Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet reached the coast of present-day Brazil near Porto Seguro in April 1500 and claimed the territory for Portugal. Permanent settlement followed, bringing plantations, enslaved Africans and violent pressure on Indigenous peoples. The colony became the centre of a vast Portuguese-speaking society.

Pero Vaz de Caminha's letter became a foundational text of Brazilian writing. Later poets such as Gonçalves Dias, Castro Alves and Oswald de Andrade challenged or reshaped colonial stories about Indigenous identity, slavery and national origins.