerable to attacks from native tribes, thus resulting in a colony that while still in its infancy would grow into becoming something much grander

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

[1] This world will be used to refer to Portuguese and Galicians living in the new world before the term Mazombo appear
[2] Conversos were Jews forcefully converted to Christianity, they were usually of mixed European-Levantine backgrounds and were very persecuted even after converting
[3] A Portuguese word for criminal/guilty person
[4] Literacy Rates between the colonists were already kinda low since they usually came from humble backgrounds, literacy rates would drop even further as there was simply no incentive to learn how to read and write
[5] The Portuguese word for mixed, in this case someone of mixed-race
[6] Portuguese word which means Hinterland

 

[El_Fodedor]

Very good!

 

[lusitano 1996]

Great tl , this slow and steady trickle of people from portugal is really good for the development of the colony and it will shorely explode after the dicovery of the gold mines .

 

[John I of Brazil]

A true Portuguese TL need to have a place to the guy.

His legend is almost Arcturian in its lore. Like the legend that says he entered the Tomb of King Alphonso Henry Khes and after dueling with the woken specter of the monarch he traded his blade to Alphonso's great sword.

Other says that he didn't die in the battle of the three kings, but was usurped and ended exiled like Napoleon in that cool movie "The Emperor's New Clothes"

And there was this Brazilian religious leader that once said Sebastian will be back with his knights from de deep of the ocean in the day that "O sertão vai virar Mar e o Mar vai virar Sertão." (The desert becomes Sea and the Sea becomes Desert). Tho greet the second coming of the Savior.

There are different versions of the legend in Brazil that get even weirder. In my state, Maranhão, it is said he was turned into a immortal enchanted bull with a star in his/its forehead who haunts the Lençóis Island, and if someone dares to pierce the star in his forehead, he will become a human again, his army will be resurrected and entire state of Maranhão will be destroyed and replaced by his new kingdom.

He also became a entity of Encantaria, a local religion which syncretizes African, indigenous and European spirituality.

 

[Victoro]

There are different versions of the legend in Brazil that get even weirder. In my state, Maranhão, it is said he was turned into a immortal enchanted bull with a star in his/its forehead who haunts the Lençóis Island, and if someone dares to pierce the star in his forehead, he will become a human again, his army will be resurrected and entire state of Maranhão will be destroyed and replaced by his new kingdom.

He also became a entity of Encantaria, a local religion which syncretizes African, indigenous and European spirituality.

Man this gives me some serious "King of Dragonpass" Heroquest storyline vibes!

This level of lore is awesome!

 

[CobraFumante]

Chapter V - Brazilian Feudalism

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————​

When people hear the word feudalism they think about medieval Europe with the nobles and their castles, this image sometimes is more romanticized then others, but at its core Feudalism is decentralization of power and in no place was this more the case than early Brazil, this was in due part because of a system known as the Capitanias Hereditárias (the Hereditary Capitancies), a political system created by the king of Portugal in order to more effectively administer the gigantic colony of Brazil. The system worked as such, the king would split the colony into multiple stretches of land, then give said stretches to someone (usually the lower nobility) known as a Captain and basically turning them into feudal lords who ruled over the land in the name of the king with absolute authority, they were then supposed to develop the land as they saw fit, which usually meant giving land to other people which would then make money and then tax said money to then finally send it to Portugal.

With the arrival of Portuguese and Galician colonists the system begun to evolve even further to a proto-feudalism, the colonists who migrated to the interior created vilas[1] and to create each new vila had to be the Captain needed not only to approve of if but then send a Coronel[2] to oversee the community, he would provide the local Captaincy with tax money and also locally grown products (while pocketing some money for himself) and in turn the Coronel would have control over the community doing so in the name of then Captain, the local Coronel also had to provide religious service to the people and so each vila had a church where sermons were given, these sermons were conducted in Portuguese so as to allow for the peasantry who had very low literacy rates[3] to comprehend what they were being taught. The result, was that early northeastern Brazil really resembled the feudal social-structures, however there were some starch contrasts between this system and European feudalism, namely that the “peasants” were not bound to the land and could leave it whenever they pleased, not only that but they could also carry firearms which was considered essential to be able to live in the frontier.

Thus this period of Brazilian history was fittingly known as Coronelismo, we even had an exact date to when it began, 12th of May 1550, on that day Joaquim Soares de Souza a minor noblemen born in Portugal travelled to the New World more specifically the Captaincy of Pernambuco, he was friends with then captain Duarte Coelho who gave him a plot of land surrounding Vila de Nova Esperança[4] and gave him the ability to do as he pleases there. This process would continue until until 1748 when the role of Colonel was officially abolished by the government in Lisbon, however the system itself began to decline by the beginning of the 17th century and by the time of its abolishion was basically a shell of its former self as the Colonel had by this point been stripped of most of its powers.

The system of Coronelismo however was only really present in settlements close to the capitancies’ seats of power, the further you travelled from the capitals the more independent and autonomous were these settlements, some didn’t even have Coronels and lived independently from any central authority and in many cases didn’t even pay taxes as no government authority ever came to their settlement, these isolated communities also had an even lower literacy rate as establishing actual church services was much harder and in many times was seen as not worth it, the law was also much different from what was practiced along the bigger/costal settlements, laws were more of a set of customs and norms that were imposed by family groups and were more akin to the tribal societies of the Amerindians but with a touch of Europeaness, another problem these settlements had was that they were frequent victims of hostile raids by enemy tribes who in most cases took the population as captives, but all in all these far away settlements were also a beacon of mixing as Índios and Mestiços made a huge part if not a majority of the population of those towns, which basically meant that whites more often than not cohabitated him them and intermarried with them at rates far greater than in the Brazilian coast.

This system would continue like that for a long time before being ultimately dismantled, it left a mark on Brazilian culture which can be seen to this day when comparing rural communities to bigger cities and is a topic constantly studied by schools all over the country.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
​

[1] Settlements of between 500 to 5,000 people
[2] AKA a Colonel
[3] Literacy rates actually fell in places like New France (which I’m trying to emulate) as people were mostly farmers and so literacy was not something deemed necessary
[4] Village of New Hope located in Rio Doce a neighborhood of the city of Olinda - PE

 

[CobraFumante]

So folks I will write another post tomorrow but until then what do you think of this thread?

what are your suggestions, expectations and questions about this TL?

 

[lusitano 1996]

I think thar brazil becoming this feudal place is kind of weird but i am looking foward to see what happens

 

[Belka DNW]

One colonial government could convince Portugal to let them manufacture their won weapons and defensive equipment in Brasil using the execuse that "it's too expensive and risky move equipment from Portugal, especially during war". This could jump start the iron mining industry in Brasil and boost portuguese interest on south america to more than just planting cash crops.

 

[Unknown]

Good start--this looks to be an interesting Brazil, one that might avoid some of its OTL troubles (though there will be some, IMO)...

 

[CobraFumante]

One colonial government could convince Portugal to let them manufacture their won weapons and defensive equipment in Brasil using the execuse that "it's too expensive and risky move equipment from Portugal, especially during war". This could jump start the iron mining industry in Brasil and boost portuguese interest on south america to more than just planting cash crops.

“you’re goddam right”

 

[CobraFumante]

Good start--this looks to be an interesting Brazil, one that might avoid some of its OTL troubles (though there will be some, IMO)...

Independence and the 19th century will be rough in some ways

 

[havok.]

Very interested since brazilian timelines are rare.