The Captaincy of Todos os Santos Bay was one of the most important hereditary captaincies established by the Kingdom of Portugal at the beginning of the colonisation of Brazil in 1534.

Granted to the grantee Francisco Pereira Coutinho, it occupied a strategic position on the Brazilian coast, centred on the bay that gave it its name, now known as the Baía de Todos os Santos. Its territory included part of what is now the state of Bahia, and the region soon became of economic and geopolitical importance.

Initially, the colonisation of the Captaincy faced several challenges, including conflicts with indigenous peoples and administrative difficulties. Francisco Pereira Coutinho, the first grantee, tried to establish a settlement centre, but was unsuccessful due to a lack of resources and hostility from local tribes.

In 1549, the Portuguese Crown decided to intervene, transforming the bay of Todos os Santos into the centre of the colonial administration, creating the Government General of Brazil and sending Tomé de Sousa as the first Governor General, who founded the city of Salvador, the first capital of Brazil.

Todos os Santos Bay quickly became an economic centre due to its sugar production and its natural harbour, which facilitated maritime trade with Europe and other colonies. Over the centuries, the captaincy played a crucial role in the development of colonial Brazil, which was the target of foreign invasions, such as those of the French and Dutch, due to its strategic location and the wealth generated by agricultural and commercial activity.

As a Portuguese colony, Brazil became the new India for the Iberian country.

What was, at the time of its discovery, just a coastline with no obvious signs of wealth, turned out to be much more than that.

Products such as timber, slaves and sugar were the first to demonstrate the territory’s great economic potential, attracting the interest of European powers.

The aim of this work is to disseminate and deepen subjects that are little explored in undergraduate studies, in the context of the Portuguese maritime empire.

The topic was chosen because of the importance that the Captaincy of Bahia had during the Portuguese overseas empire.

If there is any region that deserves to be highlighted during the Age of Discovery, Bahia is certainly one of them, and this work will seek to clarify why.

The time frame between 1500 and 1697 has been chosen for the study: 1500 because it is the date attributed to the discovery of Brazil, and 1697 because it marks the discovery of gold. I chose 1697 not because I worked up to that date, but because the introduction of gold marked a significant change in the economy and politics of Bahia, making it less relevant to this study.

This thesis will examine the general characteristics of various factors that shaped the history of the Bahia region during the period in question. The aim is to use sources from the period whenever possible, either to analyse them directly or to extend research already carried out.

The Captaincy of Todos os Santos Bay: Foundations, conflicts and transformations (1500-1697)

Learn about the history of the Captaincy of Bahia de Todos os Santos between 1500 and 1697, from its foundation, through indigenous conflicts and foreign invasions, to its consolidation as one of the main economic and administrative centres of colonial Brazil.

1. Geography
2. Population
3. Economy and Food
4. Brazilwood
5. Slaves
6. Sugar
7. Fishing and hunting
8. Invaders – French and Dutch
9. Politics and social organisation
10. The Church
11. Conclusion

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1. Geography

Bahia, Recife, Rio, São Vicente, among other ports, are favoured by reefs and coastal strands, which give them special protection.

Bahia is a privileged centre of maritime life, situated between two coasts with different characteristics. The city is built at the foot of an isolated mountain in the region.

The Harbour is located at one end of the city, protected by reefs, with a Bay that serves as an excellent communication route between various lands, acting as a true Mediterranean Sea due to the ease of communication it offers.

The Captaincy of Bahia de Todos os Santos, when it was granted to Francisco Pereira Coutinho in 1534, had fifty leagues of coastline, from the right bank of the São Francisco River to the present Cabo de Santo António.

The capital of Bahia, the city of Salvador, was built next to the old Vila do Pereira. With the introduction of a governor-general, Salvador became the administrative centre when Tomé de Souza arrived.

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2. The settlement

Bahia was one of the first places discovered by the Portuguese in Brazil. Todos-os-Santos Bay was discovered on 1 November 1501.

It was in this bay that the first European settlers settled, including Diogo Álvares and his companions, who were shipwrecked (the first recorded occurrence).

The division of Brazilian territory into captaincies, approved by King João III of Portugal, aimed to settle and colonise this new territory. However, this goal was not initially achieved.

In the beginning, we see settlement centres scattered along the Brazilian coast, some developing (a few) and others stagnating or disappearing due to various factors.

In its early days, Bahia was also just a collection of settlements – a captaincy in theory and in the image of Portugal, but one where the donor captains failed to settle and develop, leaving Bahia and other areas under native control until 1549.

Read The foundation and history of Salvador da Bahia

When Tomé de Sousa, the first Governor-General of Brazil and founder of the city of Salvador, arrived, the population began to spread, possibly because of the security that the Governor-General’s presence gave. Now we see a representative of the king in this colony.

It didn’t take long for the requests of the people and the grantors to be met; there was a different kind of response. This created the conditions for the development of Bahia, the nucleus of inhabitants was structured, grew and became permanent.

The great obstacle to Portuguese settlement in Brazil was the constant resistance of the Indians.

The finding of resources was one of the aims of the settlement. We saw earlier that Bahia had plenty of Brazilwood and that it was of high quality, but it was something that was not in great demand. The colonists were also interested in discovering other riches, such as metals and precious stones, although in the case of Bahia this played a secondary role.

These searches mobilised large numbers of people, increasing the demography of the area and allowing the development of communication networks between Bahia and other areas.

Both Bahia and Brazil as a whole took time to develop, but once they began to find economic interest in these new lands, the Portuguese saw very significant growth, and competition with other European peoples also favoured them.

The growth of cities is one of the points where we can see this development, as well as the increase in population.

Let’s look at more specific demographic issues.

Population of the city of Salvador from 1549 to 1640

According to Father Nóbrega, the population of Francisco Coutinho in 1549 was between forty and fifty white inhabitants.

As we have seen, the settlement of Bahia was not easy, in fact no land in Brazil was completely easy. The main case was the tensions with the natives.

