FROM THE FIRST DISCOVERY TO THE 



In the same year that Martim AfFonso sailed from the Tagus, a Portuguese 

 squadron captured and conducted to Lisbon a ship of Marseilles, which had 

 been laden with Brazil wood, at Pernambuco, where they demolished the 

 Portuguese factory of Itamaraca, founded by C. Jacques, and left sixty 

 Frenchmen in their place. This information induced the King to send Duarthe 

 Coelho Pereyra to expel the French, which he accomplished, and removed 

 the factory to the margin of the river Hyguara^u, a few miles distant from the 

 first situation. This new establishment was the origin of the town of Hyguara^u, 

 to whose mother-church the same D. C. Pereyra, being then the donatory of 

 the captaincy of Pernambuco, gave for patrons the saints Cosme and Damian, 

 in gratitude for the expulsion of the French on the day of those saints, in the 

 year 1531. It may be here remarked, that very little progress, up to this 

 period, would appear to have been made by the Portuguese for the coloniza- 

 tion of this country, now known to them thirty-two years, and which they 

 had assumed the right of calling and considering their own. 



King John III. at last roused by the attempts which the French merchants 

 were making to form establishments near the places now called Pernambuco 

 and Bahia, also by the formation of colonies, which the Spaniards were pro- 

 moting on the banks of the Paraguay, determined to people this continent ; and, 

 in order to facilitate the colonization, he divided the coast into certain large 

 portions of fifty leagues, which, under the denomination of capitanias, (cap- 

 taincies,) were to be bestowed on individuals distinguished by their services to 

 the crown ; and who were to go personally, or to send colonists, in ships, at 

 their own cost, receiving an uncontrouled jurisdiction over these royal dona- 

 tions. The historian, Joam de Barros, who was one of the donatories, and was 

 presented with the district of Maranham, affirms that the country was parti- 

 tioned into twelve captaincies ; but there were actually only nine, as five por- 

 tions which he probably took into his account, were divided betwixt Martim 

 Affonso de Souza and his brother Pedro Lopez de Souza, who were the two 

 first donatories that settled in the Brazil. Martim Affonso, who has been pre- 

 viously mentioned, received a considerable tract of country contiguous to St. 

 Vincente, where we left him endeavouring to form a colony. Pedro Lopez 

 chose his quantum of territory in two lots, one near his brother's, called 

 St. Amaro, and the other denominated Itamaraca, at a very inconvenient 

 distance from the first, situated not far from Pernambuco, which latter capitania, 

 as has been already stated, became the portion of Duarthe Coelho Pereyra. 

 The lands adjacent to the southern Parahiba river were conceded to Pedro de 



