Rio de Janeiro Was Founded
On this day · 1 March 1565
Sent to break a French foothold on Guanabara Bay, a Portuguese captain planted a city between two famous hills.
On 1 March 1565, the Portuguese captain Estácio de Sá founded the city he named São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, honouring both Saint Sebastian and Portugal’s young king, Dom Sebastião. He came ashore on a narrow strip of land between the Cara de Cão and Sugarloaf hills, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay.
The choice of ground was strategic, not scenic. French colonists had occupied an island in the bay a decade earlier, building Fort Coligny as the seat of their France Antarctique. Sá’s settlement was a military beachhead meant to dislodge them and secure the harbour for the Portuguese crown.
It was the second city of Portuguese America, after Salvador — and Estácio de Sá became its first governor.
The campaign cost him his life. In a later battle he was struck in the face by an arrow and died of the wound weeks afterward. The French were finally expelled, and the young town was soon moved to the more defensible Castelo hill, where colonial Rio took root.
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