Controversies about the discovery of Brazil

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The claim that the Portuguese explorer and navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil in april 22, 1500 is contested.

Some publications support the theory that the English navigator Sancho Brandão had discovered Brazil around 1341, which was described in a secret letter sent to King Afonso IV of Portugal.

Some people believe that an expedition ordered by the King Manuel I of Portugal in 1498, led by Duarte Pacheco Pereira arrived in Maranhão, in the northeaster cost of Brazil, before 1500.

It is still uncertain if Pedro Álvares Cabral was blown westwards while circumnavigating the Cape of Storms (Cabo Tormentosa) to the Brazilian coast, or the whole expedition was a secret mission to find new lands in the Atlantic as a response to the Spanish claims that Amerigo Vespucci had visited the Brazilian north coast in July 1499 and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in November. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain could make no claim.

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