Pre-Cabraline era at
Serra da Capivara National Park, one of the largest and oldest concentrations of prehistoric sites in the
Americas Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas,
Luzia Woman, were found in the area of
Pedro Leopoldo,
Minas Gerais, and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery ever found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and
radiocarbon dated to over 8,000 years ago (6000 BC). The pottery was found near
Santarém and provides evidence that the region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The
Marajoara culture flourished on
Marajó in the Amazon delta from AD 400 to 1400, developing sophisticated pottery,
social stratification, large populations,
mound building, and complex social formations such as
chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of present day Brazil had an estimated Indigenous population of 7 million people, mostly semi-nomadic, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. The population comprised several large Indigenous ethnic groups (e.g., the Tupis,
Guaranis, and
Gês. The Tupi people were subdivided into the
Tupiniquins and
Tupinambás. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the boundaries between these groups and their subgroups were marked by wars that arose from differences in culture, language and moral beliefs. These wars also involved large-scale military actions on land and water, with
cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war. While heredity had some weight, leadership was a status more won over time than assigned in succession ceremonies and conventions. Along
the coast, the Portuguese encountered
various Indigenous communities, most of whom spoke languages of the
Tupi–Guarani family. Though the first settlement,
São Vicente, was founded in 1532, colonization effectively began in 1534, when King
John III of Portugal divided the territory into the fifteen private and autonomous
captaincies. However, the decentralized and unorganized captaincy system proved unsuccessful, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the
Governorate General of Brazil in the city of
Salvador, which became the capital of a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America. In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other. . Nearly 5 million enslaved Africans were imported to Brazil during the
Atlantic slave trade, more than any country. By the mid-16th century,
cane sugar had become
Brazil's most important export, while slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa in the
slave market of Western Africa (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in
Angola and
Mozambique), had become its largest import, to cope with
sugarcane plantations, due to increasing international demand for Brazilian sugar. Brazil received more than 2.8 million slaves from Africa between the years 1500 and 1800. was the center of the
Brazilian Gold Rush and was designated a
World Heritage Site by
UNESCO due to its
Baroque colonial architecture By the end of the 17th century, sugar exports began to decline and the discovery of gold by
bandeirantes in the 1690s would become the new backbone of the colony's economy, fostering a
gold rush which attracted thousands of new settlers to Brazil from Portugal and all Portuguese colonies around the world. This increased level of immigration in turn caused
some conflicts between newcomers and old settlers. Portuguese expeditions known as
bandeiras gradually
expanded Brazil's original colonial frontiers in South America to its approximately current borders. In this era, other European powers tried to colonize parts of Brazil, in incursions that the Portuguese had to fight, notably the French
in Rio during the 1560s,
in Maranhão during the 1610s, and the
Dutch in Bahia and Pernambuco, during the
Dutch–Portuguese War, after the end of
Iberian Union. The Portuguese colonial administration in Brazil had two objectives that would ensure colonial order and the monopoly of Portugal's wealthiest and largest colony: to keep under control and eradicate all forms of slave rebellion and resistance, such as the
Quilombo of Palmares, and to repress all movements for autonomy or independence, such as the (1789).
Kingdom of Brazil of the
United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in
Rio de Janeiro, 6 February 1818 In late 1807, Spanish and Napoleonic forces threatened the security of
continental Portugal, causing
Prince Regent John, in the name of
Queen Maria I, to
move the royal court from
Lisbon to
Rio de Janeiro. There they established some of Brazil's first financial institutions, such as its local
stock exchanges and its
National Bank, additionally ending the Portuguese monopoly on Brazilian trade and opening Brazil's ports to other nations. In 1809, in retaliation for being forced into exile, the Prince Regent ordered the
conquest of French Guiana. With the end of the
Peninsular War in 1814, the courts of Europe demanded that Queen Maria I and Prince Regent John return to Portugal, deeming it unfit for the head of an ancient European monarchy to reside in a colony. In 1815, to justify continuing to live in Brazil, where the royal court had thrived for six years, the Crown established the
United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, thus creating a
pluricontinental transatlantic monarchic state. However, the leadership in Portugal, resentful of the new status of its larger colony, continued to demand the return of the court to Lisbon (see
Liberal Revolution of 1820). In 1821, acceding to the demands of revolutionaries who had taken the city of
Porto, John VI departed for Lisbon. There he swore an oath to the new constitution, leaving his son,
Prince Pedro de Alcântara, as Regent of the
Kingdom of Brazil.
