The document summarizes the history of the Portuguese Empire in the Americas through profiles of three individuals from colonial Brazil - António de Gouveia, Catarina de Monte Sinay, and Francisca - as well as providing background on Portugal's colonization of Brazil and exploration efforts. The Portuguese established Brazil as a colony in 1500, exploiting its natural resources and population through slavery. It remained under Portuguese rule for over 300 years until independence in 1821.

1. The Portuguese Empire in the
Americas
By Paige Ellis

2. António de Gouveia- Brazil
• Time period:
– Born in 1528
– Died some time around
1575
• Location:
– Born in the Azores
– Moved to Lisbon at age
20
– Later sent to Brazil
• Group:
– Portuguese
• Gender:
– Male
• Occupation:
– Priest
• General History:
– He spent most of his life
studying alchemy,
“curing” sick people with
magical objects and
scamming people.
– After several encounters
with the Inquisition, he
was exiled to Brazil.
– There he spent his time
capturing slaves, until he
was sent back to Lisbon.

3. Catarina de Monte Sinay-
Brazil
• Time Period:
– Born in 1680
– Died in 1758
• Location:
– Bahia, Brazil
• Group:
– Portuguese
• Gender:
– Female
• Occupation:
– Nun
• General History
– She was raised to be a
nun, and entered a
convent at age 16.
– She was good with
money, and she made a
large income selling
sweets and giving loans.
– She used the money to
provide for the convent
and for her slaves.

4. Francisca- Brazil
• Time Period:
– Born between 1700 and
1705
• Location:
– Raised in the Rio Negro
Valley
• Group:
– Manao Indian
• Gender:
– Female
• Occupation:
– Slave
• General History:
– Her chief traded her to a
slave trader as a good
will gesture and illegally
enslaved.
– She ended up as a
servant to Anna de Fonte
– After 20 years, she
petitioned Portuguese
authorities for her
freedom.
– She lost the case and
remained a slave for the
rest of her life.

5. The Portuguese Empire
• Portugal became a world power during the Age of
Discovery, in the 15th and 16th centuries.
• Explorers like Prince Henry the Navigator and Vasco
de Gama discovered new lands across the Indian
and Atlantic Oceans.
• Explorers were motivated by wealth, power, prestige,
trade, and spreading Catholicism.
• They built an empire including territories in South
America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia.
• Portugal had a virtual monopoly on the African
seaborne slave trade, lasting for over 100 years.
• It was the longest-lived of the modern European
colonial empires.

6. Colonial Brazil
• The Portuguese arrived in 1500, and Brazil
remained their colony for over 300 years.
• Brazil provided them with sugarcane, brazilwood,
gold, diamonds, and slaves.
• More slaves were brought over from Africa to
help extract natural resources and serve the
Europeans.
• Jesuits were sent over to Christianize the
indigenous people.
• In 1808 the Portuguese court moved its
government to Rio de Janeiro to escape
Napoleon’s invasion.
• When they returned to Portugal in 1821, the
regent of Brazil declared himself emperor and
Brazil seceded from Portuguese rule.

7. Portuguese Explorers
• Ferdinand Magellan made the first voyage
around the world in
• Vasco de Gama discovered an ocean route to
the East
• Bartholomeu Dias led a voyage around the
Cape of Good Hope in 1487
• Pedro Alvares Cabral was the first European
to see Brazil in 1500
• Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real explored
Greenland and the coast of Newfoundland