he year was 1494. The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the globe – both discovered and yet to be discovered – into two parts, ensuring Portugal and Spain certain areas of exploration and initiating not only the conquest but also the evangelization of the New World.

In November 1499, the experienced navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón – who, years before, had commanded the caravel Niña in Columbus’ first expedition in 1492 – set sail from Spain in command of a fleet of four ships. The audacious crossing southward reached South America for the first time.

After facing a terrible storm, on January 26, 1500, Pinzón landed at a point on the northeastern coast of Brazil – historians identify it as Cabo de Santo Agostinho, in Pernambuco, or Ponta do Mucuripe, in Ceará – which he named Holy Mary of Consolation. Whichever the location, aware that these were lands outside the Spanish domain in the division of Tordesillas, the fleet headed north, passing through the estuary of the Amazon River – which Yáñez named Holy Mary of the Fresh Water Sea – until reaching the extremities of the Brazilian coast, near the mouth of the Oiapoque River. Later, the expedition departed for the Caribbean.

Although official historiography reserves the title of discoverer of Brazil for Pedro Álvares Cabral, whose armada landed on the coast of Bahia on April 22, 1500, Pinzón’s feat remains a fascinating chapter of history. It stands to illustrate how the country has always been under the maternal gaze of Mary Most Holy.