Brazil Brazil. However, the decentralized and unorganized tendencies of the captaincy colonies proved problematic, and in 1549 the Portuguese king restructured them into the Governorate General of Brazil, a single and centralized Portuguese colony in South America. In the first two centuries of colonization, Indigenous and European groups lived in constant war, establishing opportunistic alliances in order to gain advantages against each other. By the mid-16th century, cane sugar had become Brazil's most important export, and slaves purchased in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the slave market of Western Africa (not only those from Portuguese allies of their colonies in Angola and Mozambique),
Brazil–East Timor relations interacted with Timor-Leste via organizations they are both members of, such as the UN. In fact, since 1999, Brazil has participated in five peace keeping missions in Timor-Leste. Brazil’s involvement in these missions is consistent with its contribution to interventions in Portuguese-speaking states, such as Mozambique and Angola. Increasing the country’s stake in Timore-Leste’s independence allowed Brazil “to actively demonstrate its independent foreign policy, its commitment to self-determination, and its expansion of economic ties with the Global South”. Timor-Leste has received Brazilian presidents twice, once before official statehood and once after. Former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso visited the country in