For example, the Tupinambá clashed with the Portuguese when Francisco Pereira Coutinho introduced sugar production to Bahia.

On 28 July 1541, Coutinho donated two sesmarias (one in the Pirajá estuary to the nobleman João de Velosa and the other in Paripe to Afonso de Torres, a Castilian nobleman).

In collaboration with Francisco Coutinho, sugar mills and mills were established in these two places.

The enslavement of the natives to grow sugar was not the only cause of conflict between the Portuguese and the natives.

As Father Simão de Vasconcelos says, “The peace with the natives of Bahia lasted only as long as their patience, because there was no violent trade, no barbarbarism, violence, extortion and immorality that the Portuguese did not practise against those they called savages, but whom they surpassed in savagery”.

The Jesuit priest Manuel da Nóbrega also reported on his arrival in Bahia in 1549 that there was no place where Christians had not caused wars and conflicts, that all the first tensions in Bahia had been caused by them.

Video about Jesuit Father Manuel da Nóbrega

Jesuíta Padre Manuel da Nóbrega

The Portuguese occupation of the Bahian-Sergipan region began to move away from the coast and inland only from the mid-17th century.

The first reason for this inland advance was the need to find new land for the production of cattle, the products needed to run the mills and the food to feed the growing population.

It was for these main reasons that the backlands of Bahia were occupied, as was the reason for the excess of Bahian breeders going to populate fields in other places, such as Ceará, Piauí and Maranhão.

Another reason for the population expansion was the donation of land to sertanistas (a measure to combat the rebellious Indians who, around 1669, almost reached mills such as Jequiriçá and Jaguaripe).

In 1532, Martim Afonso de Sousa informed the king of the risks that the French could pose to the Portuguese colony, and this was one of the reasons why he wanted to settle Brazil more systematically.

At an organisational level, various parishes, cities and villages were created, especially from 1680 onwards, such as the Parish of Santo António de Jacobina, the Parish of Maragogipe and other villages that would become parishes in the following century.

During the 17th century, Bahia shared its importance in Brazil with Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro, which were like the three capitals of the state of Brazil.

This was mainly due to the fact that they were among the oldest colonial territories in Portuguese America, but it was also due to the fact that they were among the most developed cities economically, politically and culturally.

The other capacities played a subordinate role by comparison.

When we talk about the Settlement of Bahia, we can’t forget the City of Salvador. The choice of location for this city was made from a defensive point of view.

As we’ll see later, the city was divided into the Lower City and the Upper City.

In the Lower City, there was only one street where the harbour-related warehouses and the hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Praia were located.

The Upper Town was the administrative centre. This area was home to the Governor’s Palace, the Senate Chamber, the Ajuda and Sé chapels, the Misericórdia Hospital, the Court of Appeal, the Jesuit, the College and the Church, and the first residences (in August 1549 there were about 100 houses and in 1587 there were an estimated 800 neighbours).

The original centre in the upper town stretched from Porta de São Bento to Praça da Cidade. Later there were extensions to this centre.

To the north it moved towards Portas do Carmo and then towards the Carmo Monastery (1586).

To the south it went towards the Convent of São Bento (1584) and to the east we see the first settlement with the construction of the Chapel of Desterro (1567).

In terms of defence, a fundamental part of the city’s construction, the fortifications proved to be crucial. Initially, the lower town was defended by two bastions and the upper town by a fence and a rampart (1551) and four bastions.

Later, two fortresses were built to protect the city on the Bay side: one at Barra (Santo António, 1583-1587) and the other at Itapagipe (Montserrat, 1585-1587).

When the Dutch arrived, they reinforced the two gates and built the first dike in what is now Baixa dos Sapateiros.

After the Dutch left, two small fortresses were built in Barra, on the site where the Dutch landed(Forts of Santa Maria and São Diogo), and two more to the north, one in Santo António além do Carmo and the other in Cidade Alta and São Bartolomeu, in Itapagipe.

A major problem in terms of defence during this period was housing the 2,000 soldiers defending the city.

But as you can imagine, no matter how many defensive buildings there were, they were unable to neutralise the Dutch offensive and the city ended up being bombed, looted and destroyed. The same happened when the Spanish troops, together with others, retook the city.

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3. Economy and food

The initial economic development of the Portuguese colony was very difficult, as was the expansion of settlers into these new lands.

In the beginning, the Portuguese experienced a lack of resources; the human resources they had were also very limited, there were few residents, few Portuguese inhabitants. Even worse were the great and continuous hostilities of the indigenous peoples, including the Tupiniquins, the Aimorés and especially the Tupinambás, as we will see later.

At the time of the arrival of the first captains, the first crops began to be cultivated, probably mainly manioc (according to Nóbrega, when he arrived in Bahia, this root was the common food that came from the land and was turned into flour, just like American corn). The first attempt to produce sugar cane began at this time.

By 1538 there was already a sugar mill in Bahia, financed by capitalists/investors from Lisbon. This did not survive until the arrival of Tomé de Sousa, as we shall see.

It was with the political change (the introduction of a General Government based in Bahia) that the economic activities expanded.

From this time, timber extraction was developed, along with the development of shipbuilding, lime production began, the whaling industry was expanded and regulated, especially because of the interest in whale blubber, the cultivation of cotton, tobacco and ginger began, animal husbandry was established, and there was an increase in the number of corrals and the development of the sugar industry.

The following are brief notes on the main resources exploited in the captaincy of Bahia.

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4. Brazilwood

The first major Brazilian economic resource, or if we prefer, the first product to be exploited with a major economic impact, was undoubtedly wood, more specifically the so-called Brazilwood.

Brazilwood is a wood that provides dye.

At the time of Brazil’s discovery, the textile industry was in full development and, as the artificial anilines we use today were not yet known, Brazilwood was a much valued and sought after raw material.

It was found in relative abundance along the Brazilian coast, in the forest zone that skirts the coast up to the Cabo Frio area.

After that, extraction slowed and dragged on, always decadent, for another 200 years, until advances in chemistry made it possible to obtain synthetic anilines and led to a lack of interest in brazilwood.

