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 and the United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris, the Permanent Delegation of Brazil is headed by Ambassador Marcia Donner Abreu. Brazil joined UNESCO in 1946, and has been a member of its executive board several times, most recently 2007–09. Brazil and the United Nations Federative Republic of Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations and participates in all of its specialized agencies. Brazil is among the twenty top contributors to United Nations peacekeeping operations, and has participated in peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East, the former Belgian Congo, Cyprus, Mozambique, Angola, and more recently East