Empire of Brazil Tensions between Portuguese and Brazilians increased and the
Portuguese Cortes, guided by the new political regime imposed by the Liberal Revolution, tried to re-establish Brazil as a colony. The Brazilians refused to yield, and Prince Pedro decided to side with them,
declaring the country's independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822. A month later, Prince Pedro was proclaimed the first
Emperor of Brazil, with the royal title of Dom
Pedro I, resulting in the founding of the
Empire of Brazil. The
Brazilian War of Independence, which had already begun along this process, spread through the northern, northeastern regions and in the
Cisplatina province. The last Portuguese soldiers surrendered on 8 March 1824; Portugal
officially recognized Brazilian independence on 29 August 1825. On 7 April 1831, worn down by years of administrative turmoil and political dissent with both liberals and conservatives, including an attempt of
republican secession and unreconciled to the way that absolutists in Portugal had given in the succession of King John VI, Pedro I departed for Portugal to
reclaim his daughter's crown after
abdicating the Brazilian throne in favor of his five-year-old son and heir (Dom
Pedro II). ,
Emperor of Brazil between 1831 and 1889 As the new Emperor could not exert his constitutional powers until he came of age, a
regency was set up by the
General Assembly. In the absence of a charismatic figure who could represent a moderate face of power, a series of localized rebellions took place, such as the
Cabanagem in
Grão-Pará, the
Malê Revolt in Salvador, the
Balaiada (
Maranhão), the
Sabinada (
Bahia), and the
Ragamuffin War, which began in
Rio Grande do Sul and was supported by
Giuseppe Garibaldi. These emerged from the provinces' dissatisfaction with the central power, coupled with old and latent social tensions peculiar to a vast, slaveholding and newly independent nation state. This period of internal political and social upheaval, which included the
Praieira revolt in
Pernambuco, was overcome only at the end of the 1840s, years after the end of the regency, which occurred with the
premature coronation of Pedro II in 1841. During the last phase of the monarchy, internal political debate centered on the issue of slavery. The
Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1850, as a result of the British
Aberdeen Act and the
Eusébio de Queirós Law, but only in May 1888, after a long process of
internal mobilization and debate for an ethical and legal dismantling of
slavery in the country, was the institution formally abolished with the approval of the
Golden Law. The foreign-affairs policies of the monarchy dealt with issues pertaining Brazil's neighboring countries in the
Southern Cone. Long after the
Cisplatine War that resulted in the independence of
Uruguay, Brazil won three international wars during the 58-year reign of Pedro II: the
Platine War, the
Uruguayan War and the devastating
Paraguayan War, the largest war effort in Brazilian history. Although there was no desire among the majority of Brazilians to change the country's form of government, on 15 November 1889, in disagreement with the majority of the
Imperial Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites, the monarchy was overthrown by a
military coup. A few days later, the
national flag was replaced with a new design that included the national motto "
Ordem e Progresso", influenced by
positivism. 15 November is now
Republic Day, a national holiday.
Early Republic '', 1893, oil on canvas by
Benedito Calixto in
Massarosa,
Italy, during
WWII in Brasília, 1959, during the
JK administration The
early republican government was a military dictatorship, with the army dominating affairs both in Rio de Janeiro and in the states. Freedom of the press disappeared and elections were controlled by those in power. Not until 1894, following an
economic crisis and
a military one, did civilians take power, remaining there until October 1930. In this first republican period, Brazil maintained a relative balance characterized by a success in resolving border disputes with neighboring countries, only broken by the
Acre War (1899–1902) and
its involvement in
World War I (1914–1918), followed by a
failed attempt to exert a prominent role in the
League of Nations; Internally, from the crisis of
Encilhamento and the
Navy Revolts, a prolonged cycle of financial, political and social instability began until the 1920s, keeping the country besieged by various rebellions, both civilian and military. Little by little,
a cycle of general instability sparked by these crises undermined the regime to such an extent that in the wake of the murder of his running mate, the defeated opposition presidential candidate
Getúlio Vargas, supported by most of the military, successfully led the
Revolution of 1930. Vargas and the military were supposed to assume power temporarily, but instead closed down Congress, extinguished the Constitution, ruled with emergency powers and replaced the states' governors with his own supporters. In the 1930s, three attempts to remove Vargas and his supporters from power failed. The first was the
Constitutionalist Revolution in 1932, led by São Paulo's oligarchy. The second was a
Communist uprising in November 1935, and the last one a
putsch attempt by
local fascists in May 1938. The 1935 uprising created a security crisis in which Congress transferred more power to the executive branch. The
1937 ''coup d'état'' resulted in the cancellation of the 1938 election and formalized Vargas as dictator, beginning the
Estado Novo era. During this period, government brutality and censorship of the press increased. During
World War II, Brazil remained neutral until August 1942, when the country suffered
retaliation by
Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy in a strategic dispute over the South Atlantic, and, therefore,
entered the war on the
allied side. In addition to
its participation in the battle of the Atlantic, Brazil also sent an
expeditionary force to fight in the
Italian campaign. With the Allied victory in 1945 and the end of the fascist regimes in Europe, Vargas' position became untenable, and he was
swiftly overthrown in another military coup, with democracy reinstated by the same army that had ended it 15 years earlier. Vargas committed suicide in August 1954 amid a political crisis, after having returned to power by election in 1950. Several brief interim governments followed Vargas' suicide.
