Martim Afonso de Sousa is a Portuguese captain and administrator who has work with the Brésil and with the the Indies on behalf of the Portuguese crown. It was born about 1500 with Villa-Viçosa.

Brazil had been officially discovered by Cabral in 1500.

After this first voyage, Brazil represented for the Portuguese only Indiens, animals, birds and a certain wood called Pau-brasil (wood brasil) which was used as dyeing in Europe. The small forwarding of the following year with Americo Vespúcio did not modify this image. This time, they were badly accepted by the Indians and were satisfied to go up the coast, the eye on the calendar to baptize the geographical accidents: Cape Saint Castling, Rio São Miguel… It is only into 1503 that the first counter with Bahia was created. A first attempt at distribution of the grounds was made, between 1502 and 1505 with Fernando de Noronha and a group of converted Jews: “of the new Christians”. At the time all the attention of the Portuguese went to the trade with the Indies and Brazil appeared to the king Manuel Ier only like one stopover towards the spice S.

The forwarding of 1503 with Gonçalo Coelho and as Americo Vespucio showed as the Corsaire S French were very active on the Brazilian coasts exploiting Pau-brasil and threatening the colony. This one should thus be occupied more especially as the trade with the Indies weakened and that the Spaniards discovered Or in the close territories.

Since 1504, the French ordered by the captain of Gonneville on the boat the Hope, arrived at the island of Santa Catarina, the current Florianópolis, pushed by the storm and the scurvy.

In 1526, a forwarding coastguard was organized under the orders of Christovão Jaques which overcame three French ships. Colonization became necessary: it is what Martim Afonso was charged to undertake.

Martim Afonso formed initially part of the court of the duke of Bragance then of that of the crown prince Jean. In 1523, Martim Afonso was charged by the new king, Jean III, to accompany Éléonore, widow of king Manuel, at the time of his return towards its native land. There, in Spain, it accompanied Charles Quint in his fight against France. In spite of its marriage with Spanish, Anna Pimentel, it returned to Portugal in 1525 accompanying Infante Spanish Catherine by Austria, sister of the emperor intended to link itself with the king Jean III.

In 1530, Martim Afonso appointed captain of squadron and adviser of the Crown were sent to Brazil. There was the full jurisdiction on the people who accompanied it and also on those which it would meet. It had the right to make justice and to even apply the capital punishment. It was charged to dissociate the properties and to distribute the grounds as it heard it, to name notaries and law officers, in short, to install the Portuguese administration.

It left Lisbon on December 3rd 1530, accompanied by 400 people on board four ships. With the height of the Pernambouc, they hailed a French boat charged with wood.

The fleet separated towards north and the south. In the Bay of all the Saints (Bahia), one made the meeting of the Portuguese Diogo Álvares Correia says Caramurú (god of the Thunder in indigenous language) which had lived for 22 years at the place, had married an Indian Paraguaçu and had been integrated in the population. The April 30th 1531, Martim arrived on the site of current the Rio de Janeiro where it installed a village. , It moved towards current the Cananeia and sent a forwarding of 80 men to go up the river Iguape. Itself descended the coast towards the Rio from Prata and sent his/her brother to seek gold. This last returned bredouille and they realized that, according to the Traité of Tordesillas, they were out of Spanish grounds.

The January 20th 1532, they founded the port of São Vicente which was the first true establishment in Brazil where they construirent a fort and began the first helped permanent settlement of João Ramalho. This one created also a second settlement on the grounds of his/her father-in-law Tibiriçá on the margins of the Rio Piratininga, future town of São Paulo.

The brother of Martim, Pero Lopes de Sousa left São Vicente the May 12th 1532 and with the Pernambouc, met 30 men that the Corsaire French Jean Duperet had left in a fortress; it beat them and reinstalled strong Portuguese. After having pursued during two years the dream of gold, Martim turned to agriculture and started to develop the culture of the Canne with sugar. For that, it distributed grounds.

Between 1534 and 1536, the king increased the donations and created the hereditary harbor offices on the model with success of the the Azores which had a ground more fertile than Brazil and was closer to the metropolis. Thus, the coast was distributed to Martim Afonso itself, Pero Lopes Sousa, Pero Góis, Pero C Campo Tourinho, Vasco Fernandes Cotinho, Jorge Figueiredo Correiá, Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Duarte Coelho, Antônio Cardoso de Barros, Fernão Álvares de Andrade, João de Barros and Aires da Cunha.

In general, the harbor offices were a disaster for lack of capital and labor. Only two establishments thrived: that of São Vicente with João Ramalho (Martim Afonso had been pointed already out) and that of Pernambouc with Duarte Coelho which profited from the former settlements and the proximity of the metropolis.

Martim returned to Portugal in 1533 and was named in 1534 governor of the Indies what it was until in 1539. The Indian territory consisted of a mosaic of kingdoms on war footing. There, it fought successively for the sultan of Cambaia and the King de Cochim.

Of 1541 with 1545, he was again governor of part of the Indies. It spent its last years to the Portugal, where it died in 1571.

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