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 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