In-depth editorial series on the stories shaping Brazil today
Pre-colonial Brazil refers to the territory and peoples of present-day Brazil before Pedro Alvares Cabral's Portuguese fleet sighted the coast on April 22, 1500. Archaeological sites near Santarem and Monte Alegre show human occupation since at least 9000 BCE. By 1500, estimates place between two million and six million people in the region, divided among hundreds of distinct societies and languages. Tupian-speaking peoples occupied much of the Atlantic coast. The era includes the mound-building Marajoara culture at the mouth of the Amazon, the shell-mound sambaqui builders of the southern coast, and managed-forest settlements across southern Amazonia. European contact triggered a demographic collapse driven largely by introduced disease.
Colonial Brazil covers the period from the Portuguese landfall of Pedro Alvares Cabral on 22 April 1500 to independence on 7 September 1822. Portugal first organized the territory through hereditary captaincies granted from 1534, then through a governor-general based in Salvador from 1549. The colonial economy moved through successive export cycles: brazilwood, then sugar in the northeast, then gold and diamonds in Minas Gerais after the 1690s. Enslaved Africans and enslaved indigenous people supplied much of the labor. Bandeirante expeditions and the 1750 Treaty of Madrid pushed the borders west. The Marquis of Pombal reorganized the administration after 1750, and the 1789 Inconfidencia Mineira was an elite conspiracy against the Crown.
The Empire of Brazil was the country's form of government from 7 September 1822, when Pedro I declared independence from Portugal, to 15 November 1889, when a military coup deposed his son Pedro II and proclaimed the First Republic. It was a constitutional monarchy under the 1824 Constitution, with a bicameral parliament and an emperor holding the moderating power. Pedro I abdicated in 1831; after a regency, Pedro II reigned until 1889. The period saw the coffee economy expand, the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), and the gradual end of slavery, completed by the Golden Law of 13 May 1888. The Empire spanned 67 years across two emperors.
The Old Republic (Primeira República) was Brazil's first republican period, lasting from the army's proclamation of the Republic on 15 November 1889 to the armed revolt that brought Getúlio Vargas to power on 24 October 1930. Power rested with state oligarchies, dominated by the coffee economies of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. The Constitution of 1891 created a federal presidential system but barred illiterates and beggars from voting, so the electorate stayed small. The period saw rapid coffee-driven growth, large European immigration, urban reform in Rio de Janeiro, and federal coffee price support from 1906. It also saw the Canudos War (1897), the 1904 Vaccine Revolt, and the tenente military uprisings of the 1920s.
The Vargas Era covers the fifteen years (1930-1945) in which Getúlio Vargas governed Brazil, first as head of a provisional government, then as constitutional president, and from 1937 as dictator. He took power in the armed Revolution of 1930, which deposed President Washington Luís and ended the Old Republic. After a 1934 constitution and a 1935 communist uprising, Vargas staged a coup on 10 November 1937, imposing the Estado Novo dictatorship under the 1937 charter. The period produced industrialization, the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, the 1943 labor code (CLT), state censorship through the DIP, and political imprisonment. Vargas was removed by the military on 29 October 1945.
The Fourth Republic was Brazil's democratic period from 18 September 1946, when a new constitution was promulgated, to 9 April 1964, when a military movement deposed President João Goulart and issued the First Institutional Act. It spanned the presidencies of Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Getúlio Vargas (who took his own life in 1954), Juscelino Kubitschek, Jânio Quadros (who resigned in 1961), and Goulart. The era saw the building of Brasília, rapid industrialization, multiparty elections, and recurring institutional crises. It ended with a civil-military coup amid high inflation, contested base reforms, and Cold War polarization.
The Military Dictatorship was the period from 1964 to 1985 in which Brazil was governed by a succession of army generals after the armed forces removed President João Goulart on April 1, 1964. Five generals held the presidency in turn: Humberto Castelo Branco, Artur da Costa e Silva, Emílio Médici, Ernesto Geisel, and João Figueiredo. The regime ruled through institutional acts, the most severe of which, AI-5 of December 1968, closed Congress, suspended habeas corpus for political crimes, and removed judicial review of government acts. The state's National Truth Commission identified 434 people killed or disappeared. The regime began a controlled political opening in 1974 and handed power to a civilian president in 1985.
Redemocratization is the period from 1985 to 2002 in which Brazil moved from military rule to elected civilian government and price stability. The 1984 Diretas Já campaign sought direct presidential elections, but the Dante de Oliveira amendment was rejected in the Chamber of Deputies on 25 April 1984. An Electoral College then chose Tancredo Neves over Paulo Maluf in January 1985; Neves died before taking office and Vice-President José Sarney was sworn in on 15 March 1985. The 1988 Constitution was promulgated on 5 October 1988. Fernando Collor won the first direct presidential vote in 1989, was removed by impeachment in 1992, and the 1994 Plano Real ended hyperinflation. Fernando Henrique Cardoso governed from 1995 to 2002.
Early 21st-century Brazil covers the decade from 2003 to 2013, spanning two presidential terms of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2011) and the first term of Dilma Rousseff (2011–2014). Lula, of the Workers' Party (PT), won the 2002 election and took office in January 2003, retaining the inflation-targeting and floating-exchange-rate framework established under Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The period coincided with a global commodity boom led by Chinese demand. Brazil received an investment-grade rating in 2008 and its economy grew 7.5 percent in 2010. The Bolsa Família income-transfer program was created by Law 10.836 in 2004. The Mensalão vote-buying scheme surfaced in 2005, with the Supreme Federal Court convicting defendants in 2012. The decade closes with the June 2013 mass protests.
The Polarization Era is the period of Brazilian political conflict that began with the nationwide protests of June 2013 and continues today. It spans Operation Car Wash (2014), the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, the 2022 election won by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the invasion of Brazil's three branches of government on January 8, 2023, and Lula's third term. The era is marked by recurring institutional disputes among the executive, the Congress, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and the electoral courts. Several central facts, including the legal characterization of January 8, remain under formal judicial proceedings.