Coelho’s grant extends from the mouth of…
July 1548 CE
Coelho’s grant extends from the mouth of the São Francisco River northward to the vicinity of modern Recife, founded in 1548 as a village on the banks of the Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers and on an island near the mouths of the rivers.
Coelho has found in Pernambuco plenty of fertile land and an excellent climate for the cultivation of cane; all he needed was labor to work in the crops and to keep the "engenhos" (rustic wooden machinery) moving.
At first, the Portuguese had tried to use the indigenous peoples of Brazil, but they soon realized that the indigenous culture was not compatible with the work in the engenhos.
Their solution is to import enslaved people from Africa.
Coelho has converted Pernambuco into a great sugar-producing region, offering the first example of a profitable agrarian export from the New World to Europe.
(Recife is today the second largest city in the Northeastern Region of Brazil, the largest metropolitan area and one of the most important cultural, economic, political and science-minded city in this region.)
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