Portuguese colonization of the Americas won a significant victory in the Second Battle of Guararapes in 1649. By 1654, the Netherlands had surrendered and returned control of all Brazilian land to the Portuguese. In 1751, the State of Maranhão was restructured into the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, with a new capital and government. In 1772, the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão was split into two new states, the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro and the State of Maranhão and Piauí. The new states would fare poorly and only last 3 years. In 1775, the three colonies of Portuguese America (the State of Brazil,
LGBT rights in the Americas nine other nations still have criminal punishment for "buggery" on their statute books. These nine countries are Jamaica, Dominica, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Guyana, the last of which is on mainland South America. They are all former parts of the British West Indies. The British, French, Spanish and Portuguese colonists, who settled most of the Americas, brought Christianity from Europe. In particular, the Roman Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of which oppose legal recognition of homosexual relationships followed by Eastern