The Portuguese empire at the outset is a commercial rather than a colonial one.

Portugal lacks sufficient population to establish colonies of settlers throughout its maritime empire.

The Portuguese practice is to conquer enough space for a trading fort and a surrounding enclave from which to draw on the wealth and resources of the adjacent country.

A map of this maritime commercial domain would show a series of dots connected by sealanes rather than continuous stretches of territory.

French competition forces the Portuguese shift to colonialism in Brazil.

This shift involves the gradual move from trading for brazilwood to cultivating sugarcane, which requires control of great expanses of land and increasing numbers of slaves.

The first to burst past the Tordesillas Line are the slave hunters.