The Portuguese were the first European settlers to arrive in the area that is modern day Brazil. They were led by the adventurous Pedro Alvares Cabral, who began the colonial period in 1500. At the time, the area was inhabited by approximately seven million native Indians. Most tribes were peripatetic, with only limited agriculture and temporary dwellings, although villages often had as many as 5,000 inhabitants. The natives had a rich cultural life, though both tribal warfare and cannibalism were ubiquitous. The few remaining traces of Brazil's Indian tribes reveal little of their lifestyle, unlike the evidence from other Andean tribes. Today, fewer than 200,000 of Brazil's indigenous people survive, most of whom inhabit the jungle areas.

In search of valuable goods for European trade, other Portuguese explorers followed Cabral; however, many more came in search of unsettled land and the opportunity to escape poverty in Portugal itself. The only item of value they discovered was the pau do brasil (brazil wood tree) from which they created red dye. Unlike the colonizing philosophy of the Spanish, the Portuguese in Brazil were much less focused at first on conquering, controlling, and developing the country. Most were impoverished sailors, who were far more interested in profitable trade and subsistence agriculture than in territorial expansion. Thus, the country's interior remained unexplored.

Nonetheless, sugar soon came to Brazil, and with it came imported slaves. To a degree unequaled in most of the American colonies, the Portuguese settlers frequently intermarried with both the Indians and the African slaves, and there were also mixed marriages between the Africans and Indians. As a result, Brazil's population is intermingled to a degree that is unseen elsewhere. Most Brazilians possess some combination of European, African, Amer-Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern lineage, and this multiplicity of cultural legacies is a notable feature of current Brazilian culture.

The move to open the country's interior coincided with the discovery of gold in the south-central part of the country in the 1690's. Unfortuantely, the country's gold deposits didn't pan out, and by the close of the 18th century, focus had returned to the coastal agricultural regions. In 1807, as Napoleon Bonaparte closed in on Portugal's capital city of Lisbon, the Portuguese monarchy shipped itself off to Brazil. Once there, Dom Joao established the colony as the capital of his empire. By 1821, the situation in Europe had settled and Dom Joao could return to Lisbon. He left his son, Dom Pedro I, in charge of Brazil. The following year, when the king attempted to return Brazil to subordinate status as a colony, Dom Pedro brandished his sword and declared the country's independence from Portugal (and his own independence from his father!)

In the 19th century, coffee took the place of sugar as Brazil's most important product. The boom in coffee production brought a wave of almost one million European immigrants, many of them Italians. In 1889, the wealthy coffee magnates backed a military coup, the emperor fled, and Brazil became a republic. The coffee planters virtually owned the country and the government for the next thirty years, until the worldwide depression evaporated coffee demand. For the next half century Brazil struggled with governmental instability, military coups, and a fragile economy. In 1989, the country enjoyed its first democratic election in almost three decades. Unfortunately, the Brazilians made the mistake of electing Fernando Collor de Mello as their president. Mello's corruption did nothing to help the economy, but his peaceful removal from office indicated that at least that the country's political and governmental structures were stable.

Brazil has the sixth largest population in the world--about 148 million people--which has doubled in the past 30 years. Because of its size, there are only 15 people per sq. km, concentrated mainly along the coast and in the major cities, where two-thirds of the people now live. Over 19 million people live in greater Sao Paulo and 10 million in greater Rio.

While the Portuguese language has been greatly influenced by the numerous Indian and African dialects that it has encountered in Brazil, it remains the dominant language in the country today. In fact, the Brazilian dialect has become the dominant influence in the development of the Portuguese language for the simple reason that Brazil has 15 times the population of Portugal and a much more dynamic linguistic environment.