The brazilwood cycle was no more than rudimentary exploitation, no more than simple gathering, a typical extractive industry.

In the middle of the 16th century, Brazil was nothing more or less to Europe than the land of coloured wood, a wood used to make precious furniture and for other purposes.

The profitability of this business was such that wood merchants began to appear in this century.

The Portuguese Crown itself reserved the monopoly on the exploitation of Brazilwood.

In 1501 we see the first monopoly contract signed for three years with Fernando de Noronha. This sums up the economic situation of timber in Brazil.

As far as Bahia is concerned, we know that there was an abundance of brazilwood, a quality wood, and it was the governor-general of Brazil himself, Diogo Botelho, who reminded the king of this fact in 1606.

The Port of Bahia is a major port and one of the main ports for the shipment of sawn timber.

This wood is then usually unloaded in Lisbon, unless unusual conditions prevent this, such as storms or encounters with privateers, which sometimes means that the route has to be diverted to another port, such as Porto, Viana, Peniche or another.

It was common to arrive in Lisbon and be stored in the Casa da Índia.

Cristovam Pires was one of the many captains, in this case the captain of the Bretôa, which came in 1511 from the Tagus to collect 5,000 trunks of Brazilian wood and various exotic animals in Todos-os-Santos Bay and Cabo-Frio.

Various letters and records allow us to trace typical prices on departure from Brazilian ports, values that may have been close to those practised in the port of Bahia.

In 1591 the quintal had a value of around 900 to 1000 réis and in 1666 the value was around 610 réis, which of course wasn’t a steady decline, During this period there were some increases, such as in 1625 with prices around 1050 réis, this may well have been influenced by the problem with the Dutch in Bahia.

As for transport prices, we know that at least between 1602 and 1624 a quintal cost about 300 réis (this is a tax).

The Dutch began to threaten the Portuguese trade in Brazilian timber, especially around 1625, largely due to the effectiveness of the Dutch West India Company and the direct supply from Amsterdam to Brazilian lands, namely Pernambuco.

We must bear in mind that the Brazilian timber market was the target of a lot of smuggling, the French even caused serious problems and as a measure to combat this irregular trade, Abreu de Brito proposed in 1591 the creation of the office of Guarda-Mor and the construction of five fortresses, one of which was in Bahia.

Smuggling was so widespread that it wasn’t difficult to conceal the arrival of timber in unapproved ports, or rather ports where the goods shouldn’t have gone directly.

We have a case reported in Holland in June 1657 by Hieronymo Nunes da Costa, who lived in Amsterdam and reported the arrival of a shipment of Brazilian timber from Paraíba.

The Governor of Bahia was responsible for solving the problem. The problem of this traffic is quite difficult to solve, especially when some Portuguese are complicit in these acts, but once these illegal acts are caught, the timber and even the ships can be confiscated and the accomplices punished.

If timber from Pernambuco goes directly to Amsterdam, it doesn’t go through Lisbon. Timber from other capitals, such as Bahia, which passes through Lisbon before going to Holland, is sold cheaper due to competition – unfair because it is not authorised by Portugal, but always competition – which is reflected in prices and therefore in the profits of the national crown.

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5. Slaves

When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, it was clear that the Indians would be enslaved, those shameful creatures who didn’t seem to have much use for anything else, but it was not a question of their ability, but rather the need the Portuguese had.

Human labour was needed to explore Brazil, and the Indian was a resource that was available, and it is on this point that we must base ourselves.

Videos about slavery in colonial Brazil

The Portuguese later realised that they were a weak resource, largely due to the exploitation of sugar. The frequent deaths and lack of profitability led them to look for a stronger human resource and they began to bring in slaves from various parts of Africa, most of whom ended up in the Captaincy of Bahia.

In fact, blacks from Africa were the main labour force for the Portuguese economy in Brazil, and the dependence was so great that when the Dutch came to Brazil and Angola, there was a period known as the Black Famine (1625-1650).

Bahia was taken in 1625, it was one of the main ports of entry for black slaves, Pernambuco was also important and was taken in 1630, and in 1640 the Dutch took the Angolan coast from where a large number of slaves came.

These three points were crucial to the slave trade, so much so that in 1644 the Overseas Council received a request from a certain Sebastião Araújo who wanted to go to Guinea to exchange certain goods for slaves to bring back to Bahia, as the situation in Angola was complicated.

It’s curious that while the slave trade is in trouble, with the Dutch trying to monopolise the business, sugar cane growing is developing, especially in Rio and Bahia. So, within the economic spectrum, not everything is problematic.

In Bahia there was a very large mixture of blacks, they were no longer pure Peuls or any other race, it wasn’t a specific and unchanging community, it was more a cluster of mestizos, many had come from Senegambia, Guinea and other African coasts.

There was a desire not to bring any particular group of African peoples together in one place; it was feared that if certain nationalisms were aroused, a native group together might cause revolts and other problems.

Again, this was not really addressed until the 18th century, but as early as 1647, in a letter sent by Henrique Dias to the Dutch, he revealed the virtues and problems of certain groups of Africans, leading to the conclusion that it was best to fragment the various communities among the various captaincies.

Between 1580 and 1590, between 3,000 and 4,500 slaves arrived in Bahia, a figure that is widely scattered in the sources.

This was largely due to the Dutch. Between 1630 and 1636, few slaves entered Pernambuco and they began to emigrate to Bahia to escape the Dutch.

However, although we see this emigration in this period, it should be noted that between 1600-1630 more slaves entered Pernambuco than Bahia, due to the greater number of mills that this captaincy had.

In the 16th century, an estimated 20,000 slaves arrived in Bahia.

During this time, the Church itself made a distinction between the Indian and the black, justifying that the black should be the slave and thus defending the Indian.

The Church and the Orders have always played an important role in native communities.

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6. Sugar

Sugar was the great wealth of Brazil in the 17th century. It provided the Portuguese Empire with a new source of wealth, in a way forgetting the riches that had previously come from India.

