If I'm not mistaken, the prevailing winds would be from Africa to the new world....at least that's the direction the hurricanes that form off the coast of Africa take.........

Now if someone would just pinch the wings off that demmed butterfly........

The doldrums are in the area just north of the equator between two belts of trade winds.   Hurricanes originate here because of the large amount of solar radiation that arrives at the earth in this area causes intense heating of the land and ocean. The doldrums are also noted for calms, periods when the winds disappear, trapping sailing vessels for days or weeks.

From http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~feegi/weather.html - here .

So i did infact muddle things up, Cabral would probably have discovered Brasil on the way to India, and not on the way back.

My understanding is that Pope Alexander VI (Borga) gave most of the new world to the Spanish monarchy but this was untenable politically and Portugual and Spain then cut a deal by giving Portugal any terrorities east of a certain line on the map, as was measured from West Africa where the Portugese were then active.  Brazil was not discovered at this point and they were arguing over unknowns.  Just turned out that Brazil sticks out far enough to West Africa to have made it within Portugal's ambit under the treaty.

Starting with Cabral, most Portuguese historians agree that Cabral sailed to Bahia on purpose, because for any reason he knew that there was land there and wanted to gain fame.  He merely used currents as and excuse to sail west to the New World.  And he was on his way to India when he made it to Bahia.

And I never heard of Spain selling Brazil to Spain, but maybe its that the Portuguese king fled to Brazil when Napoleon conquered Portugal. 

The portuguese were the only people to benefit from that relationship. They had just enough troops present in their colonies(10,000 total typically) to keep the cash flowing. Portuguese Brazil was most always in a veritable state of anarchy. It's a really fascinating read  about the social structure.

The most valuable Portuguese colony.  The king even evacuated his regime into Rio when Napoleon conquered Iberian Peninsula

That's why Brazil, by many wealthy plantation owner's consent, as well as Pedro I, Declared Independence.  And because it was the son of Portuguese crown who declared it, no fireshot was heard, and the troops moved out.

Actually, the Portuguese settled along the the coast, and along the riverbanks of the Amazon and made some forays to the river Plata (and when a gold rush started, they began to go to the present region of Minas Gerais, methinks).

Brasil was never a Spanish colony. What occured was this: When Christopher Columbus returned after having discovered America, king John the second was not too pleased. He said that all of the lands Columbus had discovered belonged to the Portuguese crown. Naturally, those evil, evil Spaniards disagreed. Enter the pope, who being a spaniard himself settled a treaty that was both ambiguous, and advantageous to the Spanish. King John II however was no fool. He immediately counter-attacked, and in 1494, the Tordesillas treaty was signed, dividing the world between Spain and Portugal. Brasil fell into Portugal's half, and subsequently, Portuguese adventurers (along with their halfbreed kids) expanded the Portuguese territory, in spite of the treaty (forcing later treaties to be signed). Cabral discovered Brasil en route to India. I don't give much credence to reports of previous discoveries. It was never a Spanish colony, though it could be said that it was part of the Spanish Empire during the Iberian union.

As for the dutch, they occupied the north west for some years, but were eventually expelled. As for them leaving influence, I don't know. Dutch presence was mostly military occupation. According to C.R. Boxer, one of the reasons why the dutch lost was because the Portuguese settled the country, while the Dutch just went there to fight, and then leave.

You're right. I just read a few things about Recife. They did influence urban architecture (particularly, Nassau was responsible for the construction of a few bridges).

Interestingly enough, I found this:

Taken from http://www.geocities.com/eurprin/castile.html - http://www.geocities.com/eurprin/castile.html

1579-1688

King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, both Sicilies, Jerusalem, Portugal, Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Sevilla, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarve, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands,

 Added:

- Habsburg

- Portugal

King Philip II forced the Portuguese to recognized him as King of Portugal (1581).

@ Replaced

- "the Indias" with "the Eastern & Western Indias"

 

 

The map below shows europe after the end of the 30 years war in 1648. I posted it so that the above list of titles makes sense. The map is coloured so that holdings of the same royal family are shown in the same colour. Spainish Habsburgs are dark green, Austrian habsburg are the lighter pink colour, papal enclaves are brown. Some inaccuracies are that portugal is a differant colour and that it's called kingdom of spain not the spains. The reason Tyrol, Habsburg, and Austria are on the title list is because of a wierd german inherritance tradition where by the whole family is lord of a fief and all members bare the title of that fief. That is all members of the Habsburg family have the title ArchDuke of Austria Princely count of Tyrol and Count of Habsburg.

 

 

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice map!

(Sorry, I could not help to say it) Apologies.

About Tordesillas Treaty: It can look a bit strange to divide the world in two parts and saying half for you and half for me but consider:

1) Portugal and Spain were the only maritime power: France, Holland, England... meant nothing at this particular moment.

2) Obviously, other Christian powers were not included in the deal. They were not saying England for you, France for me.

3) The main objective was avoiding quarrel about the spheres of influence. In that sense the treaty was successful: Spain and Portugal did not have any war until 1580 (a phoney war) or even 1640. Meanwhile most of the wars between European powers from, say, 1600 to 1945 were a result of the competence for colonies.