The history of Brazil starts with indigenous people in Brazil.

Europeans arrived
in Brazil at the opening of the 16th century.
The first European to colonize Brazil was Pedro lvares Cabral on April 22, 1500 u
nder the sponsorship of Portugal. From the 16th to the early 19th centuries, Bra
zil was a colony of Portugal. The country expanded south along the coast and wes
t along the Amazon and other inland rivers from the original 15 donatary captain
cy colonies established on the northeast Atlantic coast east of the Tordesillas
Line of 1494 (approximately the 46th meridian west) that divided the Portuguese
domain to the east from the Spanish domain to the west. Most of the country's bo
rders were set by the end of the colonial period early in the 19th century.
On September 7, 1822, the country declared its independence from Portugal and be
came a constitutional monarchy, the Empire of Brazil. A military coup in 1889 es
tablished a republican government. The country has seen a dictatorship (19301934
and 19371945) and a period of military rule (19641985).
Contents
1 Precolonial history
2 Beginnings of Brazil
3 The Kingdom and Empire of Brazil
4 Republic of Brazil
4.1 The Old Republic (18891930)
4.2 Populism and development (19301964)
4.3 Military dictatorship (196485)
4.3.1 New Professionalism and the Escola Superior de Guerra
4.4 Military response
5 Redemocratization to present (1985Present)
5.1 Religious change
6 See also
7 References
8 Notes
9 Further reading
10 External links
Precolonial history
See also: Indigenous people in Brazil
When Portuguese explorers arrived in Brazil, the region was inhabited by hundred
s of different native tribes, "the earliest going back at least 10,000 years in
the highlands of Minas Gerais".[1] The dating of the origins of the first inhabi
tants, who were called "Indians" (ndios) by the Portuguese, is still a matter of
dispute among archaeologists. The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hem
isphere, radiocarbon-dated 8,000 years old, has been excavated in the Amazon bas
in of Brazil, near Santarem, providing evidence to overturn the assumption that
the tropical forest region was too poor in resources to have supported a complex
prehistoric culture".[2] The current most widely accepted view of anthropologis
ts, linguists and geneticists is that the early tribes were part of the first wa
ve of migrant hunters who came into the Americas from Asia, either by land, acro
ss the Bering Strait, or by coastal sea routes along the Pacific, or both.
The Andes and the mountain ranges of northern South America created a rather sha
rp cultural boundary between the settled agrarian civilizations of the west coas
t and the semi-nomadic tribes of the east, who never developed written records o
r permanent monumental architecture. For this reason, very little is known about
the history of Brazil before 1500. Archaeological remains (mainly pottery) indi
cate a complex pattern of regional cultural developments, internal migrations, a
nd occasional large state-like federations.
At the time of European discovery, the territory of current day Brazil had as ma
ny as 2,000 tribes. The indigenous peoples were traditionally mostly semi-nomadi
c tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture.
When the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Natives were living mainly on the coast
and along the banks of major rivers. Initially, the Europeans saw the natives a
s noble savages, and miscegenation of the population began right away.
Tribal warfare, cannibalism and the pursuit of brazilwood for its treasured red
dye convinced the Portuguese that they should Christianize the natives. But the
Portuguese, like the Spanish in their South American possessions, had unknowingl
y brought diseases with them, against which many Natives were helpless due to la
ck of immunity. Measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and influenza killed
tens of thousands indigenous people. The diseases spread quickly along the indi
genous trade routes, and whole tribes were likely annihilated without ever comin
g in direct contact with Europeans.[citation needed]
Beginnings of Brazil
Main article: Colonial Brazil
See also: Slavery in Brazil
Royal Flag (14951521)
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There are several theories regarding who first set foot on the land now called B
razil. Besides the widely accepted view of Cabral's discovery, some defend that
it was Duarte Pacheco Pereira between November and December of 1498 [3][4] and s
ome others say that it was first discovered by Vicente Yez Pinzn, a Spanish navigat
or who had accompanied Colombus in his first trip to the American continent havi
ng supposedly arrived in today's Pernambuco region on 26 January 1500.[citation
needed] In April 1500, however, Brazil was claimed by Portugal on the arrival of
the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro lvares Cabral.[5] The Portuguese encount
ered stone-using natives divided into several tribes, many of whom shared the sa
me TupiGuarani language family, and fought among themselves.[6] After its Europea
n discovery, the land's major export was a tree the traders and colonists called
pau-Brasil (Latin for wood red like an ember) or brazilwood from whence the cou
ntry got its name, a large tree (Caesalpinia echinata) whose trunk yields a priz
ed red dye, and which was nearly wiped out as a result of overexploitation.