The implementation of this new economic structure, centred on sugar and its production and needs, such as slave labour and the use of the best land in the north-east, led to social inequalities, the accumulation of wealth by certain individuals and the Dutch invasion (1624-1625) because of their interest in controlling this business.

Brazil, and especially the north, such as the Recôncavo da Bahia, had favourable conditions for planting sugar cane. There are fertile, rich soils, some clayey, others made up of massapé (black earth), with humus (decomposing organic matter).

Like Pernambuco, Bahia became one of the most important centres of sugar production in the Portuguese Empire.

As we have already seen, the quality of the soil, the climate (hot and humid), the abundance of forest resources and the favourable location of the port and the speed of communication with the metropolis were essential conditions for raising the status of the captaincy.

Land for the production of sugar cane and other crops was distributed in the form of sesmarias, with priority given to land near rivers and to those who were able to install hydraulic mills.

Installing mills near watercourses facilitated transportation (by boat) and the power of the water itself was used as a mechanism to drive the mill.

Where this wasn’t the case, and the mills were far from a watercourse, animal and human power had to be used.

Brazil became Portugal’s main sugar producer and it was even impossible to compete with it, as it had shown signs of increasing production since the mid-16th century.

To give you an idea, in the 80s of the same century a arroba of white sugar in Brazil cost about 800 réis, while in Funchal it cost 1800.

As for sugar mills in Bahia, Francisco Pereira Coutinho (donatário) first tried to build two, but this was not possible as the natives/wild forced them to abandon them.

More specifically, it was the Tupinambá who united and with about 6,000 men burned the mills and killed many Portuguese. This war lasted about 5 to 6 years (it must have started in 1541). There were times of great famine, disease and other calamities.

In 1587, Gabriel Soares de Sousa listed 36 mills in Bahia (21 water-powered, 15 animal-powered and 4 under construction).

By 1610, but without a solid basis for veracity, we can see that the captaincy had 50 mills. Not counting Maranhão, there were 235 mills in operation in Brazil by 1628.

To organise the information on mills in Brazil, we can place the captaincy of Bahia in the central zone, which in 1570 had 1 mill, which gradually increased until 1710, when it reached 146 mills (the entire central zone).

The centre zone was not the most profitable, it was the south, not Bahia, Pernambuco. In Bahia we see an increase in the number of mills from 1570 to 1629, from 18 to 84 mills.

The increase in the number of sugar mills was not due to the Indians killing the whites, the Europeans and destroying the mills themselves. These internal problems were a constant throughout Brazil.

Torrential rains, droughts, animals were all factors that hindered the development of sugar cane plantations.

In 1665, Lopo Gago da Câmara asked the Overseas Council for a regulation to prevent the movement of flocks in his mill, so that the flocks and others wouldn’t be eaten.

Sugar extraction and beyond is subject to taxes (certain tithes), and to make matters worse, the Captaincy of Bahia had to pay war indemnities to Holland for 16 years, it wasn’t the only one with these financial obstacles, but that’s what matters for our study.

It seems that the first sugar mills were built in Bahia during the government of Tomé de Sousa, but it wasn’t until years later, possibly during the government of Mem de Sá, that production reached a point where it was possible to exploit the product commercially and export it on a larger scale.

History of sugarcane in the colonisation of Brazil

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7. Fishing and hunting

According to letters of the time, some of which were written to the king by those who were in the captaincy (such as the Jesuit priest Nóbrega), there was plenty of fish, many shellfish, large varieties of which were used to feed the local people.

There was also plenty of game, which lived in the woods, and birds such as geese, which had already been bred by the Indians.

The Port of Bahia’s regulations on the sale of fish are quite strict, forcing large fish to be sold by weight.

The weight varies according to the quality.

Bahia set a fixed price for salted fish.

After the arrival of Tomé de Sousa in Bahia, the use of oysters to make lime began.

By the end of the 16th century, a large number of oysters were being harvested from Oyster Island, which, according to Gabriel Soares de Sousa, made it possible to produce more than 10,000 moios of lime.

Gabriel Sousa also tells us: “And there are so many oysters in Bahia and elsewhere that very large boats are loaded with them to make lime from the shells, of which a lot is made and which is very good for the works, which is very smooth; and there is a mill in which more than three thousand moios of lime from these oysters have been spent for its works”.

At the turn of the 17th century, freshwater fishing developed greatly. Friar Vicente says: “From there upwards it’s fresh water, where there are so many great fisheries that in four days they load up with fish as many caravelões as go there”.

This refers specifically to the fishing in the São Francisco River. For Gabriel Soares de Sousa, it was the whale that deserved a lot of attention. He had already predicted the success of this industry at the end of the 16th century, and this was confirmed by the regular establishment of this fishery and the large number of whales that came to Bahia.

Under the General Government of Diogo Botelho (1602-1608), appointed by King Filipe III, Pedro Urecha brought boats and people with experience in whaling and whale processing (especially oil extraction) from Vizcaya (Spain) to develop this industry.

This development made it possible to export whale oil to the various regions of Brazil, thus overcoming the shortage of this resource and allowing greater sugar production, since with lighting some mills were able to work at night.

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8. Invaders

8.1 French invaders

The French looked favourably on Brazil; they wanted to create a centre of influence, especially commercial, from which they could extract as much wealth as the Portuguese.

In 1591, Francisco Soares wrote that in 1504 the French arrived in Bahia and that the Portuguese refused them entry and even detained three ships.

In fact, many of the corsairs in Brazilian waters were French, as the Jesuit in Bahia, Leonardo do Vale, said on 26 June 1562: “The new generations of the whole country are very full of Frenchmen”.

On the other hand, the author Eduardo Bueno mentions that the Tupinambá had more respect for the French than for the Portuguese.

For them, the French only came to Bahia to collect brazilwood in exchange for other goods; there were no major conflicts either on arrival or departure.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, had come to stay on their land and were prepared to enslave the natives for their own benefit.

The history of Pernambuco and Recife is one of conflict.

