Portuguese colonization of the Americas the State of Maranhão and Piauí; and the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro) were united into a singular colony, under the State of Brazil. This arrangement would last until the end of Colonial Brazil. As a result, Brazil did not split into several countries, as happened to its Spanish-speaking neighbors. The "Early Navigators" practically have been to the entire Caribbean, from The Bahamas to Jamaica. Papiamento, one of the languages spoken in the islands, is a mixture of Portuguese , Spanish and African languages. Portuguese merchants have been trading in the West Indies. To such an extent, that, for
Decolonization of the Americas and France has fully "integrated" most of its former colonies as fully constituent "departments" of France. The United States of America declared independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776 (although the event is now commemorated on July 4, the date when the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted by Congress), in so doing becoming the first independent, foreign-recognized nation in the Americas and the first European colonial entity to break from its mother country. Britain formally acknowledged American independence in 1783 after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War. Although initially occupying only the land east of the Mississippi