Portuguese colonization of the Americas Bay. He and his nephew, Estácio de Sá, then founded the city of Rio de Janeiro in March 1567. In 1621, Philip II of Portugal divided the Governorate General of Brazil into two separate and autonomous colonies, the State of Maranhão and the State of Brazil. Regarding this period it is preferable to refer to "Portuguese America" rather than "Portuguese Brazil" or "Colonial Brazil", as the states were two separate colonies, each with their own governor general and government. Between 1630 and 1654, the Netherlands came to control part of Brazil's Northeast region, with their capital in Recife. The Portuguese
Monarchies in the Americas monarchical powers, who, while they remained on the European continent, thereafter established new American administrations overseen by delegated viceroys. Some of these colonies were, in turn, replaced by either republican states or locally founded monarchies, ultimately overtaking the entire American holdings of some European monarchs; those crowns that once held or claim territory in the Americas include the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swedish, and Russian, and even Baltic Courland, Holy Roman, Prussian and Norwegian. Certain of the locally established monarchies were themselves also overthrown through revolution, leaving five current pretenders to American thrones. The Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia was a