São Paulo is one of 26 states of the Federative Republic of Brazil. It has been inhabited since 12000 BC, when the first indigenous people came to the area. Portuguese and Spanish navigators arrived in the 15th century. In 1532, Portuguese explorer Martim Afonso de Sousa officially founded the first Portuguese settlement in the Americas, the village of São Vicente.

In the 17th century, the bandeirantes accelerated exploration of the interior, expanding Portugal's territories in South America beyond the agreed borders set by the Treaty of Tordesilhas.

After the Captaincy of São Paulo was established in the 18th century, the region increased in political importance, although it achieved more significant economic and population growth after the independence of Brazil.

Under the Empire of Brazil, São Paulo's economy was based on coffee plantations. In the second half of the 19th century, European immigrants increasingly replaced slave labor on plantations, mainly Italians attracted by the imperial government's offer of land. Increased coffee cultivation and the construction of railroads drove the growth of the state's economy. In the 20th century, especially in the Vargas Era, state economic development primarily centered on the industrial sector, which fueled production for all of Brazil.

São Paulo's population greatly increased in the modern era. It has one of the country's most urbanized populations, and today is one of the most diverse in the country, mainly descended from Italians, Portuguese, indigenous peoples, Afro-Brazilians, and migrants from other regions of the country. Other populations such as Arabs, Germans, Spaniards, Japanese and Chinese also have a significant presence in the state.

Indigenous peoples

Indigenous peoples have lived in São Paulo since approximately 12000 BC. Scribd. Available at http://pt.scribd.com/doc/ 35430825 / The-Guarani-peoples-in-the-region-of-Indaiatuba. Accessed on May 17, 2013. Around 1000, its coast was invaded by Tupi speakers from the Amazon rainforest.BUENO, E. Brazil: a history . 2nd edition. São Paulo. Rile up. 2003. p. 19. When Europeans arrived in the 16th century, the indigenous people on the coast were mostly Tupinambás, Tupiniquins and Carijós, with Macro-Jê speakers in the interior.ENVIRONMENT SECRETARIAT (SMA). On the Biodiversity Paths of São Paulo (Org. Marcelo Leite). São Paulo: Imprensa Oficial, 2007. [See "Map of native vegetation and ethnic groups in the state of São Paulo in the 16th - 18th centuries", in: JORDÃO, 2011, p. 194, PDF.]

European colonization

The first European settlements in São Paulo were unofficial. , a Portuguese exile and castaway known as "the Bachelor of Cananéia", is considered the original founder of the São Vicente settlement by many historians. Pessoa governed São Vicente and controlled the region's trade. A document dated April 23, 1499, found by historian Jaime Cortesão suggests that Pessoa lived in Brazil before Pedro Álvares Cabral arrived in 1500: the document reports an unofficial trip by Bartolomeu Dias to Brazil. Another document, from 1526, describes São Vicente as a village of a dozen houses, only one of them built of stone, and one tower for defense.. This initial nucleus was probably begun by castaways.

On January 22, 1502, Amerigo Vespucci named São Vicente Island, the location of the settlement of the same name, after one of the patron saints of Portugal, Saint Vincent of Saragossa, while mapping the coast of Brazil.

In 1530, Martim Afonso de Sousa left Portugal for Brazil, assigned by King John III to establish a colony to confirm the power of Portugal's monarchy. De Sousa was instructed to remove Pessoa from power in São Vicente. Having warning of De Sousa's intentions, Pessoa had the settlement burned and its people fled to the settlement of Cananéia. On the ruins of the old city, de Sousa founded São Vicente officially on January 20, 1532, making it the first legal Portuguese settlement in Brazil. De Sousa distributed land grants and constructed several buildings, leaving São Vicente populated and organized. São Vicente hosted the Americas' first parliament and held the continents' first elections. In 1536, a group led by Pessoa attacked, looted and burned São Vicente, where they hanged Henrique Montes, a former friend of Pessoa who had criticized him to the king to receive land. De Sousa was granted a hereditary captaincy, the Captaincy of São Vicente, in 1534.

When de Sousa sailed from Brazil on May 22, 1533, he left his wife Ana Pimentel the first grantee in Brazil. She in turn appointed Brás Cubas as governor of the captaincy.

The port of São Vicente suffered the first major ecological disaster in Brazil: land near the sea had been cleared and farmed. Since the soil was sandy and had lost its protective layer, rains took the sand out to sea, silting the port of São Vicente, the only access to the Portuguese mainland. Given the loss of the port and the attack by the Bachelor of Cananeia on São Vicente, Cubas decided to set up a more sheltered port in the Enguaguaçu region. The fact that the name of this place was indigenous, not Portuguese, shows that the initiative was not official. The port was transferred in 1536, and a settlement established there which was later called Santos. Cubas attracted settlers there from the surrounding area and built the first Catholic mission in Brazil, Santa Casa (Holy House). The village of São Vicente went into decline.

