2. Damianada Cunha Damiana considered herself a communal leader, where she was the mediator between the aldeia’s inhabitants and the Brazilian State. Damiana wanted to “save her people from extinction,” and preserve the aldeia way of life. She worked to encourage her people to convert to this Christian way of life, but she herself completely resisted the outsiders way of life. Damiana was a smart and forceful women who was committed to a Christianized “style of Caiapo life.” When officials didn’t recognize their way of life, she fought to save her disintegrating beliefs around her. When her time came, she was exhausted and wore herself out trying to preserve the aldeia way of life and “to save her people from extinction by the settlers.” She felt she was caught between two worlds and there was no place for her and her people in it. She had failed to make her world a reality due to the power of disease, the pressure, and the government interference. “The result for those caught between, then as now, was disintegration, death and disappearance.”
3. Antonio de GouveiaAdventurer and Priest Gouveia was twenty-two years old when he entered in to the life of a priest. Throughout his life he was, to some, considered to be “magical,” and to others a liar. He was constantly in and out of jail, and always broke. Under the “Law of Church,” you cannot practice medicine, but desperate for money Gouveia did this to make money when stranded. He would steal delicacies, pick locks and predict peoples deaths. As his life went on he was more and more corrupt. The beginning of it began with his impressive “resume” for the Arts College of Coimbra. When 1557 came around he was found guilty and locked up for practicing medicine without qualifications, commerce with the devil, failure to say the Canonical Hours during a period of three months and of celebrating Holy Mass in the state of mortal sin. He ended up in Salvador, then to Pernambuco where he would attack Indians, capturing and killing them, and would take their wives and belongings on the day he celebrated mass. When he would be welcomed by different Indian groups he would shackle and beat the hosts. In April 1571 the Bishop of Salvador ordered Gouveia’s arrest. When the police went to arrest him he wouldn’t recognize them as authority figures, but then was finally arrested. After December 1575, he is no longer in history, which was after his last attempt at liberation.
4. Catarina de Monte SinayNun and Entrepreneur Growing up Catarina was raised, along with her two sisters to be nuns. She saw it as her “spiritual wedding.” What drew Catarina to her Faith was “the drama and the spectacle that commanded her participation- the procession, the colors, the rhythm of movement and sound.” Her brother had many problems as an adult with being in debt and would beat his wife. Catarina saw it as a calling to take on her brothers sins without complaining. She didn’t even complain when a slave threw a plate at her face. By the time she was an old woman she had accumulated quite a fortune between earned income on a loan, she owned rental house and prepared and sold sweets. As part of her will she gave some of her earnings to provide wax for the church candles, gave the the church a slave to keep the chapel clean, and provided chairs for the choir. She also gave each sister a slave and income from her rental houses. All of this was carried out with out permission of the archbishop and in direct violation of the law. So this leaves the question of what would be the destiny of her soul?
5. Portugal PorusCale was the start of Portugal’s name. Located at the mouth of the Douro River, that flows in to present day Portugal, is a colony called Cale. During the Second Punic War, the Romans conquered Cale, while taking the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians, and named it PortusCale During the middle ages this region began known as Portucale, then during the 7th, 8th, and 9th century became Portugale. Finally, by the 11th and 12th century Portugale was being referred to as Portugal.
6. Portuguese Empire Portugal has been known as The Portuguese Empire, The Portuguese Overseas Empire and The Portuguese Colonial Empire. In addition to being the first global empire, Portugal was “the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires. In 1419 Portuguese sailors began sailing the coast of Africa in hope of finding the source of the spice trade. Bartolomeu reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India and in the year 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral found Brazil. As the years continued sailors kept exploring the coasts establishing forts and by 1571 a string of “outposts connected Lisbon to Nagasaki.” This brought very good wealth to Portugal. From 1580 to 1640 Portugal was considered the junior partner to Spain. European nations such as France, the Netherlands and Britain attacked Portugal and they could only stretch so far to defend themselves. This began their decline as an empire. During the 17th century losses to the Dutch in the Indies brought the end to the Portuguese trade monopoly in the Indian Ocean. In 1822 Brazil broke away from the Portuguese Empire and they were left with the colonies on the coast of Africa. In 1961 Portuguese troops were unable to defend against their Indian troops in Goa, which in the end started a long war. This war lasted until their government was overthrown and the new government changed policies to recognize all the independence of its colonies.
7. Colonial Brazil Colonial Brazil is considered the period of time from 1500 until 1815. During these 300 years, Brazil economic activity involved, brazilwood, sugar production, and gold and diamond mining. The Portuguese colonists first failed at attempting to mine for gold and diamonds so they turned to agricultural goods. They tobacco and cotton, but their biggest seller was sugar cane. The first sugarcane farms were established in the 16th century which set the foundation for the farms produced later on. On every large area of land that sugar was harvested and processed on, were casa-gandes, or large houses for the owner and then senzalas, which is a place for the slaves to stay. At first these slaves were aborigine slaves, but then the Portuguese started importing black African Slaves. Africa was the main supplier for slaves and the Portuguese would trade sugarcane and shells for slaves. The Portuguese were very strict on who and where Brazil could trade with. Brazil could only import and export goods from Portugal or Portuguese colonies. When Portugal discovered gold, a mad gold rushed followed. The main area gold was mined at was in Minas Gerais, which became the prime area of Brazil’s economic activity. Portugal used this gold to pay for industrial goods from countries like England. Gold was deposited in surrounding streams, that were extracted mostly by slaves using pans. In 1725 the government required that all gold be cast in bars, to prevent smuggling and sent in armies to assure the mining process was going well. In 1763 the capital of Brazil was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, which was closer to the mining city and made having a harbor to ship the gold to Europe much easier. During the end of the 18th century, due to stagnation the gold production started to decline.
