Infierno en el paraíso

The Portugueses who first landed in Brazil experienced a visual impact before an exuberant natural environment. One of the views offered by that vision was that they have arrived in paradise. The letter written by Pero Vaz de Caminha to the King of Portugal describing the arrival in Brazil is full of elements that reinforce this view. This idea of paradise allowed constructions that permitted to explain and justify the arrival of the colonizers and to ratify the right of ownership of land that were found and that were reserved to them. The aim of this paper is to show that colonizers, religious and other structures of power developed interpretations to justify the possession of Brazilian land and to establish as just the enslavement and the violence against indigenous and Africans.