donatary captain

Definitions

1. 1

   One who held a donatary captaincy

   One who held a donatary captaincy; a nobleman who had hereditary authority (granted in the 1530s) over a large tract of land in colonial Brazil, and who was responsible for paying taxes to the king and for seeing that the land was settled, developed, and defended against indigenous people and foreign invaders.

   • The donatary captains were thus key figures in the debate, and their charters were the crucial documents to be interpreted.
   • To profit from their grants, the donatary captains required an auxiliary population of Portuguese settlers.
   • In the 1530s, the Crown issued hereditary land grants to several noblemen, called donatary captains.

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