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),
Brazilians in Uruguay disputed between the Spanish and Portuguese empires, a good portion of the territory of modern Uruguay changed hands several times. And, shortly before Uruguay was born as an independent nation, it was annexed to Brazil with the name of Cisplatine Province. Last, but not least, slavery was early abolished in Uruguay but persisted in Brazil for decades to come, so many Afro-Brazilian slaves escaped to Uruguay. The 2011 Uruguayan census revealed 12,882 people who declared Brazil as their country of birth. As of 2013, there are over 1,600 Brazilian workers registered in the Uruguayan social security. Well-off Brazilians are increasingly