1587-1641

Portuguese Explorer

The fact that 150 million Brazilians—and thus a large portion of South America's population—speak Portuguese rather than Spanish owes much to Pedro de Teixeira. In the course of a 1637-1639 expedition, he became the first European to travel up the Amazon River, and claimed the entire river valley for Portugal.

Born in 1587, Teixeira was 30 years old when he first arrived in Brazil, where he would spend most of his remaining 34 years. After helping to drive out French would-be colonists from the coastal town of Sao Luis (now a major city) in 1615, he helped establish Fort Presépio in the Amazon delta in 1616. The fort later became Belém, destined to become the largest city in the entire river valley.

More than 20 years later, a group of Spanish soldiers and priests arrived in Belém after travelling down the Amazon from...