Portuguese nobleman and explorer Brás Cubas, who had arrived in 1531 with Martim Afonso de Sousa, the founder of the Captaincy of São Vicente, establishes the Brazilian port of Santos in 1546.

The region of Santos is already populated, but Brás Cubas officially founds the first Holy House of Mercy, which he calls All Saints, a name that is to pass to the village, the port of which is better located than the one in São Vicente.

Santos today, as the main city in the metropolitan region of Baixada Santista, has the biggest seaport in Latin America, which traded over seventy-two million tons in 2006.

A significant tourist center, it has large industrial complexes and shipping centers, which handle a large portion of the world's coffee exports; as well as a number of other Brazilian exports including steel, oil, cars, oranges, bananas and cotton.