Until 1529 Portugal had very little interest in Brazil mainly due to the high pr
ofits gained through commerce with India, China, and Indonesia. This lack of int
erest allowed traders, pirates, and privateers of several countries to poach pro
fitable Brazilwood in lands claimed by Portugal, so the Portuguese Crown devised
a system to effectively occupy Brazil, without paying the costs. Through the he
reditary Captaincies system, Brazil was divided into strips of land that were do
nated to Portuguese noblemen, who were in turn responsible for the occupation an
d administration of the land and answered to the king. The system was a failure
- only four lots were successfully occupied Pernambuco, So Vicente (later called
So Paulo), Ilheus and Porto Seguro. The captaincies gradually reverted to the Cro
wn and became provinces and eventually states of the country.
Starting in the 16th century, sugarcane grown on plantations called engenhos[Not
e 1] along the northeast coast (Brazil's Nordeste) became the base of Brazilian
economy and society, with the use of slaves on large plantations to make sugar f
or export to Europe. At first, settlers tried to enslave the natives as labor to
work the fields. The initial exploration of Brazil's interior was largely due t
o para-military adventurers, the bandeirantes, who entered the jungle in search
of gold and Native slaves. However colonists were unable to sustainably enslave
Natives, and Portuguese land owners soon turned to import millions of slaves fro
m Africa.[7] Mortality rates for slaves in sugar and gold enterprises[ambiguous]
were dramatic, and there were often not enough females or proper conditions to
replenish the slave population indigenously.
[Note 2] Still, Africans became a substantial section of Brazilian population, a
nd long before the end of slavery (1888) they had begun to merge with the Europe
an Brazilian population through miscegenation and mulatto work rights.
During the first 150 years of the colonial period, attracted by the vast natural
resources and untapped land, other European powers tried to establish colonies
in several parts of Brazilian territory, in defiance of the papal bull ( Inter c
aetera ) and the Treaty of Tordesillas, which had divided the New World into two
parts between Portugal and Spain. French colonists tried to settle in present-d
ay Rio de Janeiro, from 1555 to 1567 (the so-called France Antarctique episode),
and in present-day So Lus, from 1612 to 1614 (the so-called France quinoxiale). Je
suits arrived early and established Sao Paulo, evangelising the natives. These n
ative allies of the Jesuits assisted the Portuguese in driving out the French. T
he unsuccessful Dutch intrusion into Brazil was longer lasting and more troubles
ome to Portugal ( Dutch Brazil ). Dutch privateers began by plundering the coast
: they sacked Bahia in 1604, and even temporarily captured the capital Salvador.
From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in the Nordeste and contro
lled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe, without, however, pe
netrating the interior. But the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Bra
zil were in a constant state of siege, in spite of the presence in Recife of the
great[peacock term] John Maurice of Nassau as governor. After several years of
open warfare, the Dutch withdrew by 1654. Little French and Dutch cultural and e
thnic influences remained of these failed attempts.
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The Kingdom and Empire of Brazil
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ist on the talk page. (February 2014)
Queen Maria I of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves (18161821)
Main articles: United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, Brazilian De
claration of Independence and Empire of Brazil
Brazil was one of only three modern states in the Americas to have its own indig
enous monarchy (the other two were Mexico and Haiti) for a period of almost 90 y
ears.
In 1808, the Portuguese court, fleeing from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal duri
ng the Peninsular War in a large fleet escorted by British men-of-war, moved the
government apparatus to its then-colony, Brazil, establishing themselves in the
city of Rio de Janeiro. From there the Portuguese king ruled his huge empire fo
r 15 years, and there he would have remained for the rest of his life if it were
not for the turmoil aroused in Portugal due, among other reasons, to his long s
tay in Brazil after the end of Napoleon's reign.
The Empire Flag (October 12, 1822 November 15, 1889)
In 1815 the king vested Brazil with the dignity of a united kingdom with Portuga
l and Algarves. When king Joo VI of Portugal left Brazil to return to Portugal in
1821, his elder son, Pedro, stayed in his stead as regent of Brazil. One year l
ater, Pedro stated the reasons for the secession of Brazil from Portugal and led
the Independence War, instituted a constitutional monarchy in Brazil assuming i
ts head as Emperor Pedro I of Brazil.
Also known as "Dom Pedro I", after his abdication in 1831 for political incompat
ibilities (displeased, both by the landed elites, who thought him too liberal an
d by the intellectuals, who felt he was not liberal enough), he left for Portuga
l leaving behind his five-year-old son as Emperor Pedro II, which left the count
ry ruled by regents between 1831 and 1840. This period was beset by rebellions o
f various motivations, such as the Sabinada, the Ragamuffin War, the Mal Revolt,[
8] Cabanagem and Balaiada, among others. After this period, Pedro II was declare
d of age and assumed his full prerogatives. Pedro II started a more-or-less parl
iamentary reign which lasted until 1889, when he was ousted by a coup d'tat which
instituted the republic in Brazil.