Read History of Salvador’s forts and lighthouses

8.2 Dutch invaders

The Dutch caused much destruction and were very troublesome invaders.

Reports from this time are similar to those of the French when they were invaded by the Vikings in the Middle Ages.

Friar Vicente do Salvador (1564-1635) reported that the Dutch, in the area of Bahia (Rio Vermelho), burned what they found along the way, stole, forced the inhabitants to flee into the bush, threatened them and did other worse things.

You can see that the Dutch did as much or more damage than the French in Brazil.

In response to the Dutch conquest of Bahia in 1625, a Portuguese-Hispanic Armada sailed in and managed to drive the Dutch out of the Fortress of São Filipe de Tapuype.

But, looking back, we need to understand why the Dutch were interested in Brazilian lands.

We are looking at a period when the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621) had ended and the disputes between the Spanish and the Flemish had resumed.

On this issue alone there were no longer any obstacles for the Dutch. Then there was the Dutch interest in Portuguese salt and sugar, very important commodities.

Against this background, the solution to these dependencies was the Dutch occupation of Brazil – there was no need to buy and trade with the Portuguese when you could get what you needed directly from the source.

This led to the interest of the Companhia das Índias Ocidentais, a private Dutch organisation with many rights.

Bahia was the location, the key point for the company to begin its influence in South America.

On 9 May 1624, a fleet of 23 ships and 3 yachts arrived in Bahia, prepared for the conquest. This fleet was under the command of Jacob Willekens and Pieter Heyn, and the 1,700 men who landed were led by Johann van Dorth (governor of the lands to be occupied).

The governor of Bahia at the time was D. Diogo de Mendonça Furtado.

At the time, Bahia didn’t have enough resources to resist a invasion, and the governor was arrested by the Dutch.

Power thus passed to the Flemish, the political centre of Portuguese America.

On the advice of Bishop Marcos Teixeira or on their own initiative, many of the inhabitants fled to other places, particularly the village of Espírito Santo.

It wasn’t until March and April of the following year that, as we have seen, a Portuguese-Hispanic Armada arrived to confront the Dutch, with the help of troops from Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro, as well as guerrilla warfare waged by the inhabitants (“On the twenty-ninth of March, the eve of Easter of the Resurrection, at five in the afternoon, our Armada entered the bay of the city”).

This cooperation was crucial to the Dutch capitulation.

Looking at this in more detail, we know that after the creation of the West Indies, a document was drawn up which planned the conquest of Bahia step by step. This document, known as Reasons why the West India Company should endeavour to wrest from the King of Portugal the land of Brazil and all that Brazil can translate.

The Dutch intended to attack three points of the Portuguese Empire: Bahia/Salvador, Pernambuco and Angola, which would allow them to control the slave market.

The first point to be attacked was São Salvador, as this city had a bay with very favourable conditions. It was an excellent point for controlling sugar production and for communicating with the slave market coming from Angola.

As we’ve seen elsewhere in this article, the governor of the city was Diogo Mendonça Furtado (he had been in office for three years).

He had been warned of the arrival of the Dutch Armada and so ordered the reinforcement of the city walls and the construction of a fort on an islet off Salvador, where six cannons were mounted.

Curiously, when van Dorth ordered the landing on May 10, he met no resistance. On the same day, Pedro Heyn seized the newly built fort and several ships moored in the bay.

The first friction with the locals was due to the effectiveness of the Bishop of Salvador in in mobilising the population against the Dutch. At this time, Matias de Albuquerque, Governor of Pernambuco and Governor-General of Brazil sent a caravel with letters from the Bishop to Spain informing them of the Dutch takeover of the city.

The news arrived in June 1624, prompting King Philip III of Portugal to order an Operation to Recover the City and the necessary squadron to be prepared in the ports of Lisbon and Cádiz.

Referring again to Tamayo de Vargas, we can see that both the Spanish and the Portuguese were in agreement with the offensive that had to be carried out against the Dutch.

“Not only did Portugal show its usual fidelity and valour in promoting what was necessary to remedy the suffering of the Brazilian people, massacred by the perfidy of the Dutch, who have subjected them to His Majesty’s orders in the fulfilment of the defence of the country, the noblest spirits conspiring to demonstrate their desires and efforts, all coming together on this occasion so auspicious, to demonstrate the nobility that sets an example for the people to imitate.

For, with the exception of a company of about 50 soldiers that embarked on the ship N.ª Senhora do Rosário Maior, which was travelling on behalf of the royal treasury, everything else was due to the voluntary provision with which the loyalty of Portugal served its king, from the ecclesiastics [….] and other private individuals […] to the merchants of the kingdom, the Italians, Germans and Flemings who traded with them […].

In addition to supplies for the army, ammunition and equipment for navigation, land fortifications and protection against the enemy, and twenty thousand cruzados for whatever was needed at any given time, all provided in such good order that, although these things are sometimes only the stuff of stories, in their relations they were typical of the Kingdom of Portugal and an example to all.

The heroic use of this crown’s treasure was matched by its illustrious blood.

For all this, the Council of Portugal, zealous in the service of its King, is warned that the rewards for the services of all those who took part in this voyage are already safe in its liberal hands, as well as for their successors or those who have contributed to the increase of its forces […].

The Armada commanded by D. Manuel de Menezes, its Captain General and Chief Chronicler of Portugal, was prepared, consisting of 18 ships and 4 caravels, with everything necessary for travel and battle. […]

And many other nobles, out of love for their country, exchanged the comforts of leisure for the dangerous restlessness of the sea, seeing it as the service of God and their king.

With such splendour the Armada left the port of Lisbon on 19 November 1624 with specific orders from His Majesty that as soon as they sailed, as had happened with the Armada of Castile, they should “join forces as soon as possible”.

These armadas finally met on 4 February 1625 in Cape Verde.

We can find these descriptions and others glorifying the image that the Spanish had of the Portuguese at the time in the work of D. Thomas Tamaio de Vargas, Restauracion de la Ciudad Del Salvador, i Baía de Todos-Sanctos, en la Provincia del Brasi.

