Journal of a Voyage to Brazil | Page 6

colony,
and in it also the first cattle were bred. Thence they have spread all over
the continent of South America, and have proved of more real value to
it than its mines.
Pero Lopes de Souza, the brother of Martim Affonso, had his fifty
leagues of coast in two allotments; one part, St. Amaro, was
immediately to the north of San Vincente, and the other was Tamaraca,
between Pernambuco and Paraiba.
About the same time the Fidalgo Pedro de Goes attempted a settlement
at Paraiba do Sul; but after two years tolerable prosperity, he was

attacked by the native tribe of Goaytacazes, and five years of warfare
reduced him to the necessity of sending to Espirito Santo for vessels to
remove his colonists.
Vasco Fernandez de Coutinho began to settle Espirito Santo in the
same year (1531) in which the former colonies had been begun. He had
amassed a great fortune in the East, and expended most of it in
collecting volunteers for his new colony; sixty fidalgoes and men of the
royal household accompanied him. The adventurers had a prosperous
voyage. On their arrival they built a fort, which they called N. S. da
Victoria, and established four sugar-works. Coutinho returned to
Lisbon for recruits and implements for mining, the settlers having now
obtained some indications of gold and jewels to be found in the
country.
The adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro was given to Pedro de Campo
Tourinho, a nobleman and a navigator. He sold his possessions at home,
and raised a large body of colonists, with which he established himself
at Porto Seguro, the harbour where Cabral had first taken possession of
Brazil. The history of the settlement of Porto Seguro, like that of all the
others, is stained with the most atrocious cruelties; not such as soldiers
in the heat of war commit, but cold calculated cruelties, exterminating
men for the sake of growing canes, so waiting patiently for the fruit of
crime.[7]
[Note 7: I hope the following tale is not true, though my authority is
good. In this very captaincy, within these twenty years, an Indian tribe
had been so troublesome, that the Capitam Môr resolved to get rid of it.
It was attacked, but defended itself so bravely, that the Portuguese
resolved to desist from open warfare; but with unnatural ingenuity
exposed ribands and toys infected with smallpox matter in the places
where the poor savages were likely to find them: the plan succeeded.
The Indians were so thinned, that they were easily overcome!]
Ilheos, so called from its principal river, which has three islands at the
mouth, was settled by Jorge de Figueredo Correa, who had a place in
the treasury, under Joam III., between 1531 and 1540, and speedily
became flourishing, being remarkably favourable to the sugar

cultivation.
Bahia de Todo os Santos was, with its adjacent territory, given to
Francisco Pereira Coutinho, a fidalgo who had made himself a name in
India. He fixed his abode at Villa Velha, where Caramuru had formed
his little settlement, and two of his followers married the daughters of
Caramuru.
The bay, or reconcave of All Saints, is a magnificent harbour: the
entrance appears to be a league in breadth; but on the right hand, on
entering, there is a shoal dangerous to large vessels, called that of St.
Antonio da Barre; and on the left, coral reefs running off from Itaporica.
The country that surrounds it is so fertile, that it must always have been
an object of desire whether to savage or civilised inhabitants; and it is
not surprising that three revolutions, that is, three changes of indwellers,
driven out by each other, should have been, in the memory of the
Indians, before the settlement of Coutinho.
That nobleman, whose early life had been passed in the East-Indian
Portuguese wars, imprudently and cruelly disturbed the peace of the
rising settlement, by the murder of a son of one of the chiefs. The
consequence was, that after a most disastrous warfare, in the course of
which the already flourishing sugar-works were burnt, he and
Caramuru were both obliged to abandon the settlement and retire to
Ilheos. Soon afterwards, however, he made peace with the Indians; but
on his return to the Reconcave, he was wrecked on the reef off
Itaporica, where the natives murdered him, but spared Caramuru, who
returned to his old dwelling.
In the settlement of Pernambuco, the first donatory, Duarte Coelho
Pereira, was opposed not only by the natives, but by numbers of French,
who having carried on a desultory though profitable trade on the coast,
now joined the Indians in retarding those regular settlements which
were likely to put an end to their commerce. The colony, however, had
been planted at Olinda,[8] a situation as strong as it is beautiful,