Despite the difficulties of crossing the Serra do Mar, the fields of the plateau attracted settlers and made São Paulo an exception in early Portuguese colonization, which usually concentrated on the coasts. Looking for precious metals, the Portuguese crossed the Serra do Mar by an old indigenous route through Peabiru. In 1553, Portuguese settlers founded the Vila de Santo André da Borda do Campo.

The Jesuits, led by Manuel da Nóbrega in 1554 founded a college for Indians on a hill in Piratininga, which became the village of São Paulo de Piratininga, on the plateau beyond. The Portuguese also founded other villages on the plateau such as Santana de Parnaíba, thus guaranteeing the security and livelihood of São Paulo.

By 1560, Vila de Santo André was extinct and its residents moved to São Paulo de Piratininga. The coastal strip, narrow due to the barrier of the Serra do Mar, lacked the necessary conditions for large-scale farming. In turn, the plateau faced the serious obstacle of the Caminho do Mar, which, instead of connecting, isolated the Piratininga region, denying it access to the ocean and, therefore, transportation. As a result, the captaincy was prevented from successfully cultivating the main agricultural product of colonial Brazil, sugarcane, and from competing with the main sugar cultivation zones of the time, Pernambuco and Bahia.

Piratininga established a subsistence polyculture was based on the forced labor of indigenous people. The inventories of the first paulista settlers show few imports and a complete absence of luxury. Isolation created a peculiar society in the plateau. Arriving in São Paulo required particular strength to cross the mountains and withstand attacks by Indians, hunger, and disease. These living conditions determined the structure of their society in a more democratic way than in those established further north.

Although there were reports of Portuguese women in De Sousa's fleet, no records of this have yet been found. The first known written record of Portuguese women in Brazil dates from 1550. Thus, the first wives were generally mamelucas (mestizo) or Indias (indigenous). The proliferation of , resulting from marriages to the indigenous Tupi peoples that dominated the Brazilian coast, contributed to a cultural hybridism that attenuated less quickly than in other regions, where an influx of blacks and easier contact with the metropolis diluted it. More than anywhere else, the Portuguese in São Paulo integrated certain cultural traits of the Tupis that allowed them to survive — and more, to take advantage of — the hostile backlands.

The "Bandeiras"

Economic difficulties and a spirit of adventure were important factors in the rush into the hinterland. This was the century of Bandeirantes, one in which the offensive began, largely motivated by the profits to be made hunting indigenous peoples for slaves. From the village of São Paulo, the bandeirantes headed by Antônio Raposo Tavares, Manuel Preto, and , among others, departed.

Due to their isolation, the paulistas, as the residents of São Paulo are known, enjoyed considerable autonomy for the first two centuries in areas such as defense, indigenous relations, ecclesiastical administration, public works and municipal services, price controls and goods. The local governments, composed of "good men" of the land, were rarely limited to their legitimate attributions. São Paulo's independence especially almost made the Portuguese government forget it.

The slaver , became the mining when Borba Gato, Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva, Pascoal Moreira Cabral Leme and others discovered gold veins in Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso. A hard ordeal was the effect of the discovery of gold on São Paulo and other villages on the plateau: all sought the immediate enrichment represented by the precious metal. As said, "there were no Paulista who, more or less, stopped stroking the thought of discovering mines".

Thus, the population of the Brazilian backlands was made at the sacrifice of the inhabitants of São Paulo and at the expense of the population density of the captaincy. This demographic rupture, combined with the geographical factors already mentioned (the Serra do Mar), caused a fall in agricultural productivity, as well as a decline in other activities, which accentuated the people's poverty during the 18th century. The captaincy, which then covered the entire region of the gold discoveries, was transferred to the crown and got its own government in 1709, separate from the government of Rio de Janeiro, and with headquarters in town of São Paulo, elevated to city in 1711.

Gold rush and decline

At the end of the 17th century, from São Paulo discovered gold in the region of Rio das Mortes, close to the current São João del-Rei. The discovery of immense gold deposits provoked a race to Minas Gerais, as the numerous gold deposits were called at the time.

As discoverers of the mines, the wanted exclusive rights to prospect for gold. They were defeated in 1710 with the end of the War of the Emboabas (War of the Newcomers) however, and lost control of Minas Gerais, which became an autonomous captaincy in 1721. The gold extracted from Minas Gerais was exported through Rio de Janeiro. As compensation, São Paulo was elevated to the status of city in 1711.

The exodus towards Minas Gerais caused the economic decline in the captaincy, and throughout the 18th century it lost territory and economic dynamism until it was simply annexed in 1748 to the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro. Thus, shortly before being annexed to Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo lost territory for the creation of and . These two captaincies today correspond to the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Goiás, Tocantins, Federal District and the Triângulo Mineiro.

Some authors have contested this version of the captaincy's decay. The main argument that leads historians to defend this thesis is the stabilization of the number of villages that arose in the period. However, the number of inhabitants would not have decreased, only concentrated in the existing villages, and its population, despite not directly profiting from the mines, dominated the supply of food, mainly linked to livestock. The main justification for the annexation to Grosso was the security of the mines, since São Paulo would be their natural shield against invasions from Argentina or other Spanish colonies.

Return of the captaincy and Province of São Paulo