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 Uruguay) with the intention of destroying the "Liga Federal". The Brazilian forces, thanks to their numerical and material superiority, occupied Montevideo on January 20, 1817, and after struggling for three years in the countryside, defeated Artigas in the Battle of Tacuarembó. In 1821, the "Banda Oriental", was annexed by Brazil under the name of "Província Cisplatina". In response, the Thirty-Three Orientals, led by Juan Antonio Lavalleja, declared independence from Brazil on August 25, 1825, supported by the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina). This led to the 500-day Cisplatine War. Neither side gained the upper hand,