History

       The oldest human evidence found in Brazil dates back to 22,000 years ago. There were two to five million Amerindians pre-1492 and they spoke forty to one hundred distinct languages. A main one among them was Tupi. Some of the tribes were also nomadic. They lived in the rainforest along the coast but were not as big as other pre-European civilizations like the Maya and Inca. The Portuguese claim to Brazil was established by the papal bull of Alexander VI in 1493 which was then settled by the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 that divided the new world between Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese admiral Pedro Alvares Cabral formally claimed the land for the Portuguese Crown in 1500. In 1532 the first Portuguese settlers arrived then followed by the first slaves arriving in 1538. Then, in 1549 the city of San Salvador was founded and Jesuit missionaries began their work among the Amerindians. Portugal appointed their first viceroy, Tomé de Sousa, in 1640. In 1763, the capital of Brazil changed from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. The first effort to secure independence was the failed conspiracy of Joaquim José de Silva Xavier in 1789. Brazil successfully declared independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822. This was led by Dom Pedro I, the son of the Portuguese king. The transition was relatively peaceful compared to other Latin American independence movements. On May 13th, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery making it the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. The Proclamation of the Republic Military coup ended the monarchy and established a federal republic in 1889. Then, there was the Vargas Era from 1930 to 1945. This was when Getúlio Vargas centralized power and introduced social and industrial reforms. Then there was the Military Dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. This included a repressive regime with censorship and political persecution. After this, there was a return to democracy in 1985. The military government ended, leading to a new constitution in 1988. The most recent Brazilian election was held in 2022. The candidates were Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro. Lula da Silva ended up winning by 2,139,645 people or 1.8 percent. The majority of the people living in Brazil as of 2022 were mixed (92,083,286) then white people (88,252,121), then black people (20,656,458), the second least were indigenous people (1,227,640), and then finally Asian people (850,132). Some major influences of these numbers were from the transatlantic slave trade which brought lots of people of African descent, the colonization of Brazil by Portugal which brought lots of white Europeans, and intermarriage, which shaped Brazil’s multicultural population over many years. Immigration waves from Europe (especially Portugal, Italy, and Germany) further diversified the population.