This work was dedicated to His Majesty Philip IV, Catholic King of Spain and the Indies, etc. It’s really interesting to see this work from 1628. It shows a lot of positive traits of the Portuguese people and it’s essential to analyse it in order to understand these issues of the Reconquest of Bahia.

Fradique de Toledo y Osorio, Marquis of Villanueva de Valdueza, Captain of the Navy and of the Kingdom of Portugal, was the Captain General of Land and Sea appointed to take the city (in charge of the amphibious force).

The Master General (head of the landing forces) was Pedro Rodriguez de Santiesteban, Marquis of Coprani.

There were six armadas involved in this recovery. There was the Armada de Portugal (22 ships, commanded by Manuel de Meneses), as we have already seen, there was also the Armada do Mar Oceano (11 ships, including galleons and urcos, commanded by Fradique de Toledo), then there was the Armada da Guarda do Estreito (4 galleons commanded by João de Fajardo), then there was the Esquadra das Quatro Cidades (6 galleons commanded by D Francisco. Francisco de Acevedo). Francisco de Acevedo), and finally the Biscay Squadron and the Armada de Nápoles, the former consisting of 4 galleons and commanded by General Martin de Vallecilla and the latter of 2 galleons and 2 patachos under the command of D. Francisco de Ribera and also the Viceroy-Duke of Osuna.

The plan to reconquer the city was simple and straightforward. “Bring together the Spanish and Portuguese squadrons and armadas, embark in Salvador de Bahia, recover this place and expel the Dutch from Brazil once and for all”.

Apparently it was on 1 April 1625 that the landing took place and the order to attack was given, as was the siege artillery.

A few days after the siege began(30 April), the capitulation was signed, leaving the city with 1,912, Dutch, English, Germans, French and Walloons.

Much had already been taken from the Dutch during the siege, but with the effective victory over them, 18 flags were handed over, 260 pieces of artillery, 500 quintals of gunpowder, 600 black slaves, 7 , 200 silver marks and other goods to the rounded value of 300,000 ducats.

Six ships were also seized and control of the captaincy was regained.

Although the Dutch lost this battle for the city, they may have thought that the war was not yet lost.

As Fradique planned his return to Spain, he learned that a Dutch squadron was coming to contest the Iberian takeover.

On May 22, 34 sails appeared at the entrance to Todos-os-Santos Bay.

The Dutch had tried several times to invade Bahia, but without much success. The lack of effectiveness was also due to the Iberian Armada under the command of D. Fradique, who was unable to neutralise the offensives and this allowed the Dutch to move towards Pernambuco.

A different response might have prevented this.

The Dutch invasion of Salvador 1624

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9. Politics and social organisation

Bahia, specifically Salvador, was Brazil’s first capital as a Portuguese colony. It had privileges because of this situation, as did Lisbon and Porto.

São Salvador was a city in the Captaincy of Bahia, founded by Tomé de Sousa when he arrived on 29 March 1549 with the status of First Governor-General of Brazil (granted by King João III of Portugal).

The governor arrived with around 1,000 men and one of his aims was to establish a political and administrative centre, a hub that could serve as the capital of the great Portuguese colony.

Along with Tomé de Sousa came the architect Luís Dias, who was responsible for the design of this city, which in the past, along with the rest of the Captaincy of Bahia, had belonged to the Donor Captain Francisco Pereira Coutinho (hereditary captaincy) until it became a royal captaincy.

The structural inspiration for this new town was the layout of Angra do Heroísmo (Azores). There was an interest in following the architectural and structural assumptions of the important cities that the Portuguese were building along the coasts.

This meant that the new city had to have a good harbour (it already had the natural conditions for this), hills that would favour the defence of the city, drinking water streams and land suitable for cultivation, among other resources.

Salvador was the first city of great political and administrative importance in Brazil, and because of this importance it became a real fortress city from the moment it was founded, which only collapsed with the arrival of the Dutch.

At the forefront of the city’s development was the construction of a main square that would house the governor’s residence, the senate, the pillory and even the prison itself.

The growth of the wall, largely due to the progressive increase in the number of monastic-conventual houses of the orders that settled in Bahia and the establishment of various centres of population settlement, created a kind of division of the city (into two parts, one called the Lower City and the other the Upper City).

The Lower City contained most of the commercial and port activities, while the Upper City was characterised by the administration, political, judicial, religious and financial powers.

This urban morphology of the city of Salvador changed with the Dutch occupation in 1624.

When Mem de Sá took over as governor-general in 1558, he was confronted with a Bahia that was larger than the old fortress.

In 1600 he told the king that “the city is growing a lot”.

In the development of the captaincy, the Indians were included as slaves, as service providers or as captives of the Europeans. On a higher level were the Portuguese who came to Brazil, we’re talking about feitores, mechanical officers, sugar masters, with a certain importance since their hands provided the main income. Among the rural landowners, farmers and small cattle breeders occupied a somewhat thankless position.

The senhores de engenho (wealthy landowners with their own estates) stood out from the rest.

The city of Salvador was the first to be created in all of Portuguese America.

From the beginning it had well established communication routes. Until very late, most of the houses were of the primitive type, simple dwellings thatched with palm leaves, like the first houses built in Brazil.

Between 1549 and 1551, a Holy House of Mercy was founded in Salvador, with the main aim of healing and treating the poor and sailors.

This institution, according to Gabriel Soares, had no large workshops or infirmaries and was poor, possibly because it had no royal or private contributions; the only support it had was alms from the local inhabitants.

In 1556, the Jesuits also founded a college in Bahia, which offered three courses: literature or elementary, arts and theology for clerics and students of higher education.

As a result of the demographic expansion into the Sertão, the development of agriculture and agriculture, agriculture, new social typologies began to be defined, with the appearance of Vaqueiro and Fazendeiro in Brazilian Portuguese terminology.

Privileged people (mostly plantation owners) began to be more clearly distinguished from free men without resources and from captives, namely slaves.

