Brazil: The First Plantation Economy
nThe Portuguese reached Brazil in 1500 through Pedro Alvares Cabral.
nThere was little early interest in Brazil apart from dyewood trees; merchants received licenses for their exploitation.
nBy 1532, Portuguese nobles were given land grants to colonize and develop Brazil.
nTowns were founded and sugar plantations were established using Indian and later African slave workers.
nIn 1549 a royal governor created a new government at Salvador.
nIndian resistance was broken by disease, military force, and missionary action.
nPort cities developed to serve the growing number of sugar plantations increasingly worked by African slaves.
