Dec 14, Wednesday, Dec 15 Thursday

Dec 14, Wednesday, Dec 15 Thursday

Interesting tid-bit (for me anyway).   I stayed at Hotel Bandeirantes, saw streets named for Bandeirantes, etc  and thought that he must have been some historical figure.   While visiting one of the museums I found out that it actually identified a group of people, like we have in Canada with “les courreurs de bois”.

”The bandeirantes (Portuguese pronunciation: [bɐ̃dejˈɾɐ̃tʃiʃ], followers of the banner) were composed of Indians (slaves and allies), caboclos (people of Indian mixed with white), and some whites who were the captains of the Bandeiras. Members of the 16th–18th century South American slave-hunting expeditions called bandeiras (Portuguese for "flags"). Though their original purpose was to capture and force amerindians into slavery, the bandeirantes later began to focus their expeditions on finding gold, silver and diamond mines. They ventured into unmapped regions in search of profit and adventure. From 1580–1670 the Bandeirantes focused on slave hunting, then from 1670–1750 they focused on mineral wealth. Through these expeditions, the Bandeirantes also expanded Portuguese America from the small limits of the Tordesilhas Line to roughly the same territory as current Brazil. This expansion discovered mineral wealth that made the fortune of Portugal during the 17th and 18th centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandeirantes  “”

Hopefully they are being “promoted” for this last portion of their 17^th & 18^th century exploits and not for the earlier ones.

I’ve run out of steam and have been resting for the past few days.