Discovery of BrazilThe European discovery of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between the kings of Portugal and Castile, which were the leading seafaring powers at the time. The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, that created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between those two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian was to be property of Portugal, west of it of Spain. The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two halves, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Portuguese. The Treaty of Tordesillas was arguably the most decisive event in all Brazilian history, since it alone determined that the country was settled by Portugal instead of Spain. Indeed, the present extent of Brazil's coastline is almost exactly that defined by the treaty. Discovery and early settlement On April 22, 1500, during the reign of King Manuel I, a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1000 men following Vasco da Gama's way to India, around Africa. The place where Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro ("safe harbor"), in Northeastern Brazil. After the voyage of Cabral, the Portuguese concentrated their efforts on the lucrative possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to the new land to chart the coast and to obtain brazilwood. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable dye to stain luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes. In this early stage of the colonisation of Brazil, and also later, the Portuguese frequently relied on the help of European adventurers who lived together with the aborigines and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were the Portuguese João Ramalho, who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo, and Diogo Álvares Correia, nicknamed Caramuru, who lived among the Tupinamba natives near today's Salvador de Bahia.
As time passed, the Portuguese realised that some European countries, especially France, were also sending excursions to the land to extract brazilwood. Worried about the foreign incursions and hoping to find mineral riches, the Portuguese crown decided to send large missions to take possession of the land and combat the French. In 1530, an expedition led by Martim Afonso de Sousa arrived to patrol the entire coast, ban the French, and to create the first colonial villages, like São Vicente, at the coast. 
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Portuguese map (1574) by Luís Teixeira, showing the location of the hereditary captaincies of Brazil.