The Discovery: Random or intentional ?

The official registers of Brazil 's discovery is reported in details. Few are the nations which have a “birth certificate” so precise and fluent as the letter that Pero Vaz de Caminha sent to the king of Portugal , D. Manuel, relating the “founding” of a new land. Even so , one doubt remains over the big deviation into the route that conducted Cabral's army much more to west then necessary to arrive in India.

Would be the Discovery of Brazil by chance? Probably this question will never be answered. However the signature of the Tordesilhas Agreement, that, six years before, gave to Portugal the possession of the lands that were 370 miles(around 2000 kilometers) from west of Cabo Verde, the precise knowledge of the sailing routes, the climatic conditions during the trip and the large possibility that the country had already been seen before seems to be the guarantee that the landing, on that morning of April 1500, was mere formality: Cabral could be just taking possession of a land that the portugueses already knew, although superficially. A land that they would take about half century to get some real interest for it.