m 



PROVINCE OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL. 



CHAP. V. 



PROVINCE OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL. 



Colonization — Boundaries — Climate — Aspect and Productions — Contests between 

 Spaniards and Portuguese — Divisionary Line between these two Powers — 

 Opposition by the Indians of the Seven Missions — Their Defeat — Revived 

 Contests between Spaniards and Portuguese — Mountains — Rivers — Lakes — 

 Capes and Ports — Islands — Mineralogy — Phytology — Zoology — Large 

 Fazendas for breeding Cattle — Mode of Management — Sheep- Flocks— Use of 

 the La^o and Balls — Towns, Nature of Exports, Villages, SfC. including 

 those of the District of Monte Video. 



This province, which includes the major part of the territory to the south of 

 the capitania of St. Amaro, either had no donatories when John III. 

 divided the coast, or from some other cause it was not colonized. Neither 

 was its colonization accomplished by Viscount D'Asseca, nor his brother, John 

 Correa de Sa, at the period of the great distributions of land which Peter II. 

 granted to them in the territory denominated St. Gabriel, adjacent to the 

 river Plate. 



The names by which this capitania was sometimes, although seldom, de- 

 signated, of D'El Rey and St. Pedro, are supposed to have been given when 

 it was first annexed to the crown lands. 



About the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth centiiry, 

 some Vincentistas removed their establishments to the vicinity of lake Dos 

 Patos, and their descendants extended themselves to the south and west, as 

 the Indians gradually relinquished the country. 



The capitanias of the brothers Souzas, could not be enlarged beyond their 

 prescribed limits, although the adjoining districts of land were devoluta, or 

 without donatories ; yet the first settlers there from these capitanias were always 

 considered their people, and known as Vincentistas and Paulistas, until those 

 districts were erected into this province. It is the most southern one in the 

 Brazil, very extensive and important, lying between twenty-eight and thirty-five 

 degrees of south latitude, and is bounded on the north by the province of St. 



