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 and the subsequent creation of the "Província Cisplatina", and Uruguay's independence from Brazil in 1828. The bilateral relationship was further defined by the Uruguayan Civil War (1839–1851) and the Paraguayan War (1864–1870). Relations during the late-19th to late-20th centuries were overshadowed by domestic politics and resulted in a period of distancing between the two countries. The signing of the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 initiated a period of closer political, economical and cultural ties. Today, the Brazilian government defines Uruguay as a strategic ally and places the bilateral relationship as a foreign policy priority. This is met with reciprocity by