Externally, apart from the Independence war, stood out decades of pressure from
the United Kingdom for the country to end its participation in the Atlantic slav
e trade, and the wars fought in the region of La Plata river: the Cisplatine War
(in 2nd half of the 1820s), the Platine War (in the 1850s), the Uruguayan War a
nd the Paraguayan War (in the 1860s). This last war against Paraguay also was th
e bloodiest and most expensive in South American history, after which the countr
y entered a period that continues to the present day, averse to external politic
al and military interventions.
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Republic of Brazil
The Old Republic (18891930)
Main article: Repblica Velha
See also: South American dreadnought race and Coronelismo
Henrique Bernardelli: Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca, c. 1900.
Pedro II was deposed on November 15, 1889, by a Republican military coup led by
General Deodoro da Fonseca, who became the country's first de facto president th
rough military ascension. The country's name became the Republic of the United S
tates of Brazil (which in 1967 was changed to Federative Republic of Brazil.). T
wo military presidents ruled through four years of dictatorship amid conflicts,
among the military and political elites (two Naval revolts, followed by an Feder
alist revolt), and an economic crisis due the effects of the burst of a financia
l bubble, the encilhamento.
From 1889 to 1930, although the country was formally a constitutional democracy,
the First Republican Constitution, created in 1891, established that women and
the illiterate (then the majority of the population) were prevented from voting.
The presidentialism[ambiguous] was adopted as the form of government and the St
ate was divided into three powers (Legislative, Executive and Judiciary) "harmon
ics and independents of each other".[citation needed] The presidencial term was
fixed at four years, and the elections became direct.
After 1894, the presidency of the republic was occupied by coffee farmers (oliga
rchies) from So Paulo and Minas Gerais, alternately. This policy was called poltic
a do caf com leite (coffee and milk policy). The elections for president and gove
rnors was ruled by the Poltica dos Governadores (Governor's policy), in which the
y had mutual support to ensure the elections of some candidates. The exchanges o
f favors also happened among politicians and big landowners. They used the power
to control the votes of population in return for favors (this was called corone
lismo).
Between 1893 and 1926 several movements, civilians and military, shook the count
ry. The military movements had their origins both in the lower officers' corps o
f the Army and Navy (which, dissatisfied with the regime, called for democratic
changes) while the civilian ones, such Canudos and Contestado War, were usually
led by messianic leaders, without conventional political goals.
[icon] This section requires expansion. (January 2014)
Internationally, the country would stick to a course of conduct that extended th
roughout the twentieth century: an almost isolationist policy, interspersed with
sporadic automatic alignments with major western powers, its main economic part
ners, in moments of high turbulence. Standing out of this period: the resolution
of the Acreanian's Question[jargon], its tiny role in the World War I, of which
highlights the mission accomplished by its Navy on anti-submarine warfare,[9] a
nd an effort to play a leading role in the League of Nations.[10]
Populism and development (19301964)
Main articles: History of Brazil (19301945) and History of Brazil (19451964)
After 1930, the successive governments continued industrial and agriculture grow
th and development of the vast interior of Brazil. Getlio Vargas led a military j
unta that had taken control in 1930 and would remain ruling from 1930 to 1945 wi
th the backing of Brazilian military, especially the Army. In this period, he fa
ced internally the Constitutionalist Revolt in 1932 and two separate coup d'tat a
ttempts: by Communists in 1935 and by local Fascists in 1938.
A democratic regime prevailed from 194564. In the 1950s after Vargas' second peri
od (this time, democratically elected), the country experienced an economic boom
during Juscelino Kubitschek's years, during which the capital was moved from Ri
o de Janeiro to Braslia.
Externally, after a relative isolation during the first half of the 1930s due to
the effects of the 1929 Crisis, in the second half of the 1930s there was a rap
prochement with the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany. However, after the fas
cist coup attempt in 1938 and the naval blockade imposed on these two countries
by the British navy from the beginning of World War II, in the decade of 1940 th
ere was a return to the old foreign policy of the previous period.
During the early 1940s, Brazil joined the allied forces in the Battle of Atlanti
c and the Italian Campaign; in the 1950s the country began its participation in
the United Nations' peacekeeping missions[11] with Suez Canal in 1956 and in the
beginning of the 1960s, during the presidency of Janio Quadros, its first attem
pts to break the automatic alignment (that had started in the 1940s) with the U.
