Decolonization of the Americas was during the official Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. In 1898, in the Greater Antilles, the United States won the Spanish–American War and occupied Cuba and Puerto Rico, ending Spanish territorial control in the Americas. Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese did not divide their colonial territory in the Americas. The captaincies they created were subdued to a centralized administration in Salvador which reported directly to the Crown in Lisbon. Therefore, it is not common to refer to "Portuguese America" (like Spanish America, Dutch America, etc.), but rather to Brazil, as a unified colony since its very beginnings. As a
Portuguese colonization of the Americas possible voyage of 1473 and several other possible pre-Columbian expeditions to North America in the 15th century, mostly from the Azores in the case of the Portuguese (included in donation royal letters), remain matters of great controversy for scholars. Their existence is based on brief or fragmentary historical documents that are unclear concerning the destinations of voyages. In 1506, King Manuel I of Portugal created taxes for the cod fisheries in Newfoundland waters. João Álvares Fagundes and Pêro de Barcelos established fishing outposts in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around 1521. These were later abandoned, however, when Portuguese colonizers began to