The first reference to German settlers in Brazil we have from the pen of
Hans Stade of Homberg in Hessen. Stade made two trips to Brazil; one in
1547 and one in 1549. In the latter instance he was shipwrecked but
succeeded in landing safely near the present port of Santos in the state
of São Paulo. As he was a skilled artillerist the Portuguese made him
commander of the fort Bertioga, the ruins of which are an interesting
landmark to this day. Later Stade spent several most trying years as the
captive of a cannibalistic tribe.
After his return to Germany, Stade published an account of his
experiences. The first edition entitled "_Wahrhafftige Historia unnd
beschreibung einer landschafft der Wilden, Nacketen, Grimmigen,
Menschfresser Leuthen in der Newen Welt America gelegen, ..._" appeared
at Marburg in 1557.[1] In this work Stade refers to two of his
fellow-countrymen located in Brazil; the one Heliodorus Eoban of Hessen,
who had charge of a sugar-refinery on the island of São Vicente (near
Santos); the other Peter Rösel, who was located in Rio de Janeiro as the
representative for a business firm of Antdorff.[2]
Next we come to Manuel Beckmann, the son of a German who had located in
Lisbon. He is known in history as Manoel Bequimão and was the leader in
the Maranhão revolution of 1684. This uprising, altho it came to grief,
may be regarded as the first of a long series of protests against the
home government resulting in the declaration of the independence of
Brazil on the field at Ypiranga, September 2d, 1822. Beckmann died a
martyr's death at Rio on November 2, 1685. His younger brother, Thomas
Beckmann, who had also taken part in the revolution, was acquitted.[3]
In the 18th-century there was another important German figure in
Brazilian history; that of Lieutenant-General Johann Heinrich von Böhm.
It was von Böhm who, at the head of Portuguese troops, recaptured the
city of Rio Grande in Rio Grande do Sul from the Spaniards in 1777.[4]
Von Böhm was assisted by two other German officers, i.e., the Count of
Lippe and Marschal Funk. These three characters were in a sense the
forerunners of the German battalions brought into Brazil by the First
Empire in the early part of the following century.
The first colonization of importance by Germans in Brazil did not take
place until the early part of the 19th century. Beginning with that
century there was a steady stream of non-Portuguese settlers into the
country, and of these the Germans formed an important part.