Understanding Brazil's territorial evolution through history

This past Wednesday, on the 7th of September of 2022, Brazil celebrated its 200 years of independence. The year was 1822, and at the time Portuguese Prince Pedro, later King Pedro IV of Portugal, was regent of Brazil, in the name of his father, the Portuguese king, and he declared the independence of the country, becoming its first emperor. This video isn't about the history of Brazil by itself, despite how interesting it is. You see, when Brazil got its independence in 1822, the way its territory looked was different than it is today and when they were first colonized by the Portuguese in the early 16th century from whom they got their independence, it looked even more different. What I want to do in this video is take a look at that territorial evolution of the country because other than the evolution being interesting in itself, by looking at the moments when the territory changed, either in size or organization, we can understand specific historical events and moments that shaped the history and future of the nation. First, I think we should take a look at this GIF that summarizes the entire evolution in case you don't want to watch the entire video. Then we'll go through all of the moments of change and attempt to find out what happened in the history of the country at those times. The GIF on Wikipedia is somewhat reduced. It shows us only the big moments of change from 1534 to 1990 with 8 key changes in the territory, but this is somewhat oversimplified. I found this way better gif made by Michael Serra. It's over two minutes long with every single detailed change in Brazil's territory throughout time. It allows us to have a bigger and more detailed picture of everything that happens. There's two types of changes, those that increase the territory or decrease it, and those that reorganize the administrative divisions of that territory. Sometimes only one of them takes place, other times both. It starts with Portuguese colonization, where the colony was divided into straight lines, it changes to a better mapped organization in 1580, and then the territory starts growing, sometimes with stepbacks, and reorganizing itself until reaching its current form. One key detail that we'll look at ahead is the conquest and subsequent loss of Cisplatina, today known as Uruguay, who conquered its own independence. So, now that we were able to get the overview, let's go through the main moments of change and try to understand what happened. Before the key moments of colonial and then independent Brazil, it's important to note that the territory was already populated before the Portuguese got there, being inhabited by various native tribes. The way in which the territory of these tribes was organized is largely unknown, but some records or projections do exist. This map for instance shows us which tribes controlled which parts of the coast in modern Brazil. But let's get back to the territorial evolution of Brazil as we know it today. The Portuguese established the first colony in 1532 and their reach on Brazilian territory, which allowed them to build up their colony and expand it further, had to do with an important map from 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas. Pope Alexander VI had taken the insane decision of dividing the uncolonized non-Christian world between Spain and Portugal, granting each half of the world to colonize. This was in 1493, but the Portuguese limit line in South America gave them only a small piece of land. So, in 1494, they negotiated with Spain to extend that line further through the Treaty of Tordesillas, knowing that Brazil's lands were valuable and planning to establish a great colony there. The initial territorial expansion of Portuguese Brazil is based and possible because of this first map. The colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese wasn't very successful at first, partly due to their own incompetence, but also due to sabotage by the French, Dutch and English who were, understandably, against the idea of the two Iberian powers controlling all of this land. The colony was under direct crown authority, but the crown itself also failed at stopping French incursions into their territory. So, they decided to create captaincies, delegating the tasks of exploring, colonizing and defending these regions. Fourteen were created in 1534, attributed to nobles who acted as these ruling captains. They were inherited by their heirs once they died, so essentially it was a feudal organization of the land. The system didn't really work that well either, only two of them really prospered, Pernambuco and São Vicente. The captaincies could also be sold and that was mostly the way through which the Portuguese crown got them back further ahead, buying them and taking once again direct control, but this was later on. In 1549, the general government was established, perhaps to provide some type of control and monetarization by the crown over the captaincies, and that is where our gift starts. The territory had some small administrative changes, but stayed pretty much the same until 1572, when the northern government and southern government were created, dividing the captaincies in two, but this division was then extinct in 1577. However, the growth of Brazil took a temporary hit, due to the extinction of the Portuguese Crown's dynasty and its temporary union with Spain, being ruled by the Spanish between 1580 and 1640. During this period, Brazil became at war with other European powers, who were allies of Portugal, but enemies of the now ruling Spain. The Netherlands especially attacked and invaded various regions of northeast Brazil, taking real control of the land and remaining in some areas for as long as 24 years. Recife, for instance, was temporarily the capital of New Holland, Dutch Brazil. And on top of these consequences of Spanish rule, the Spanish crown itself wanted to reorganize the territory. In 1621, they divided the colony in two once again. The two independent administrative areas, the state of Brazil in the south and the state of Maranhão in the north. At this point, only nine captaincies remained, three under royal control, and six inherited. By 1640, Portuguese sovereignty was recovered and Brazil went back to just being a Portuguese colony with no further ties to the Spanish. By this time, the expansion of the territory had already surpassed the lines established in the Treaty of Tordesillas, but then again, the treaty wasn't respected anywhere else in the world once other European powers started colonizing. Captaincies were no longer the many initial ones, but a smaller number which were larger in territory. Between 1640 and 1680, not much happened other than internal reorganizations of how the territory was administered. In 1680, however, a key event took place, the Portuguese and Brazilian conquest of Sacramento, today a city in Uruguay. From early on, and part of the reason why they extended