448 



PROVINCE OF PARA. 



CHAP. XXIII. 



PROVINCE OF PARA. 



First Settlement — Contests with Indians — Slavery of the Indians — Their Libera- 

 tion — Boundaries — Mineralogy — Phytology — Zoology — Ports and Rivers — 

 Igaruana Indians. — District of Para- Proper — Capital — Buildings — Exports — 

 English Establishments — Adoption of a New Constitution — Towns. — District 

 of Xingutania — Limits — In Possession of Indians — Rivers — Towns. — Dis- 

 trict Tapajonia — Limits — Rivers — Indians — Towns. — District of Mundru- 

 cania — Rivers — Principally possessed by the Indians — Their different Cus- 

 toms — Towns. 



Subsequent to the restoration of the island of Maranham, Francisco Caldeyra 

 sailed from that port with two hundred soldiers, in three caravels, at the end of 

 the year 1615, to him being confided the important project of selecting an 

 eligible situation for the establishment of another colony, more immediately 

 in the vicinity of the Amazons ; equally with a view of promoting the navigation 

 of that great river, and of frustrating the attempts of any other nation, that might 

 be made in prejudice to the rights assumed by the Lusitanian crown to its ad- 

 jacent territory. 



After various observations on different parts of the coast, he anchored in the 

 port near which now stands the city of Belem, commonly called Para, to which 

 he immediately gave a commencement, by the erection of a wooden fort, in the 

 beginning of the year 1616, denominating the territory Gram-Para, and 

 imagining that he was founding his colony upon the margin of the great river. 



This archipelago soon presented, and was for many years the theatre of a 

 cruel and inveterate warfare. Various Indian nations opposed the establish- 

 ment of this colony, principally the Tupinambazes, the remains and descend- 

 ants of various hordes of the numerous Tupinamba tribe, under whose domi- 

 nion the sertams of Pernambuco were, when the Portuguese extended their 

 conquests into the interior of that province. Not being able to resist the pro- 



