ABSTRACT
The church presence in Brazil was less significant than in Spanish America, and the enormous Brazilian landmass made total territorial occupation impossible. To entice Portuguese settlers to Brazil, the crown developed a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist structure called the captaincy system, whereby huge tracts of land were divided into territories. Sugar became the fundamental product sustaining Brazil in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As many as 4–5 million slaves arrived in Brazil during a slave trade that extended from 1538 to the mid-nineteenth century; not only did enslaved Africans allow Portuguese planters to become extremely wealthy during the sugar boom, but they also contributed to the rich cultural development of Brazil. From the northeast quadrant of Brazil, the economic activity shifted during the early eighteenth century to the southeast segment of the country, especially when diamonds and gold were discovered at an interior state called Minas Gerais.
