State of Brazil

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (October 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Estado do Brasil]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|pt|Estado do Brasil}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "State of Brazil" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

State of Brazil Estado do Brasil
1549–1815
Coat of arms
The State of Brazil in 1815
Status	State of the Portuguese Empire
Capital	Salvador (1645–1763) Rio de Janeiro (1763–1815)
Common languages	Portuguese
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Government	Dependent territory under an absolute monarchy
Monarch
• 1521–1557	John III (first)
• 1777–1816	Maria I (last)
Governor General/Viceroy
• 1549–1553	Tomé de Sousa (first)
• 1806–1808	Count of Arcos (last)
History
• End of hereditary captaincies	1549
• Transference of the capital to Rio de Janeiro	1763
• Inconfidência Mineira	1792
• Transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil	22 January 1808
• Elevation of Brazil to Kingdom	16 December 1815
Currency	Portuguese Real
ISO 3166 code	BR
Preceded by Succeeded by Governorate General of Brazil State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro State of Maranhão and Piauí 1654: Dutch Brazil 1630: Dutch Brazil 1815: United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves Kingdom of Brazil

The State of Brazil (Portuguese: Estado do Brasil) was one of the states of the Portuguese Empire, in the Americas during the period of Colonial Brazil.

In 1621, the Governorate General of Brazil was split into two states, the State of Brazil and the State of Maranhão. The state was created on June 13, 1621 by Philip II of Portugal.^[1]

This action divided Portuguese America into two administrative units, with the capital of the State of Brazil located in São Salvador and the capital of the State of Maranhão located in São Luís.

The State of Brazil became a Viceroyalty in January 1763, when the capital of the State of Brazil was transferred from São Salvador to Rio de Janeiro.

This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (February 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The State of Brazil originally included 12 of the original 15 captaincies, all except Ceará (which became subordinate to Pernambuco later) and Maranhão, two parts, which included the subcaptaincy of Para west of the Tordesillas Line at that time (north to south):

• Captaincy of Rio Grande de Norte
• Captaincy of Paraíba (southern Rio Grande & Itamaraca)
• Captaincy of Pernambuco
• Captaincy of Bahia
• Captaincy of Ilhéus (became a comarca of Bahia in 1761)
• Captaincy of Porto Seguro
• Captaincy of Espírito Santo
• Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro (São Tomé and São Vicente first section)
• Captaincy of Santo Amaro
• Captaincy of São Vicente (second section, later renamed Captaincy of São Paulo e Minas de Ouro)
• Captaincy of Santana

• Captaincy of Alagoas 1817 from Pernambuco
• Captaincy of Ceará 1799 re-split from Pernambuco (previously existed as one of 15 original donatary captaincies)
• Captaincy of Goiás
• Captaincy of Mato Grosso
• Captaincy of Minas Gerais
• Captaincy of São Paulo
• Captaincy of Sergipe 1820 from Bahia
• Captaincy of Rio Grande do Sul (from region of Rio Grande de Sao Pedro)
• Captaincy of Santa Catarina

• List of governors-general of Brazil