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
Indentured servitude in the Americas Indo-Caribbeans form a majority in Guyana, a plurality in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, and a substantial minority in Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St Lucia and other Caribbean islands. The British government finally ended indentures in the Caribbean in 1917 by prohibiting the further transportation of persons from India for purposes of servitude for debt. Indentured servitude in the Americas Indentured servitude in the Americas was a means by which immigrants, typically young Europeans under 25, came to the Americas from the early 17th to the early 20th centuries. Immigrants would contract to work for an American employer for a time