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PROVINCE OF RIO GRANDE DO NORTE. 



CHAP. XIX. 



PROVINCE OF RIO GRANDE DO NORTE.* 



Contests with Indians — Conquest — Taken hy the Dutch —Restored — Extent- 

 Sterility of Soil — Capes and Ports — Mineralogy — Mountains — Zoology — Phy- 

 tology — Rivers and Lakes — Povoagdes — Island of Fernando de Noronha. 



The conquest of this province, which is a portion of the capitania of Joam de 

 Barros, was commenced in the year 1597, by order of Philip II. with the 

 intention of impeding the exportation of Brazil wood by the French, and of 

 overcoming the Potyguaras, who destroyed the plantations of the colonists of 

 Parahiba, and interrupted the progress of that colony. 



D. Francisco de Souza, governor of the state, by orders which he received, 

 supplied what was requisite from the royal treasury. The squadron which was 

 prepared at Pernambuco, and carried with it a Jesuit for an engineer, and a 

 Franciscan to interpret the language of the Indians, directed its course to the 

 mouth of Rio Grande, which was the port most visited by the Corsairs. The 

 enterprise had its commencement by the construction of a wooden fort, near the 

 place where the Fort dos Reys is now situated, and the first commandant of 

 which, Jeronimo d' Albuquerque, had many obstinate combats with the abori- 

 gines for more than a year, until the friendship which he established with 

 Sorobabe, (Great Island,) chief of the Indians, through the mediation of a 

 friendly one of the same tribe, afforded him an opportunity of laying the founda- 

 tion of the city of Natal, which received this name in consequence of the inaugu- 

 ration of its mother church, in 1599, happening on the same day as the festivity 

 of the birth of our Saviour. The want of better ports, the quality of the land, 

 which did not encourage its colonization, and the Portuguese nation being then 

 under the dominion of the Castihan crown, as well as the inconstancy of the 



* Great River of the North ; as there is Rio Grande do Sul, (Great River of the South,) and which 

 must occasion some little confusion, both being called Rio Grande : it would be better to designate 

 this St. Roque, the cape being even a more conspicuous object than the river. 



