Show brazil larger territorially than united states and alaska combined li brazil 11 larger arger terri territorially torla fly than the united states and alaska together Is in effect new so go far as the general knowledge of the world goes yet in history is very old for the he western hemisphere writes marc T green in the christian science monitor portuguese wanderers landed on its shores at the very beginning of the sixteenth century As early as 1502 goncalo coelho sailed into the matchless harbor of rio de janeiro for three quarters of a century thereafter brazil or rather the strip along the sea was a portuguese colony then spain now becoming mistress of tile the seas took it over only to see it regained by portugal in 1640 until early in the nineteenth century it a part of the ever dwindling portuguese colonial possessions then dom pedro 1 I in exile in the azores islands found confronting him the choice of returning to portugal as sovereign or of going to brazil as the first emperor of an independent nation of 0 it hr ruled in brazil until 1831 when lie he was succeeded by his son dom pedro 11 II both these reigns not only retarded the cultural development of brazil but were a reversion to something very like eval despotism and oppression of the common people during them there came those enormous importations of slaves from africa which were in large measure responsible for the present mixture of blood and racial characteristics in brazil for an overwhelming majority of tile the population Is either part colored or part indian W with ith hundreds of thousands possessed of both bloods put but the very extent to which this slave trade had grown became its ultimate death blow I 1 |