Juscelino Kubitschek became president in 1956 and assumed a conciliatory stance towards the political opposition that allowed him to govern without major crises. The economy and industrial sector grew remarkably, but his greatest achievement was the construction of the new capital city of
Brasília, inaugurated in 1960. Kubitschek's successor,
Jânio Quadros, resigned in 1961 less than a year after taking office. His vice-president,
João Goulart, assumed the presidency, but aroused strong political opposition and was
deposed in April 1964 by a coup that resulted in a
military dictatorship.
Military dictatorship along the
Avenida Presidente Vargas,
Rio de Janeiro, in April 1968, during the
military dictatorship The new regime was intended to be transitory, but gradually closed in on itself and became a full dictatorship with the promulgation of the
Fifth Institutional Act in 1968. Oppression was not limited to those who resorted to
guerrilla tactics to fight the regime, but also reached institutional opponents, artists, journalists and other members of civil society, inside and outside the country through "
Operation Condor". Like other
authoritarian regimes, due to an economic boom, known as the "
economic miracle", the Brazilian military dictatorship reached a peak in popularity in the early 1970s. Slowly, however, the wear and tear of years of dictatorial power had not slowed the repression, even after the defeat of the leftist guerrillas. The inability to deal with the economic crises of the period and popular pressure made a redemocratization policy inevitable, which from the regime side was led by Generals
Ernesto Geisel and
Golbery do Couto e Silva. With the enactment of the
Amnesty Law in 1979, Brazil began a slow
return to democracy, which was completed during the 1980s.
Contemporary era holding the
Constitution of 1988 Civilians returned to power in 1985 when
José Sarney assumed the presidency. He became unpopular during his tenure through failure to control the economic crisis and
hyperinflation he inherited from the military regime. Sarney's unsuccessful government led to the
election in 1989 of the almost-unknown
Fernando Collor, who was subsequently
impeached by the National Congress in 1992. Collor was succeeded by his vice-president,
Itamar Franco, who appointed
Fernando Henrique Cardoso as Minister of Finance. In 1994, Cardoso devised a highly successful
Plano Real that, after decades of
failed economic plans made by previous governments attempting to curb hyperinflation, finally stabilized the Brazilian economy. Cardoso won the
1994 election, and
again in 1998. The
peaceful transition of power from Cardoso to his main opposition leader,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (
elected in 2002 and
re-elected in 2006), was seen as proof that Brazil had achieved a long-sought political stability. However, sparked by discontent accumulated over decades from corruption,
police brutality, inefficiencies of the political
establishment and
public service,
numerous peaceful protests erupted in Brazil in the middle of the first term of
Dilma Rousseff, who had succeeded Lula after winning election
in 2010 and again
in 2014 by narrow margins. Rousseff
was impeached by the
Brazilian Congress in 2016, halfway into her second term, and replaced by her vice-president
Michel Temer, who assumed full presidential powers after Rousseff's impeachment was accepted on 31 August. Large street
protests for and against her took place during the impeachment process. The charges against her were fueled by political and economic crises along with evidence of involvement with politicians from all the primary political parties. In 2017, the Supreme Court requested the investigation of 71 Brazilian lawmakers and nine ministers of President
Michel Temer's cabinet who were allegedly linked to the
Petrobras corruption scandal. President Temer himself was also accused of
corruption. In the fiercely contested
2018 elections, the controversial conservative candidate
Jair Bolsonaro of the
Social Liberal Party (PSL) was elected president, winning in the second round against
Fernando Haddad, of the
Workers Party (PT), with the support of 55.13% of the valid votes. In the early 2020s, Brazil became
one of the hardest hit countries during the
COVID-19 pandemic, receiving the second-highest death toll worldwide after the United States. In May 2021,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that he would run for a third term in the
2022 Brazilian general election against Bolsonaro. In October 2022, Lula was in first place in the first round, with 48.43% of the support from the electorate, and received 50.90% of the votes in the second round. On 8 January 2023, a week after Lula's inauguration, a mob of Bolsonaro's supporters
attacked Brazil's federal government buildings in the capital,
Brasília, after several weeks of unrest. == Geography ==