The Tupi coast
Open the map in 1492 over the coast of Brazil. Find Tupinambá and other Indigenous labels along the shore. When Portuguese ships arrived in 1500, who already lived on this coast?
Open this view on the mapPortuguese Brazil · 1500-1654
Brazil and sugar: a plantation colony
Portuguese ships reached the coast of Brazil in 1500. Within a century the colony was the world's leading producer of sugar, grown on plantations worked first by enslaved Indigenous people and then by enslaved Africans. Students explore the Tupi, the sugar mills and Dutch Brazil.
- Length
- 50 minutes
- Ages
- 12–15
- On the map
- 3 steps, AD 1492 to AD 1650
- Live lesson
- 7 rounds, 3 on the map
- Worksheet
- Two A4 pages, with Classroom
- You need
- A projector; phones for live
Live lesson · new in Classroom
Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.
Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.
€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.
- 7 rounds
- 3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
- About 15 minutes
- Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
- A report
- Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
Introduction
5 minRead aloud
Portuguese ships reached the coast of Brazil in 1500. Within a century the colony was the world's leading producer of sugar, grown on plantations worked first by enslaved Indigenous people and then by enslaved Africans. Students explore the Tupi, the sugar mills and Dutch Brazil.
By the end of the lesson, students can
- Locate Porto Seguro, Salvador and Recife and explain their role in the early colony.
- Explain how Tupi peoples responded to Portuguese settlement.
- Describe how sugar plantations worked and why they depended on enslaved labour.
Explore the map
15 minProject the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.
A coastal colony
Jump to 1650 with the same view and find Portuguese Brazil. Most settlers still lived near the sea at this time. Why did the colony stay close to the coast for so long?
Open this view on the mapSugar country
Zoom in on the coast between Recife and Salvador. Hundreds of sugar mills, called engenhos, stood here. The Dutch captured Recife in 1630 and held the north-east until 1654. Why would rival powers fight over sugar land?
Open this view on the mapClass discussion
15 minPick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.
- The colony was named after brazilwood, a tree that gave a red dye. What does it tell you that a country was named after a trade good?
- Jesuit missionaries learned Tupi and wrote a grammar of it. Why would missionaries learn the local language?
- Sugar mills needed many workers all year round. Why did planters turn first to enslaved Indigenous people, and then to enslaved Africans?
- Between 1645 and 1654, Portuguese settlers, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian fighters together drove out the Dutch. Why might such different groups fight on the same side?
- Brazil received more enslaved Africans than any other country in the Americas. How does that history shape Brazil today?
Game round
10 minNo Portuguese king is in Rule History. Play one round as Elizabeth I, who ruled while Brazil's sugar plantations grew. Afterwards, discuss: sugar was a luxury for European buyers. Which decisions, made by people far away, shaped the lives of those who grew it?
Open Rule HistoryWorksheet
5 minThis worksheet comes with Classroom
€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.