Page 58 - All About History - Issue 59-17

Time Traveller’s Handbook

Colonial

Brazil Brazil, 17th century Dos & don’ts

ortuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral planted the nation’s flag on the Brazilian shore Sleep in a hammock.
as early as 1500, but over 100 years later only a few trading posts have been established Keeping off the forest floor at
on the east coast. While the Portuguese night is the only way to avoid
PEmpire focuses on expansion into being eaten alive by insects.
India and the Far East, Brazil has been
divided into 15 captaincies that are run Wear thick clothing.
by Portuguese nobles. They run these Fig.01 Although the heat can be
as their own private fiefdoms while fierce, the spiny vegetation of
logging brazilwood trees for its the barren hinterland is even worse.
extremely valuable red dye. Leather chaps and jackets are a must.
But in São Paulo, still the
only inland settlement of Bring trinkets and cloth.
any size, second- and third-generation Brazil If you aren’t a hardened
settlers are exploring the country’s interior, survivalist, trading with
including its mountainous highlands and friendly tribes is your best chance of
deep jungle. These explorers, or bandeirantes, getting food outside the coastal towns.
travel in groups of several hundred, following the river
courses on journeys that last months or years. Hoping Cover your mouth when
to find gold or emeralds, the main source of wealth for you sneeze.
most of them is capturing the indigenous Tupi they SãO PaUlO Indigenous tribes have no
meet and selling them into slavery. resistance to European diseases and
tens of thousands will die in smallpox
Where To STay and influenza epidemics.

Make sure to stay away from the indigenous villages Mistake the phrase ‘drogas
because the bandeirantes are actively hunting down tribes, de sertão’ for narcotics.
enslaving whoever they can and exterminating the rest. Bandeirantes use this term,
This means that many of the indigenous people are hostile meaning ’wilderness drugs,’ to cover
to outsiders, even leading their own raiding parties. many herbs and plants including Brazil
Jesuit missionaries have set up fortified communities nuts, cocoa, guarana and cloves.
known as ‘reductions’ to try and protect the natives. But the
slavers are growing increasingly brazen and have Worry about the
even started attacking these refugee camps. São 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
Paulo is your safest option. This future megacity is The boundary between the
still a very poor frontier town, notable only for its Spanish and Portuguese empires in
large Jesuit college, but it is well defended. South America will be redrawn in 1750
anyway, thanks to the bandeirantes.

Fig.02
Be surprised to see Tupi
in the bandeiras.
Most of the expedition
workforce is made up of indigenous
people, employed or owned by the
white bandeirantes.
Be fooled by dancing slaves.
They may be practicing
capoeira, a martial art that is
disguised as a dance, to avoid suspicion.

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