In the late fourteen hundreds, Europe's race for the new routes and territories was on.  Portugal and Spain were in the lead.   Their leaders believed that they had the right to claim whatever lands they explored.  In 1492 the leaders of Spain and Portugal met to divide the lands of the Americas.  They agreed upon an imaginary line, called the line of demarcation, across a map.  

In 1493, Columbus has crossed the Atlantic for a second time. He brought more than 1000 people with him to the island he called Hispaniola, today's Dominican Republic.  The Spanish were not coming simply to trade or explore, they meant to stay and colonize. 

Portugal soon made its own claim in the Americas.  Pedro Alvarez Cabral set sail for India in 1500.  A storm blew his ships west to Brazil.  So began a 300 year period of Portuguese rule in Brazil.