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Thus Santana obtained a return to Spanish rule in 1861 and Cabral a few years later agitated the question of American annexation and their action was denounced by Baez; yet shortly after Baez almost succeeded in securing annexation to the United States and was stigmatized as a traitor by Cabral.
These people were extremely credulous and of good disposition and thus, as Pigafetta says, they could easily have been converted to Christianity, for they assisted in silence, and with gravity, at the mass which was said on shore, a remark that Alvarez Cabral had already made.
Cabral belonged to one of the most illustrious families in Portugal, and his father, Fernando Cabral, lord of Zurara da Beira, was Alcalde mõr of Belmonte.
The discovery was in one sense something of an accident. It was necessary for the seamen who were setting their course for the East Indies to steer well to the west, in order to avoid the zones of calms which prevail in the neighbourhood of the African coast. Cabral appears to have steered so boldly into the west that he fell in with the coast of Brazil. This was in 1500.
Inside the church itself is not very remarkable, having a nave and aisles with transepts and three vaulted chapels to the east, built very much in the same style as is the church at Leça do Balio, except that it has a fine west front, to be mentioned later, that the roof of the nave was knocked down by the Devil in 1548 in anger at the extreme piety of Frey Martinho de Santarem, one of the canons, and that many famous people, including Pedro Alvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, are therein buried.
Santa Maria, one of these islands, 250 leagues west from Cape St Vincent, was first seen on the 15th August 1432, by Cabral, who sailed under the orders of Don Henry. San Miguel was taken possession of by the same navigator on the 8th May 1444; and Ponta Delgada its capital, received its charter from Emanuel in 1449.
The existence of this powerful westward current had never been suspected by either Spanish or Portuguese mariners. Wind and current combining, Cabral and his captains found themselves, in about a month's time, on the coast of Brazil near the present Rio de Janeiro. Thus a current never before known carried them to land never before known.
According to De Faria, this event was occasioned by the Moorish admiral of Calicut, without the knowledge of the zamorin, who instigated Cabral to the attempt in hope of injuring the Portuguese, and sent information to the Moors to be on their guard.
The Brazils had been previously discovered, and formally taken possession of for Spain in 1500, by Vincente Yanez Pinzon; and also in the same year, by Pedro Alvarez Cabral, on the part of Portugal; circumstances unknown, however, by Vespucci and his associates. The country remained in possession of Portugal, in conformity to the line of demarcation agreed on between the two nations.
The Portuguese had in the meantime followed up Vasco da Gama's voyage with another attempt, which was, in its way, even more important. In 1500 the king sent no less than thirteen ships under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, with Franciscans to convert, and twelve hundred fighting men to overawe, the Moslems of the Indian Ocean.
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