1500
Fleet captained by Pedro Álvares Cabral makes landfall on what will become the Brazilian coast, territory which he claims for Portugal as the Island of the True Cross.
1501–1502
Portuguese voyage to Island of the True Cross, of which Amerigo Vespucci, who serves as pilot, leaves an account. The voyage reaches the coast of what will become southeastern Brazil, ascertains that the landmass is not an island, and discovers the presence of dyewood similar to varieties found in Asia, referred to generically by the Portuguese as pau brasil. Rechristened the Land of the True Cross, the Portuguese-claimed territory is increasingly identified with its major commodity, as the Land of Brazil Wood, Land of Brazil, etc.
early 1510s (?)
The Portuguese sailor João Ramalho is shipwrecked on the coast of Atlantic South America, near where the town of São Vicente will be founded; he is subsequently adopted into the Tupinikin group led by Tibiriçá, marrying one of the powerful chief’s daughters and becoming an influential leader in his own right on the inland plateau where the town of São Paulo will later be founded.
1530s
Portuguese colonists begin settlement of the region, make contact with João Ramalho and another Portuguese castaway, and found the town of São Vicente; Tupinikin headman Tibiriçá agrees to ally his people with the Portuguese.
1537
Pope Paul III issues Sublimus Deus, a bull proclaiming the liberty of the native inhabitants of the Americas.
1540s
Initial outbreak of the War of the Tamoios, as the Tupinambá-led struggle against the Portuguese presence in southeastern Brazil will be called; the war will last into the 1560s.
1549
Arrival in Salvador da Bahia of the first Governor-General of Brazil, Tomé de Sousa, accompanied by first Jesuit missionaries.
1553
Founding of the inland town of Santo André da Borda do Campo, the first official Portuguese settlement on the Paulista plateau.
1554
Father Manuel da Nóbrega’s founding of the Jesuit College at Piratininga, with the assistance of João Ramalho and Tibiriçá, who takes the Christian given names Martim Afonso at his baptism.
1557–1558
Evidence of fragmentation of Tupinikin villages of Inhapuambuçu and Jerubatuba; abandonment of the town of Santo André under pressure stemming from War of the Tamoios.
1560
Founding of the town of São Paulo alongside the Jesuit College at Piratininga.
1560s
Founding of Jesuit mission villages in the immediate orbit of the town of São Paulo, including São Miguel and Nossa Senhora dos Pinheiros; large-scale smallpox epidemic results in thousands of deaths, including, in 1562, that of Martim Afonso Tibiriçá; War of the Tamoios brought to an end.
1570
Crown law states that only Indians taken in so-called Just Wars may be subjected to slavery.
1580–1640
The “Iberian Union” of the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain under Spain’s Habsburg monarchs.
1591–1601
Governor-Generalship of Dom Francisco de Sousa; during his mandate, Dom Francisco visits São Paulo for the first time, in 1599.
1592
Arrival of new governor of the captaincy of São Vicente, Jorge Correia.
1596
Royal decree formalizes the mission-village project, placing mission-village Indians under Jesuit tutelage and limiting their availability as laborers outside of their villages.
1608–1611
Dom Francisco de Sousa, having returned to Brazil from Portugal, serves as Governor-General of the South (the captaincies of Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, and São Vicente) while inspiring a program of colonial development in the São Paulo region.
1609
Jesuits establish first missions of Guairá, an area technically under Spanish jurisdiction but forty to sixty days’ march from São Paulo.
1611
Founding of the town of Mogi das Cruzes, to the east of São Paulo.
1620s
Founding of the town of Santana de Parnaíba, to the northwest of São Paulo; spread of wheat farming throughout the São Paulo region.
1624–1625
Dutch occupation of Salvador.
1628–1630
Paulista “invasion” of the Jesuit missions of Guairá, beginning with the expedition led by Antonio Raposo Tavares and ending with the destruction of nearly all of the missions of the region.
1630–1654
Dutch occupation of Pernambuco, as New Holland, at its peak covering much of northeastern Brazil.
1631
Relocation of the two surviving Guairá missions of Loreto and San Ignacio
1633–1634
Founding of the Jesuit missions of Tape.
1635–1641
Paulista attacks on the Tape missions.
1639
Pope Urbano VIII restates the principle of Indian liberty outlined in the papal Bull of 1537.
1640
Restoration of the Portuguese crown, under the first Braganza monarch, King João IV; settlers’ expulsion of the Jesuits from São Paulo.
1641
Defeat of the expedition led by Jerônimo Pedroso de Moraes at Mbororé at the hands of Jesuit-trained and -armed Indians; marks the end of large-scale raiding of the missions and the beginning of the end of such raiding as a satisfactory response to the Paulistas’ labor requirements.
1641–1648
Dutch occupation of Portuguese Angolan ports of Luanda and Benguela.
1640s–1650s
Founding of the Paraíba Valley towns of Taubaté, Guaratinguetá, and Jacareí.
1652
Isolated uprisings by Indian slaves in the bairro of Juqueri and near the mission village of Conceição dos Guarulhos.
1653
Jesuits permitted to return to São Paulo following agreement mediated by Crown officials.
1654
Dutch surrender of Pernambuco, following a decade-long war of reconquest.
1655
Founding of the town of Jundiaí; agreement puts an end to the Pires–Camargo conflict.
1650s
So-called Wars of the Barbarous in northeastern Brazil, in which Paulistas serve as Crown mercenaries.
1660
Isolated uprising of Indian slaves in Mogi das Cruzes; four such uprisings in the bairro of Juqueri.
1660s
Founding of the town of Sorocaba west of Santana de Paraíba; effective settlement of the area to the north of São Paulo between the Juqueri and Atibaia rivers.
1670s
Settler conflicts with ecclesiastical and royal officials in Rio de Janeiro.
1685
Another settler attempt at expelling the Jesuits from São Paulo.
1692
Settlers of São Paulo present their “sixteen doubts” in response to real and imagined interference in their system of personal service.
1694
Local agreement between settlers of São Paulo and Jesuits of the region leaves “administered” Indians under settler control.
1695
Destruction of the northeastern escaped-slave redoubt of Palmares by Paulista mercenaries led by Domingos Jorge Velho.
1696
Royal decree recognizes the settlers’ rights to the “administration” of Indians, thus legitimizing their regime of personal service, which was slavery in all but name.
1690s
Major gold strikes in the unsettled northern reaches of the captaincy of São Paulo, which come to be called Minas do Ouro and, later, Minas Gerais, amid the ensuing gold rush.
1709
The captaincy of São Paulo and Minas do Ouro is created.
1710
Tithe contract of the mining districts separated from the rest of the captaincy, increasingly poor in both relative and absolute terms.
1711
The town (vila) of São Paulo is raised to the status of city (cidade).
1720
The captaincies of São Paulo and Minas Gerais are created by dividing the captaincy that had encompassed both territories into a declining, mostly subsistence-farming zone and an area of recent settlement characterized by booming output of mineral wealth.
1758
“Administration” as a legal category of personal service is abolished, though dwindling numbers of Indians and Indian-descended people are listed as “administered ones” (i.e., as slaves) in local civil and ecclesiastical records produced through the late eighteenth century.