S.A.[12]
The institutional crisis of succession for the presidency, triggered with the Qu
adros' resignation, coupled with other factors, would lead to the military coup
of 1964 and to the end of this period.
Military dictatorship (196485)
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Main articles: 1964 Brazilian coup d'tat and History of Brazil (19641985)
New Professionalism and the Escola Superior de Guerra
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the success of revolutionary warfare techniqu
es against conventional armies in China, Indochina, Algeria, and Cuba led the co
nventional armies in the developed and underdeveloped worlds to concentrate on f
inding military and political strategies to fight domestic revolutionary warfare
. This led to an adoption of what Stepan called, in 1973, New Professionalism. The
New Professionalism was formulated and propagated in Brazil through the Escola
Superior de Guerra, which had been established in 1949. By 1963 New Professional
ism had come to dominate the school, when it declared its primary mission to be
preparing civilians and the military to perform executive and advisory functions
(Decreto Lei No. 53,080 December 4, 1963). This new attitude towards professional
ism did not arise out of nowhere. Though its domination of the ESG was completed
by 1963, it had begun to penetrate the college much earlier than that assisted
by the United States and its policy of encouraging Latin American militaries to
assume as their primary role in counter-guerrilla and counter-insurgency warfare
programs, civic action and nation-building tasks.[13]
By 1964, at the same time that the military elite were unsatisfied with the natu
ral delay, transfers and accommodation, characteristics of the negotiation proce
sses in democratic regimes and was also eager to impose their development projec
t, saw a leftist revolution as a real possibility (through the paradigm of inter
nal warfare doctrines of the new professionalism). Events like the rising strike
levels, the inflation rate, embraced demands by the Left for broaden political
process, land reform and the growing claims of the enlisted men were seen as "ev
idence" that Brazil was facing the serious possibility of a leftist internal ins
urgency.[14]
Military response
By early 1964 important sections of the military had developed a consensus that
intervention in the political process was necessary. The development of this con
sensus was likely helped by important civilian politicians, such as Jos de Magalhe
s Pinto, governor of Minas Gerais, and the United States government. Though many
in the right of the political spectrum claim the coup was "revolutionary," most
historians agree that is not so, since there was no real transition of power; m
ilitary dictatorship was the fastest way to implement neoliberal economic polici
es in the country while suppressing growing popular discontent, and the coup was
thus a way for Brazil's already-ruling elite to secure its power.
At first, there was intense economic growth, due to neoliberal economic reforms,
but in the later years of the dictatorship, the reforms had left the economy in
shambles, with soaring inequality and national debt, and thousands of Brazilian
s were deported, imprisoned, tortured,[15] or murdered. Politically motivated de
aths numbered in the hundreds, mostly related to the guerrilla-antiguerrilla war
fare in the 196873 period; official censorship also led many artists into exile.
Redemocratization to present (1985Present)
Main article: History of Brazil (1985present)
Tancredo Neves was elected president in an indirect election in 1985 as the nati
on returned to civilian rule. He died before being sworn in, and the elected vic
e president, Jos Sarney, was sworn in as president in his place.
Fernando Collor de Mello was the first elected president by popular vote after t
he military regime in December 1989 defeating Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in a two r
ound presidential race and 35 million votes. Collor won in the state of So Paulo
against many prominent political figures. The first democratically elected Presi
dent of Brazil in 29 years, Collor spent much of the early years of his governme
nt battling hyper-inflation, which at times reached rates of 25% per month.[16]
Collor's neoliberal program was also followed by his successor Fernando Henrique
Cardoso[17] who maintained free trade and privatization programs.[18] Collor's
administration began the process of privatization of a number of government-owne
d enterprises such as Acesita, Embraer, Telebrs and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.[1
9] With the exception of Acesita, the privatizations were all completed during t
he term of Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Following Collor's impeachment, acting president, Itamar Franco, was sworn in as
president. In elections held on October 3, 1994, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, his
finance minister, defeated left-wing Lula da Silva again. He was elected presid
ent due to the success of the so-called Plano Real. Reelected in 1998, he guided
Brazil through a wave of financial crises. In 2000, Cardoso ordered the declass
ifying of some military files concerning Operation Condor, a network of South Am
erican military dictatorships that kidnapped and assassinated political opponent
s.
Brazil's most severe problem today is arguably its highly unequal distribution o
f wealth and income, one of the most extreme in the world. By the 1990s, more th
an one out of four Brazilians continued to survive on less than one dollar a day
. These socio-economic contradictions helped elect Luiz Incio Lula da Silva of th
e Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) in 2002.
