who claimed land in south america for portugal
John II of Portugal
title: Portuguese colonization of the Americas text: Portuguese colonization of the Americas Portugal was the leading country in the European exploration of the world in the 15th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 divided the Earth outside Europe into Castilian and Portuguese global territorial hemispheres for exclusive conquest and colonization. Portugal colonized parts of South America (mostly Brazil), but also made some unsuccessful attempts to colonize North America in present-day Canada. Based on the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Portuguese Crown claimed it had territorial rights in the area visited by the Genoese explorer John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 on behalf of the title: Portugal text: to the Portuguese territory of Brazil, at that time a colony of the Portuguese Empire, in South America. This episode is known as the Transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil. With the occupation by Napoleon, Portugal began a slow but inexorable decline that lasted until the 20th century. This decline was hastened by the independence in 1822 of the country's largest colonial possession, Brazil. In 1807, as Napoleon's army closed in on Lisbon, the Prince Regent João VI of Portugal transferred his court to Brazil and established Rio de Janeiro as the capital of the Portuguese Empire. In 1815, title: Portugal text: Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India and brought economic prosperity to Portugal and its population of 1.7 million residents, helping to start the Portuguese Renaissance. In 1500, the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real reached what is now Canada and founded the town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador, long before the French and English in the 17th century, and being just one of many Portuguese Colonizations of the Americas. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. Ten years later, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa in title: History of Portugal text: Pacheco Pereira (author of the "Esmeraldo"); nine chaplains; and some 1,200 men. From Cape Verde, they sailed southwest across the Atlantic. On 22 April 1500, they caught sight of land in the distance. They disembarked and claimed this new land for Portugal. This was the coast of what would later become the Portuguese colony of Brazil. The real goal of the expedition, however, was to open sea trade to the empires of the east. Trade with the east had effectively been cut off since the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Accordingly, Cabral turned away from exploring the coast of the title: Portugal–Spain relations text: Columbus to the Caribbean in 1492, both states began acquiring territory in the New World. As a result of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Portugal acquired its most potentially important colony, Brazil (much of the South American continent), as well as a number of possessions in Africa and Asia, while Castile took the rest of South America and much of the North American continent. This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde Islands (already Portuguese) and the islands claimed for Castile by Columbus on his first voyage. Although the Treaty of Tordesillas attempted to clarify their empires,