Page 12 - POR320Summer2018

Região Sudeste (in red/vermelho)

Rio de Janeiro (Horacio)

Overview

Rio was built partly on blood: the bloody battles between the Portuguese and French, led by a
young military captain Estácio de Sá, nephew of the governor of Brazil, fought the French and
finally secured the sight for Portuguese colonization, although the pace was slow; the cidadela
(the fortress to protect the city) was not begun until 1568.
On a larger scale, it is important to understand why the largest and richest of the countries of
South America speaks Portuguese, rather than Spanish, as does the remainder of the
Hemisphere. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) effectively, although accidentally, created Brazil;
the treaty was an agreement sponsored by Pope Alexander VI dividing newly discovered lands
in the Western Hemisphere between Spain and Portugal. The Pope drew a line north to south
half-way between the Cape Verde Islands (owned by Portugal) and the newly-discovered

islands adjacent to Hispaniola reached by Columbus, giving everything east of that line to
Portugal and everything west of the line to Spain.
Brazil grew and expanded over time from that date, and today Rio de Janeiro is the sixth
largest city in the Americas and the fourth richest (in GDP) in Latin America. Gaining
independence from Portugal in 1889, Brazil is the largest (land area) country in South America.
Rio, originally the capital of Brazil, now has over 7 and a half million people, and is home to a

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