If we go further and look at the administration, we will see the representation of the mechanical officers in the sessions of the Senate of the Chamber, as well as the creation of positions of procurators of the masters, which also allowed the election of a judge of the people and slavery (royal charter of 28 May 1644) was an example of this.

These posts grew in number, and these judges acquired more and more of the powers previously held by the councillors.

The appearance of representatives of the mechanical officers in the administration changed the people’s mentality towards power, creating greater popular resistance to central power. These political changes and the rise of the class-elected mechanical officers to the Bahia Chamber of Councillors were part of the popular demands that in the future, especially in the 19th century, would lead to a nationalist reaction and to pressure for Brazil’s independence.

As for courts, the first was created in Bahia in 1603 by King Philip II of Portugal under the title of “Relação do Brasil”.

In 1626, by the will of King Philip III of Portugal and with the creation of the “Relação de Rio de Janeiro”, the court in Bahia was renamed the “Tribunal da Relação da Bahia” (Court of Relation of Bahia), with the captaincy of Bahia itself, as well as Sergipe, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará and Rio Negro under its control, if we prefer.

Analysing the political changes in Brazil, we can conclude that the implementation of the Hereditary Captaincies was a failure, which led the Portuguese Crown to implement a General Government and the creation of the city of Salvador from the Bay of Todos-os-Santos as the political centre.

Initially, with the arrival of 1,000 inhabitants along with Tomé de Sousa, the Portuguese crown wanted to create a new, fortified city where these new inhabitants, officials, religious, military, builders and others could set up institutions to administer Brazil.

One of these institutions was the Governo-Geral, which represented the Crown in the colony and was primarily responsible for its defence. Another important institution was the First Court of Appeal, created in 1609 and abolished by the Spanish in 1625.

Captains and other prominent political figures: Let’s start with Diogo Álvares Correia, better known to the natives as Caramuru.

He wasn’t a captain, but he was probably the first Portuguese lord in Brazil. According to the account of Juan de Mori, pilot of the Spanish ship Madre de Dios, which was shipwrecked near Todos-os-Santos Bay and which was rescued by Caramuru, and also according to the testimony of a certain D. Rodrigo de Acuña (1 July 1526), who was the first to mention the presence of Diogo Álvares in Bahia, confirm that Caramuru had been in Brazil since the end of 1509, when he was shipwrecked in the shallows of the Rio Vermelho on what may have been a French ship.

Although Caramuru travelled to France in 1528, he returned to Bahia to continue his involvement in trafficking and smuggling.

In practice, he turned out to be a kind of “commercial agent for the French paude tinta smugglers”. Diogo Álvares’ time as lord of these lands that were never his effectively ended when Francisco Pereira Coutinho arrived in Bahia around November 1536 with seven ships and the title of legal owner of these lands.

This did not prevent Francisco Pereira Coutinho from donating a sesmaria to Caramuru on 20 December 1536.

Francisco Pereira Coutinho was the son of Afonso Pereira, alcalde-mor of the Portuguese city of Santarém, and was the first donor captain of Bahia (5 April 1534) and the second donor to receive a plot of land in Brazil.

He arrived in Brazil, as we have seen, in 1536. When he arrived, he slept on the ship for days until a settlement was built to house him and the rest of the crew.

All the evidence suggests that Francisco Pereira Coutinho was enthusiastic about these new lands, as we can see from the letter he wrote to the king in 1536:

“This is the best and cleanest land in the world… It is bathed by a freshwater river the size of Lisbon, into which as many ships as there are in the world can enter, and no better or safer harbour has ever been seen. The land is very peaceful and about a kilometre from here there is a village of 120 or 130 very meek people who come to our houses to offer us rations and the beginning of them, with their wives, children and people, already want to be Christians and say that they will no longer eat human flesh and they bring us supplies… The fish is so big that it’s free and they are eight feet long… The coast is full of coral… The land will give everything you throw at it, the cotton is the best in the world, and sugar will be given as much as you want”.

Bahia, like other captainships, didn’t always remain prosperous.

Francisco couldn’t adapt to the demands and there was much friction between him and Diogo Álvares. It was at the height of the tensions between the Portuguese and the natives that Francisco Coutinho fell from his post.

On 20 December 1546, Duarte Coelho, who was in charge of the captaincy of Pernambuco, sent a letter to King João III about the problems in Bahia. João Bezerra was a Portuguese cleric who contributed greatly to the movement against Francisco Coutinho.

He was a despicable cleric who deserved to be criticised by Duarte Coelho and Father Manoel da Nóbrega. During this period of high tension, the French and Diogo Álvares continued their attacks on the Brazilwood trade. Francisco Coutinho was eventually captured with others by the Tupinambá, where they were killed and the captain himself was even eaten by the natives.

As we’ve already mentioned, Francisco Coutinho was the first to be appointed captain of the captaincy of Bahia. At that time, when it came to appointing captains, it was customary to appoint an old nobleman who had distinguished himself since the time of King Manuel.

Francisco Coutinho was an example of this, he was a “very honourable nobleman, of great fame and knighthood in India“. Indeed, he served with Count Admiral Vasco da Gama, Viceroy Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Albuquerque.

As we’ve seen, Coutinho was no stranger to the game, having led an eventful life, but he was still unable to hold on to the Bahia captaincy. Francisco Coutinho was one of the last captains to arrive, with about two years separating the letter of donation and his actual arrival in the colony.

Finally, let’s look at Tomé de Sousa, who was not a recipient of the captaincy of Bahia, nor a governor of the Chamber, nor a pioneer in the colonisation of the territory, but he was responsible for the construction of the city of Salvador and therefore deserves to be highlighted.

Tomé de Sousa, from a noble family, served in Arzila between 1527 and 1532, went to India (1544) and in December 1548, at the request of King João III, became the first Governor-General of Brazil with wide powers to govern the colony.

With him came a detailed regiment for the administration of the lands. He ordered the construction of the city of São Salvador in the Bay of Todos-os-Santos.

