Volta
Exploration22 April 1500

Cabral Reaches Brazil

Also called: Discovery of Brazil

Bound for India, Cabral’s Portuguese fleet swung far west, sighted the Brazilian coast and claimed it for Portugal — the beginning of Portuguese Brazil.

Landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral at Porto Seguro in 1500 — painting by Oscar Pereira da Silva, 1900
Landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral at Porto Seguro in 1500 — painting by Oscar Pereira da Silva, 1900

Oscar Pereira da Silva · Public domain · Source

Leading the second Portuguese fleet to India after da Gama, thirteen ships strong, Cabral swung far west to avoid the Atlantic doldrums and sighted land on 22 April 1500. He anchored near present-day Porto Seguro, met the Tupi people and, the land lying east of the Tordesillas line, claimed it for Portugal. The name Brazil comes from the red dyewood pau-brasil found there. Cabral sailed on to India. Systematic colonisation and sugar plantations began in the 1530s.

Show on the map

The map in 1500

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States at the time
Portugal
Colonial Brazil · established
Places
Porto Seguro

People

  • Pedro Álvares Cabral1520

    leader · Portuguese navigator who reached Brazil on the way to India in 1500 and claimed it for Portugal

  • Manuel I of Portugal1469 – 1521

    monarch · King of Portugal who sent the voyages of Vasco da Gama and Cabral and built Portugal’s Asian trading empire

Before and after

Earlier
1497 Vasco da Gama Reaches India
Later
1510 Portuguese Capture of Goa and Malacca

Themes that include this event

  • The Age of Discovery1415 – 1600

    From Ceuta to the Manila galleons — two centuries in which European ships crossed the oceans and bound the world together by sea