President Luz Incio Lula da Silva (20032011)
In the few months before the election, investors were scared by Lula's campaign
platform for social change, and his past identification with labor unions and le
ftist ideology. As his victory became more certain, the Real devalued and Brazil
's investment risk rating plummeted (the causes of these events are disputed, si
nce Cardoso left a very small foreign reserve). After taking office, however, Lu
la maintained Cardoso's economic policies,[20] warning that social reforms would
take years and that Brazil had no alternative but to extend fiscal austerity po
licies. The Real and the nation's risk rating soon recovered.
Lula, however, has given a substantial increase to the minimum wage (raising fro
m R$200 to R$350 in four years). Lula also spearheaded legislation to drasticall
y cut retirement benefits for public servants. His primary significant social in
itiative, on the other hand, was the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) program, designed t
o give each Brazilian three meals a day.
In 2005 Lula's government suffered a serious blow with several accusations of co
rruption and misuse of authority against his cabinet, forcing some of its member
s to resign. Most political analysts at the time were certain that Lula's politi
cal career was doomed, but he managed to hold onto power, partly by highlighting
the achievements of his term (e.g., reduction in poverty, unemployment and depe
ndence on external resources, such as oil), and to distance himself from the sca
ndal. Lula was re-elected President in the general elections of October 2006.
Having served two terms as president, Lula was forbidden by the Brazilian Consti
tution from standing again. In the 2010 presidential election, the PT candidate
was Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff won and assumed office on January 1, 2011.
Religious change
Main article: Religion in Brazil
Until recently Catholicism was overwhelmingly dominant. Rapid change in the 21st
century has led to a growth in secularism (no religious affiliation). Just as d
ramatic is the sudden rise of evangelical Protestantism to over 22% of the popul
ation. The 2010 census indicates that fewer than 65% of Brazilians consider them
selves Catholic, down from 90% in 1970. The decline is associated with falling b
irth rates to one of Latin Americas lowest at 1.83 children per woman, which is b
elow replacement levels. It has led Cardinal Cludio Hummes to comment, "We wonder
with anxiety: how long will Brazil remain a Catholic country?"[21]
See also
List of Brazilian monarchs
List of Presidents of Brazil
Politics of Brazil
Rebellions and revolutions in Brazil
History of Brazilian nationality
General:
History of the Americas
History of Latin America
History of South America
Portuguese colonization of the Americas
References
Robert M. Levine; John J. Crocitti (1999). The Brazil Reader: History, Cultu
re, Politics. Duke University Press. pp. 11. ISBN 978-0-8223-2290-0. Retrieved 12
December 2012.
Science Magazine, 13 December 1991 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/254/503
8/1621.abstract
[1] Quem descobriu o Brasil?
COUTO, Jorge: A Construo do Brasil, Edies Cosmos, 2 Ed., Lisboa, 1997.primeiro
Boxer, p. 98.
Boxer, p. 100.
"Bandeirantes, Natives, and Indigenous Slavery". Brazil: Five Centuries of C
hange online. Brown University Library. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
Johns Hopkins University Press | Books|Slave Rebellion in Brazil
Scheina, Robert L. Latin America's Wars Volume II: The Age of the Profession
al Soldier, 19002001. Potomac Books, 2003 ISBN 1-57488-452-2 Part 4; Chapter 5 Wo
rld War I and Brazil, 191718.
Ellis, Charles Howard "The origin, structure & working of the League of Nati
ons" The LawBook Exchange Ltd 2003 pp. 105 & 145
"The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations"; Monica Hi
srt, Routledge 2004 ISBN 0-415-95066-X page 43
"The United States and Brazil: A Long Road of Unmet Expectations"; Monica Hi
srt, Routledge 2004 ISBN 0-415-95066-X , Introduction: page xviii 3rd paragraph
Stepan, 1973.
"Anatomy of a coup d'etat; Brazil 1964"; Warren W. Van Pelt; Air War College
, Air University (1967) ASIN B0007GYMM4
Brasil: Nunca Mais
"Fernando Henrique Cardoso". Brazil: Five Centuries of Change online. Brown
University Library. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
[2] "Tais polticas iniciadas com a abertura do governo Collor foram continuad
as por Fernando Henrique Cardoso e Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, segundo economistas
e industriais ouvidos pela Folha"
Programa Nacional de Desestatizao (Portuguese)
Os efeitos da privatizao sobre o desempenho econmico e financeiro das empresas
privatizadas (Portuguese)
Lula segue poltica econmica de FHC, diz diretor do FMI
Simon Romero, "A Laboratory for Revitalizing Catholicism," New York Times Fe
b 14, 2013