By 1550, the city already had a city hall, where Tomé de Sousa’s rank as governor-general was registered.

This governor, unlike the donor captain Francisco Coutinho, knew how to deal with the Indians and had close relations with Diogo Álvares Correia, a Portuguese with great prestige among the Tupinambás (the largest Indian nation on the coast and surrounding areas).

With Tomé de Sousa came Father Manuel da Nóbrega and his Jesuit associates, who began a mass Christianisation of South America.

Tomé de Sousa was a supporter of the Jesuits and a protector of the newly converted Indians. He returned to Portugal in 1533, received honours from King João III, and became vedor of his household and treasury until the government of King Sebastião. He died in 1579.

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10. The Church

Before we talk about the Church itself and its foundation on Brazilian soil, we need to understand that several religious orders came to Brazil, either on the royal initiative or on the initiative of the order itself.

With the arrival of Tomé de Sousa, the first Jesuits arrived, led by Manuel da Nóbrega, who founded a chapel and a school for boys. The Benedictines settled in 1582 and the Discalced Carmelites in 1665.

Between 1514 and 1551, several churches and parishes were founded in different captaincies, with their own vicars, curates and chaplains.

In 1551, there was still no church in the city of Salvador that would be elevated to cathedral status. On 31 July 1550, King João III asked the head of the Catholic Church to create the first bishopric.

The following is a short passage from the document:

“In the lands called Brazil there are many Christian settlements, and there are churches in which the divine services are celebrated and the sacraments administered. And there is hope that many of the unfaithful and barbarous people will be converted to our holy Catholic faith, of which there are already many beginnings. And because it is necessary for the good government of the spirit that there should be bishops in these parts, who will govern the clergy and the people, and who will instruct and teach the said people in the things of our faith, I beseech Your Holiness to be willing once more to erect in your cathedral the church called the Church of the Saviour, in the city otherwise called the City of the Saviour…”.

On 25 February 1551, Pope Julius III issued the Bull Super Specula Militantis Eclesiae, which allowed the creation of the diocese of São Salvador da Bahia, the first in Brazil.

At this time the Spanish Church in America was much more developed than the Portuguese.

In the general panorama of America (including Portuguese and Spanish territory), the city of Salvador was the 23rd diocese and the 5th archbishopric in America in 1676.

Salvador was only the first city and the first diocese in the Brazilian context.

The bishopric created by the aforementioned bull was the bishopric of São Salvador da Bahia and not of Brazil.

The territories of the other captaincies were not part of the diocese of Bahia. On 7 December 1551, in the presentation of Pedro Fernandes Sardinha to Tomé de Sousa and others, King João III confessed that he had asked the Holy Father that, until other bishoprics were created, the Bishop of Salvador could have power and jurisdiction over the remaining lands of Brazil.

The city of Salvador did not have the title of diocese of Brazil, but it was effectively the centre of the country. It was the capital of the Archdiocese of Brazil from 1676 to 1892, when the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil’s second) was created.

Several religious orders came to Brazil, some on their own initiative and not at the request of the Portuguese king. The missionaries of the Society of Jesus were among the first and had the largest presence.

The first arrived with Tomé de Sousa, with Father Manuel da Nóbrega as the leader or superior of this group. By 1570 they already had convents in the Bay of All Saints, as well as in Ilhéus and Porto Seguro.

In 1552, Bishop Pêro Fernandes Sardinha arrived . Pêro Fernandes Sardinha. There were several villages governed by the Jesuits in this captaincy, very much in the context of survival. Villages such as Espírito Santo (1556), Vera Cruz or Santa Cruz (1560), Nossa Senhora da Assunção de Macamamu, São Tomé do Paripe and Port do Tubarão.

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11. Conclusion

This work, although not very detailed or selective in certain aspects due to the lack of time to prepare it, is sufficient to show the centrality, the importance of Bahia for the Portuguese maritime empire and beyond.

First, we conclude that the first solid Portuguese presence in the region was not organised. In fact, we see a man called Caramuru by the indigenous people, along with his crew, who settled in the region after a shipwreck. This Portuguese was the first to establish sustained relations with the Tupinambás and beyond.

These Indians, and even Caramuru himself, were responsible for the failure of the government of Captain Francisco Pereira Coutinho and the constant destruction of the mills.

Secondly, we can conclude that this area had one of the most favourable ports for navigation and communication with other places, and maintained very favourable routes both to the metropolis and to other places such as Angola, where black slaves came from, both in Portuguese and Dutch times, and on clandestine trade routes (we have seen that resources such as brazilwood reached Amsterdam without passing through Lisbon).

Thirdly, on an economic level, we see the great development compared to other capitals in the development of mills and the extraction of Brazilwood of various kinds.

Bahia had a large forest. Its proximity to the ocean and drinking water streams favoured the region for fishing.

Fourthly, we have seen an administration with several changes.

After the failure of Francisco Coutinho, we see Tomé de Sousa with the title of Governor-General founding the city of Salvador and developing not only Brazil but Bahia in particular, very much under the guidance of his regiment. We see the Church developing, forming its structures and having its main centres in Bahia.

Finally, the French and Dutch invasions should be highlighted. The French corsairs had tried to profit from the trade in Brazilian goods early on, but it was the Dutch who had the worst connotations, it was they who caused the most havoc, they saw Bahia not as a trading post but as a settlement.

They wanted to control everything, from sugar production to the slave market, in order to keep all the profits for themselves.

At the time, Portugal was part of the Spanish Monarchy, the Philippine Dynasty was in power, and it was only with attacks by joint Portuguese and Spanish forces, and even with the support of other allies, that it was possible to retake the city of Salvador and beyond. There are those who believe that the poor strategy adopted against the Dutch led the Dutch, instead of abandoning Brazil altogether, to try other centres of settlement such as Pernambuco.

As expected, this work does not mention the colonial, taxation and financing, the Royal Treasury, the City Council and the Treasury, among others.

Captaincy of the Bay of All Saints – Settlement, economy and politics between 1500-1697 – History of Brazil

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