Spanish explorer
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón is recognized for the earliest documented sighting of the Brazilian coastline, arriving at the northeastern shore (probably Pernambuco) on January 26, 1500, several months prior to Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral. He also navigated the Amazon River, calling it Mar Doce, but his claim was later overridden by the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Colonial Brazil More than half of modern
Brazil's territory was attributed to Spain by the
Treaty of Tordesillas. However, Spain was unable to settle that region. During the
dynastic union between Portugal and Spain (1580–1640), many Spaniards settled in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo. As a consequence, there are a large number of Brazilian descendants of these early settlers, especially since the early inhabitants of São Paulo explored and settled in other parts of Brazil. The descendants of Bartolomeu Bueno de Ribeira, born in Seville around 1555, who settled in São Paulo around 1583, marrying Maria Pires, are an example of this. Afonso Taunay, in his book dealing with early São Paulo,
São Paulo in the XVI century, mentions also Baltazar de Godoy, Francisco de Saavedra, Jusepe de Camargo, Martin Fernandes Tenório de Aguilar, Bartolomeu de Quadros, among others. In his genealogical account of the settling of
São Paulo, Pedro Taques de Almeida Paes Leme, also mentions the three Rendon brothers, Juan Matheus Rendon, Francisco Rendon de Quebedo and Pedro Matheus Rendon Cabeza de Vaca, as well as Diogo Lara, from
Zamora. Spaniards from
Galicia also settled in Brazil during that time, like Jorge de Barros, for example. The family names Bueno, Godoy, Lara, Saavedra, Camargo, etc., tracing back to these early settlers, are quite popular throughout
Southeast Brazil,
Southern Brazil and the
Center-West.
Silva Leme, in his work
Genealogia Paulistana ("Paulistana Genealogy"), addresses several of these families. The expansion of Portuguese-Brazilian settlements into Spanish-claimed territory was a long and gradual process, which took the form of Portuguese-Brazilian expeditions and settlements led by the
Bandeirantes. Except for the
Missions, no Spanish settlements actually existed in the territory of future Brazil by the middle of the 18th century, when most of it was under Portuguese control. This de facto control was legally recognized in 1750 when sovereignty over the vast area – including the Missions – was transferred from Spain to Portugal by the
Treaty of Madrid. While there is no historic evidence of Spanish settlements in the area that is now Rio Grande do Sul (other than
São Gabriel, founded in 1800 and stormed by the Brazilian/Portuguese in 1801), some genetic research conducted on southern Brazilian
gaúchos suggests that they may be mostly descended from mixed
indigenous and Spanish ancestry rather than from Portuguese and indigenous ancestry. The study itself cautions that there may be difficulties with its identification of the respective Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) contributions to the gaúcho population of southern Brazil (some caution is warranted because differentiation between Iberian Peninsula populations, as well as between them and their derived Latin American populations, at the Y-chromosome level, was not observed in other investigations). Brazil only started to be an important destination for immigrants from Spain in the 1880s, and the country received the third largest number of immigrants from that country, after Argentina and Cuba. Most Spanish immigrants entered Brazil between 1880 and 1930, with the peak period between 1905 and 1919, when their annual entrances overcame those of Italians.
The Galegos In Northeastern Brazil, people with light or blue eyes or light colored hair are often called
galegos (Galicians), even if not of Galician descent, probably explained due to the fact Galicians came to Brazil among Portuguese colonizers. In
Rio de Janeiro, the
Galician immigrants were so present that Iberian and Portuguese immigrants were referred to as
galegos.
Numbers of immigrants == Notable people == •
Clóvis Bornay •
Amador Bueno •
Pedro Casaldáliga (Catalan born) •
Raul Cortez •
Mário Covas •
Millôr Fernandes •
Daniel Filho •
Raul Gil •
Domingo García y Vásquez •
José Mojica Marins •
Gal Costa •
André Franco Montoro •
Marco Luque •
Jaime Oncins •
Oscarito •
Nélida Piñon (of Galician descent) •
Roberto Salmeron •
Ivete Sangalo •
Tonico & Tinoco •
Drauzio Varella •
Heitor Villa-Lobos •
Boison Wynney ==Education==