Brazil’s Portuguese: A Map’s Mistake

This is Brazil, and its story begins with a mistake on a map. In the 1400s,

Spain and Portugal were fierce rivals, both racing to claim the New World, and their ships

often clashed at sea. To prevent war, Pope Alexander VI drew an imaginary

line across the globe in 1494, known as the Treaty of Tordesillas. Everything west

of the line belonged to Spain, and everything east went to Portugal. The problem was

the map was wrong, and that line passed straight through what is now Brazil. Six years later,

Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, while sailing to India, accidentally landed

on Brazil’s coast. According to the treaty, the land was Portuguese, so Portugal claimed