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–Uruguay relations Brazil–Uruguay relations Brazil–Uruguay relations encompass many complex relations over the span of three centuries, beginning in 1680 with the establishment of the Colônia do Sacramento, to the present day, between the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Brazil and Uruguay are neighbouring countries in South America, and share close political, economic and cultural ties. The singularity of the bilateral relationship between the two countries originates from a strong historical connection – marked by important events, such as the establishment of the "Colônia do Sacramento" in 1680, the invasion of the "Banda Oriental" by Brazil in 1815