Brazil can be thought of in three parts: The Northeast coast, the

Southeast, and the Backlands or Amazonia. Before the Europeans landed in

Brazil in the 16th century, there were around 11 million Indians within about
2,000 tribes. Much like the Native Americans in the United States, many of
Brazils indigenous people were killed by colonists either through diseases or
brutality. 90% of their people were eliminated by the Europeans. The Indians
had not been introduced to the germs that the colonists brought with them.
This caused them not to be able fight off infections that the Europeans could.
Along with the germs that they colonists brought, they also forced the
Indians into slavery on rubber and sugar cane plantations. They did so
through new weapons and war methods that the Indians were not
accustomed to. By the 1960s so many indigenous people had been killed
that a man named Jader Figueiredo wrote and published a report that was
7,000 pages long and discussed the events that were taking place against
the Indians. After this publication and another one by Norman Lewis in 1969,
the Indian population steadily grew.
It continued to grow until the Amazon portion of Brazil became a
development site for the military. Bodies of water were cut off by dams,
ranches opened to farm cattle, and roads were made that blocked the
natural flow of the forests. The Indians had their lands taken away as
development grew, and although laws have now been made to avoid this,
they have yet to regain their lands.
The first Europeans to land on Brazil in the 1500s arrived on the
Northeast coast of Brazil. They used the trading posts of the Indians in Rio de
Janeiro and Salvador as landing points. The colonists wished to trade the
Indians for their brazilwood to make a popular dye at the time. As the
colonists began to settle, they started to plant sugar cane as it was
becoming increasingly important for trade. In order to do so, they not only
brought over slaves from Africa, but enslaved the Indians of Brazil.
In order to obtain more slaves, a few explorers would venture out into
the Southeast /highlands region of Brazil. They eventually settled and raised
cattle in this area. In this area, precious metals and stones such as gold and
diamonds were also found. Brazil became the largest producer of gold in
world in the 1700s. After roads were built, the Southeast region became
more populated and later housed the royal government. During World War II,
the Italian immigrants became the main source of building railroad materials,
which greatly impacted Brazils economy.