Pedro Alvares Cabral

1467-1520

Place of Birth: Belmonte, Portugal

Biography:

Little is certain regarding Pedro Álvares Cabral's life before, or following, his voyage which led to the discovery of Brazil. He was born in 1467 or 1468—the former year being the more likely—at Belmonte, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) from present-day Covilhã in central Portugal.He was a son of Fernão Álvares Cabral and Isabel Gouveia—one of five boys and six girls in the family.Cabral was christened Pedro Álvares de Gouveia and only later, supposedly upon his elder brother's death in 1503,^[7] did he begin using his father's surname. The coat of arms of his family was drawn with two purple goats on a field of silver. Purple represented fidelity, and the goats were derived from the family name (cabral pertains to goats in English). However, only his elder brother was entitled to make use of the family arms.

Family lore said that the Cabrais were descendants of Caranus, the legendary first king of Macedonia. Caranus was, in turn, a supposed 7th-generation scion of the demigod Hercules. Myths aside, the historian James McClymont believes that another family tale might hold clues to the true origin of Cabral's family. According to that tradition, the Cabrais derive from a Castilian clan named the Cabreiras (cabra is Spanish for goat) who bore a similar coat of arms.The Cabral family rose to prominence during the 14th century. Álvaro Gil Cabral (Cabral's great-great-grandfather and a frontier military commander) was one of the few Portuguese nobles to remain loyal to Dom João I, King of Portugalduring the war against the King of Castile. As a reward, João I presented Álvaro Gil with the hereditary fiefdom of Belmonte.

Legacy:

The first permanent Portuguese settlement in the land which would become Brazil was São Vicente, which was established in 1532 by Martim Afonso de Sousa. As the years passed, the Portuguese would slowly expand their frontiers westward, conquering more lands from both indigenous Americans and the Spanish. Brazil had secured most of its present-day borders by 1750 and was regarded by Portugal as the most important part of its far-flung maritime Empire. On 7 September 1822, the heir of Portuguese King Dom João VI secured the independence of Brazil from Portugal and, as Dom Pedro I, became its first Emperor.Cabral has since become a national hero in Brazil.