Place and date of birth: Captaincy of Paraíba, 1595. Place and date of death: The Netherlands, 1656. Job title and main information: Indigenous interpreter and mediator (1631-1644). Regent and captain…
Surgeon of Portuguese origin. Lived and worked in the city of Lisbon and in the village of Amarante. He was a Mayor Surgeon of the Navy, had fought and practiced his profession in Brazil on several occasions. He belonged to the Holy Office of Inquisition, in Lisbon.
The journey of the Coutinho brothers reveals a family strategy where trade and services provided overseas became an important factor for social ascension. The brothers consolidated the connections between the…
Captain General Diego Flores de Valdés was one of the most prominent and experienced navigators of the Spanish navy, with over thirty years of service to the Crown.
Diogo de Campos Moreno, an essential figure in the first two decades of the 17th century in Portuguese America, was Sargento Mor of Brazil. He was born in 1566 in Tangiers or Ilha Terceira. Hélio Viana affirms that his North African origin is more probable, since he makes some allusions to this region at the beginning of the Livro da Razão and because his nephew Luís de Guevara was also from there (Vianna, 1955: 40).
An important figure in the history of the captaincy of Pernambuco, fourth capitão donatário Pernambuco Duarte de Albuquerque Coelho lived at the court of Philip IV in Madrid and participated in major events in Brazil, such as the recovery of Bahia (1624) and the fight against the Dutch in his captaincy (1630-1639).
Was a Dutch soldier, writer and administrator who worked in Dutch Brazil between 1635 and 1644. He was born in Amsterdam, in the year 1596, but little is known about his early years. As a young man, Herckmans studied History and Latin, before starting his professional career in Russia, for the company De Vogelaer.
Fadrique de Toledo Osorio, also known as Fadrique de Toledo, was a Spanish military officer and admiral, Captain General of the Navy of the Ocean Sea and of the People of Portugal, famed after leading the fleet that reconquered Salvador de Bahia in 1625 after eleven months of Dutch occupation.
Date of birth: c.1548, Viana de Alvito, Portugal Date of death: Aldeia do Espírito Santo (current Camaçari in Bahia), 27 January 1625 A Jesuit of Portuguese origin who arrived in…
Date of birth: Salvador, ca. 1570. Date of death: unknown, s. XVII. Heiress of the powerful Barros Lobo clan, from Bahia, the relevance of Felícia Lobo lay in the meticulous…
Place and date of birth: Olinda (Pernambuco, Brazil), 1609 Place and date of death: Bemba (Congo), 1653 Catholic missionary and teacher of the first religious schools for nobles in the…
Place and date of birth: Liebstadt, Germany, 1610 Place and date of death: Angola, 1644 An astronomer, cartographer and naturalist, he was in Brazil between 1638 and 1644. He participated…
New Christian merchant of Portuguese origin. He developed his business mainly in the captaincy of Pernambuco (Brazil), where he acquired great political and social prestige. He was also often involved as a contractor, administering several of the commercial rights of the crowns of Portugal and Castile.
Date of birth: Second half of the 17th century, Trancoso (Bahia) Date of death: Unknown Merchant, banker. Link to BRASILHIS Database: https://brasilhis.usal.es/es/personaje/joao-juan-nunes-saraiva-nunez-saravia New Christian merchant of Portuguese origin. He conducted…
Born in Dillenburg (Germany) in the Holy Roman Empire in 1604, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen was the firstborn son of the marriage of Johan VII van Nassau-Siegen (1561-1623) to Margaretha van Holstein (1583-1658). In turn, Johan VII was the son of Johan VI van Nassau-Dillenburg (1535-1606), brother of Willem I (1533-1584), of Zwijger (the Silent), Prince of Orange, and one of the main leaders who worked for the formation of the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Boxer, 2004: 94-95; Mello, 2006: 22-27; Mout, 1979: 14-17).
The year of Jorge de Mascarenhas’ birth is uncertain, some claim to have been in 1570, others in 1585, or even in 1579, as indicated by the most reliable source (WHITE, 2004), son of the marriage between Francisco Mascarenhas (c. 1530-1608), Portuguese admiral and governor of Hormuz between 1569 and 1572, and Jerônima de Castro Lima e Pereira, niece of Francisco Barreto, governor of India.
Date of birth: around 1610 “Creole” wife of Salvador Correá de Sá e Benavides, son of Martim Correa de Sá and grandson of Salvador Correa de Sá, o velho, governors…
Date of birth: Rogalin, 1592. Date of death: Gdansk, 1656. Military man of Polish origin. He traveled to Brazil as a captain in the service of the West India Company…
Birth: 1555, Évora. Apothecary. Link to BRASILHIS Database: https://brasilhis.usal.es/es/personaje/luis-antunes Apothecary of Portuguese origin. He worked and lived in the city of Olinda, in Captaincy of Pernambuco. His apothecary shop and…
Merchant of Portuguese origin. He developed his business in both Asia and Brazil, using his accumulated capital to become involved in the affairs of the Crown of Castile. In this way, he became one of Philip IV’s main financiers, standing out as an example of the close interrelation between the commercial circuits of the Iberian Atlantic and the Carreira da Índia.
Physician of Portuguese origin. He studied at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Évora and at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Salamanca. Bachelor of Medicine in 1600, by de University of Salamanca. Major Physician of the Bahia’s Prison and Physician of the city of Olinda.
Date of birth: second half of the 16th century Date of death: first half of the 17th century Dutch merchant who visited Portuguese America on several occasions. His activity took…
Date of birth: 1530, España Cosmographer, navigator and governor of the lands of the Estrecho de Magallanes, author of “Viage al Estrecho de Magallanes em los años de 1579-1580 y…
Birth: 1542, Évora Jesuit, Provincial of Brazil (1594-1603) Link to BRASILHIS Database: https://brasilhis.usal.es/es/personaje/pero-rodrigues-s Was born in Evora, in the year 1542. He joined the Society of Jesus in his hometown…
Date of birth: 1602, Cádiz Date of death: 1686, Lisboa Governor of Rio de Janeiro and the Southern Partition. Link to BRASILHIS Database: https://brasilhis.usal.es/es/personaje/salvador-correia-de-sa-e-benavides-correa-de-sa-e-benevides Salvador Correa de Sá e Benevides…
Date of birth: 1547, Barcelos Date of death: 1631, Lisbon Governor of the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro in two stages, from 1568 to 1571 and from 1577 to 1598….
Date of death: 1667 Member of the Sá family, one of the most dominant in Rio de Janeiro in the 16th and 17th centuries. Married to Luis de Céspedes Xeria,…