Page 207 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I
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           PICTURE 1 - The Plata Region. Montanus, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld... Mapoteca do
           Itamaraty, Rio de Janeiro. Mapa da parte meridional do Brasil e de toda bacia platina, assinalando
           as missões, aldeias indígenas, etc. In O Exército na História do Brasil: Colônia, p. 152, de
           CARVALHO, L.P.M. (Org.) Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército; Salvador: Odebrecht, 1998.
           Créditos Iconográficos, p. 259.

          invasions of Brazil  in 1763 and 1774. Without  major  natural  boundaries separating
          it from the so called  “continente” of São Pedro do Rio Grande, the Banda Oriental
          constituted a natural starting point for an expansion that could reach Santa Catarina,
          a goal explicit in the thinking and writing of politicians of Spain and the Plata. Such
          ambition was exemplified in the temporary occupation of the island of Santa Catarina
          by the fleet of D. Pedro Ceballos in 1777. The Portuguese, in turn, recognizing the
          unsustainability of Colonia do Sacramento on Banda Oriental (1680) - in some extent
          an adventure fueled by trade, smuggling and “mercantilism à Colbert” (CESAR, 1969,
          p. 38) - had occupied since the mid-eighteenth century the territory to the north of the
          Rio Jaguarão, thanks to the fortification of the island of Santa Catarina and the entrance
          of the channel of Rio Grande, irradiating from this last position the colonization of the
          interior of the so- called São Pedro’s continent, based on Azorean immigration, and
          especially on the creation of the cattle “estâncias”, linked to the economy of the Center-
          South of Brazil that changed the economic and social landscape of the new province
          and contributed decisively to economic cycles and changes in the proper Brazil-Colony.
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