They possessed the Brazil lands and all their natural resources that seem lucrative.
Explanation:
On April 22, 1500, during the reign of King Manuel I, a fleet led by navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral landed in Brazil and took possession of the land in the name of the king. Although it is debated whether previous Portuguese explorers had already been in Brazil, this date is widely and politically accepted as the day of the discovery of Brazil by Europeans. Álvares Cabral was leading a large fleet of 13 ships and more than 1,000 men following Vasco da Gama ‘s way to India, around Africa. The place where Álvares Cabral arrived is now known as Porto Seguro (“safe harbor”) in Northeastern Brazil.
After the voyage of Álvares Cabral, the Portuguese concentrated their efforts on the lucrative possessions in Africa and India and showed little interest in Brazil. Between 1500 and 1530, relatively few Portuguese expeditions came to the new land to chart the coast and obtain brazilwood, which the Portuguese had identified as a valuable commodity upon arrival and from where Brazil gets its name. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable dye to give color to luxury textiles. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who initially labored in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives, and axes.
In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil and also later, the Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Europeans who lived together with the indigenous peoples and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these were João Ramalho, who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today’s São Paulo, and Diogo Álvares Correia, nicknamed Caramuru, who lived among the Tupinambá natives near today’s Salvador da Bahia.
During the first 150 years of the colonial period, attracted by the vast natural resources and untapped land, other European powers tried to establish colonies in several parts of Brazilian territory in defiance of the Treaty of Tordesillas. French colonists tried to settle in present-day Rio de Janeiro from 1555 to 1567 (the so-called France Antarctique episode), and in present-day São Luís from 1612 to 1614 (the so-called France Équinoxiale). Jesuits arrived early and established Sao Paulo, evangelizing the natives. These native allies of the Jesuits assisted the Portuguese in driving out the French.
The unsuccessful Dutch intrusion into Brazil was longer-lasting and more troublesome to Portugal. Dutch privateers began by plundering the coast; they sacked Bahia in 1604, and even temporarily captured the capital Salvador. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch set up more permanently in the northwest and controlled a long stretch of the coast most accessible to Europe, without penetrating the interior. But the colonists of the Dutch West India Company in Brazil were in a constant state of siege. After several years of open warfare, the Dutch withdrew by 1654. Little French and Dutch cultural and ethnic influence remained of these failed attempts.
The discovery of gold in the early 18th century was met with great enthusiasm by Portugal, which had an economy in disarray following years of wars against Spain and the Netherlands. A gold rush quickly ensued, with people from other parts of the colony and Portugal flooding the region in the first half of the 18th century.
The Napoleonic Wars in Europe, especially the Peninsular War and its resulting treaties, would reshape the political structure of Brazil in the early 19th century from a colony of Portugal to the Kingdom of Brazil.
