Once established in Rio de Janeiro, the Huguenots succeeded in making friends with the Indians of the neighbourhood, who became their firm allies and proved of great assistance to the French in their struggles against the Portuguese, who came down in force to evict the intruders.  The Huguenots were defeated in 1560 by Mem de Sa, the third Governor of Brazil; but, although dispersed for a while, the power of the invaders was by no means broken.  Shortly afterwards they came together again, and succeeded in establishing themselves more firmly than before in the place.  They were again fiercely attacked by the Portuguese, but the number of islands in the bay afforded excellent points of defence, and it was not until 1567 that the Portuguese sea and land forces combined were able to expel the last Frenchmen from the mountains which lay about the harbour of Rio de Janeiro.  This, as a matter of fact, was merely a foretaste of much of the active and aggressive competition in matters of colonization from which the Portuguese were destined to suffer.

Before arriving at the subject of the predatory expeditions of the various nations in South America, it would be as well to consider the initial methods taken by the early Portuguese settlers.  In the first instance the partition of so vast an extent of territory among so small a number of colonists was necessarily effected in a crude and tentative fashion.  The great colony was divided into capitaneas, or counties, each of which possessed a coast-line of 150 miles.  A Governor was appointed to each capitanea.  As was perhaps natural, the powers of each of these officials, more or less isolated as each was, grew rapidly—­to such an extent, indeed, that the home authorities in Portugal became anxious to curb the occasional eccentricities of some of the more despotic of these.  In order to effect this, Thome de Souza was made Captain-General of Brazil, and was sent out to that country provided with numerous officials and troops.  He established his headquarters at Bahia, and the size of the town increased in consequence.  In 1572 Brazil was divided into two governmental areas, Bahia being recognized as the capital of the north, and Rio de Janeiro as the capital of the southern portion.  This division, however, only lasted for five years.  Brazil in the meanwhile was becoming populous, and had taken its place as the largest among the regular Portuguese colonies throughout the world.

It was not long before the jealousies between the Spanish and Portuguese led to various outbreaks and to troubles on the frontiers.  From a purely practical point of view, there is no doubt whatever that such bickerings were a sheer absurdity, since the territories at the disposal of both nations were far too great to be effectively dealt with by any forces which either the Spanish or Portuguese could introduce into the Continent.  As it was, the era was one of moulding and experiments.  Even at the present day it would seem difficult to decide whether many of these latter have proved themselves definite successes or undoubted failures.  The general conditions of the New World at this period are well worthy of note.