Portuguese colonization of the Americas Portuguese colonization of the Americas Portugal was the leading country in the European exploration of the world in the 15th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 divided the Earth outside Europe into Castilian and Portuguese global territorial hemispheres for exclusive conquest and colonization. Portugal colonized parts of South America (mostly Brazil), but also made some unsuccessful attempts to colonize North America in present-day Canada. Based on the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Portuguese Crown claimed it had territorial rights in the area visited by the Genoese explorer John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 on behalf of the
Monarchies in the Americas status of an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954, from which Aruba was split in 1986 as a separate constituent country of the larger kingdom. The former Netherlands Antilles again split as three areas in 2010. The monarch is represented in each region by the Governor of Aruba, Alfonso Boekhoudt, the Governor of Curaçao, Frits Goedgedrag, and the Governor of Sint Maarten, Eugene Holiday. The British Crown possesses a number of overseas territories in the Americas, for whom Queen Elizabeth II is monarch. In North America are Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands,