Captaincy of Grão Pará

The Capitania of Grão-Pará, in English Captaincy of Grão-Pará (region initially called pa'ra, from Tupi-Guarani: "river-sea") was one of the administrative units of Colonial Brazil (in Portuguese America), created in 1621 along with the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão,[1] from the evolution of the Conquista do Pará (or Empire of Amazonas)[2][3] a Portuguese colonial territory created in 1616 by Alexandre de Moura[1] in the Captaincy of Maranhão.[4] The Captaincy of Grão-Pará has its origin in the context of the conquest of the Amazon River and Eastern Amazonia in 1580, a period of conflict with foreign forces vying for the so-called "drugs of the sertão" (spices from the area).[1][5][6] The region was first called the Conquista do Pará, also known as the Empire of the Amazonas,[1][5][6] having as "capital" the colonial villa Feliz Lusitânia (in homage to Portugal).[7][8] The oldest document that makes mention of the term "capitania", to denominate the region of the conquest is posterior to the year 1620.Legitimating the territory as a captaincy occurred in parallel to the creation of the State of Maranhão, in the year 1621.