the Tordesillas division line, the Portuguese had a plan of establishing an island of Brazil colony. Now, Brazil obviously isn't an island, but some historians have confirmed that their plan was to control both the Amazon River Basin and the Rio de la Plata Basin, therefore creating somewhat of a natural barrier for the heartland of their colony, surrounded by water, the Atlantic on one side and the rivers on the other. This incursion south was perhaps still an attempt at that. They established an outpost here near the River Basin in 1680. The Spanish were upset at this incursion and took it back, but eventually the Portuguese regained it diplomatically, then in 1705 the Spanish changed their mind and conquered it, and control over it went back and forth between the Portuguese and the Spanish for decades. This Portuguese incursion into South America was perhaps the prologue of their conquest and occupation of what is today Uruguay. Meanwhile, internal territorial organizations kept happening within Brazil itself, with regions being renamed, states created, and captaincies losing more and more relevancy as the crown increasingly took direct control of the colony. But some territorial conquests and losses still took place. Mainly focused in three regions. First, up north in the Guianas. It's honestly fascinating to me how the Guianas region was so equally separated among the five main colonial powers of Europe, Spain, England, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Sort of a perfect example of how each of these colonized and decolonized their empire. If you want, I can make a full video about this. Brazil, or rather Portugal's disputes in this area were mostly with the French and the Dutch. Perhaps as revenge for those Dutch invasions when they were ruled by the Spanish, the Portuguese entered Dutch Guiana in 1714, starting a local war that ended up including France as well. The Portuguese were vastly successful at first, but then the commander refused to take orders from the king, being arrested and causing the failure of the campaign and losing the conquered territory. Some other incursions happened in coming decades, like the conquest of parts of French Guiana in 1800 or 1808. They actually held Cayenne until 1817. Another region of territorial gain and loss for Brazil was the Amazon forest borders. Since 1652, Brazilian borders in the Amazon were mostly established, but some gains were made afterwards. In 1750, for instance, the Treaty of Madrid was signed between Portugal and Spain, officially replacing the completely outdated and ignored Treaty of Tordesillas. They both admitted to breaching the treaty, deciding that those who control land today have the right to keep it, but also that natural borders such as mountains and rivers should be prioritized. Portugal seems to have been highly benefited from the treaty. They gave back the city of Sacramento that we just mentioned, as well as any claim to the river de la Plata basin. In exchange, they gained Rio Grande do Sul, parts of Santa Catarina and Paraná, Mato Gros do Sul and various other uninhabited regions. And finally, the south, which like we saw, grew with the 1750 treaty. But in 1761 the Treaty of Madrid was itself annulled due to native resistance of Portuguese annexation but also Portuguese desire to regain Sacramento as well. They lost more southern lands in 1777 in another war against Spain but then regaining it and even expanding their conquest into Cisplatina, today the country of Uruguay, in 1821. The territory had recently gained independence from the Spanish Empire and called itself the League of the Free People. The Portuguese and Brazilian saw the chance and conquered it. So now, here it was, the biggest colony in the Portuguese Empire. In 1808, the Portuguese court had fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal, even establishing the new capital in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the king vested Brazil with the status of kingdom, creating the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves. When he had to return to Portugal due to a local issue, he left his son and heir to the throne, Dom Pedro, as Prince Regent. And like I mentioned in the beginning, he declared independence in 1822, proclaiming himself as Emperor of Brazil. After independence, the territory of the Empire of Brazil remained the same as the Portuguese had, with some minor changes. By 1828, Uruguay gained its own independence, something that Rio Grande do Sul attempted as well in 1836, fighting a separatist war against Brazil, but quickly being defeated after a few years. In 1867, they signed a tree of limits with Bolivia, redefining the border and gaining some land in the interior. In 1870-72, the war with Paraguay ended, with Brazil gaining territories north of the river Apa, today in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Some more lands were gained and lost up north in Guiana as well. In 1889, Brazil became a republic and one of the priorities of the new regime was to finally settle their territorial limits with various treaties with neighboring and European countries taking place to define them. By 1900, the territorial extent of Brazil had been established as it is today, save one exception, Acre, which they acquired from Bolivia in 1903 in return for 2 million sterling pounds and a few territories in the Amazon region, all of it a consequence of the War of the Acre. The fact that it was the last territory to join perhaps justifies the myth that it doesn't exist. Many other internal administrative reorganizations took place, but from 1903 onwards they neither lost nor gained territory compared to what they have today. By this time, the old captaincies were nothing but a distant memory. In 1903, the internal organization of the country was, as far as I could understand, already a federal system, which arrived alongside the Republic in 1889. The territories of the states changed throughout time, with the creation of many new ones. Out of the bigger existing ones, they also changed names very often. The last big internal change was the creation of the federal district of Brasilia in 1960 and the state of Tocantins in 1988. Today, Brazil has these borders composed of 26 states and one federal district. So, that is the territorial evolution of Brazil, from those ridiculous straight lines of the Portuguese captaincies all the way up to the modern federal republic, going through Portuguese colonialism, Spanish rule, Dutch incursions, attempts at independence and wars with their recently independent neighbors as well. Brazil is a fantastic example of a country that wasn't that big to begin with, but was able to grow its territory immensely, today being the 5th largest country in the world. Thanks so much for watching this video. Leave a comment below if you notice any mistakes or have any additional information about this topic. Subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for more general knowledge.